Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Because no one else is doing it--not even the media.
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ericbarbour
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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by ericbarbour » Wed Aug 10, 2022 8:48 pm

NOW I'm starting to wonder if 230 will ever be removed or modified. Because stupid shit like this keeps appearing.

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/08/10/the ... ch-online/

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by notalawyerxyz » Thu Aug 11, 2022 7:40 pm

Justice Thomas has expressed interest in striking down section 230.

The author had a clear bias in this article, or perhaps missed something very significant, and that was his own mention of a "shopping mall". Even private property, particularly shopping malls, have been recognized by the courts to be traditional public fora, but subject to time, manner and place restrictions by the owners. There might be a legal distinction that needs to be made as to what separates say a forum on warcraft from say facebook, but most of the social media company market themselves as being first amendment fora that anyone can use, or is a human right-Or what if a warcraft forum evolves into a facebook type system, but doesn't acknowledge itself as a free speech platform. The biggest problem is they are declared traditional public forums is that they are likely to be flooded with smut; and so they could bring about their own destruction or have to develop tool to effectively hide smut accounts by default but make them available for those who want it to save themselves from the destruction they themselves brought on.
Also many social media companies are not making good faith efforts to remove objectionable content; sometimes they just use AI or may have a rogue agent which may impute the firm. It may be costly, but it would put big tech on spot as to trying to define what is and isn't "objectionable" and effectively box them in for future cases-especially where they have a bias towards one group but not another, and the company knows of this. Such suits are more costly than what the normal person could afford, especially if they get stuck with prevailing party attorney fees.
Finally there is a suit where at least two states are suing various members of the Biden administration for conspiring with Big tech to censor speech. If the government is complicit using section 230 to restrict free speech, then a court may be inclined to rule section 230 as unconstitutional. I am not aware of the nature of the suit or if it includes a constitutional challenge, but establishing proof of a collusion may be sufficient to get the desired results.
Again, this is a battle greater than the first amendment or the constitution. It is a humans rights issue, a matter of logos and personhood. We should recognize big tech as a hostile sovereign who has waged a war against us, and possibly killed tens or hundreds of thousands by spreading the governments bias on the covid-19 vaccine and banning all dissent.

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by notalawyerxyz » Fri Aug 12, 2022 4:16 pm

This is something a court may want to evaluate when determining the constitutionality of section 230. The Whitehouse sought twitter to ban a particular user.

https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/38421

https://alexberenson.substack.com/p/the ... y-demanded

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by ericbarbour » Sat Aug 13, 2022 10:39 pm

Interesting choice. Berenson is unquestionably a prominent journalist and author. He's got a Wikipedia article--which says something about his career, and even more about his rantings about COVID and cannabis. As long as he's bitching about Twitter and the WH, why doesn't he complain about his Wikipedia treatment?

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by notalawyerxyz » Thu Sep 01, 2022 4:49 pm

from disclose tv

https://ago.mo.gov/home/news/2022/09/01 ... -companies

...
The communications already provided by the Department of Justice to the plaintiff states show, as the joint statement points out, a vast “Censorship Enterprise” across a multitude of federal agencies. In response to Missouri and Louisiana’s interrogatories, defendants identified 45 federal officials at DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General (all of which are contained in either DHS or HHS) that communicate with social media platforms about “misinformation” and censorship. The joint statement points out, “But in those responses, Defendants did not provide information about any federal officials at other federal agencies of whom they are aware who engage in such communications with social-media platforms about misinformation and censorship, though Plaintiffs had specifically asked for this highly relevant information. Defendants’ document production, however, reveals that such officials at other federal agencies exist—for example, their emails include extensive copying of officials at the Census Bureau, and they also include communications involving the Departments of Treasury and State.”

Beyond the Department of Justice’s production, “Meta, for example, has disclosed that at least 32 federal officials—including senior officials at the FDA, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and the White House—have communicated with Meta about content moderation on its platforms, many of whom were not disclosed in response to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories to Defendants. YouTube disclosed eleven federal officials engaged in such communications, including officials at the Census Bureau and the White House, many of whom were also not disclosed by Defendants.”

The joint statement continues, “The discovery provided so far demonstrates that this Censorship Enterprise is extremely broad, including officials in the White House, HHS, DHS, CISA, the CDC, NIAID, and the Office of the Surgeon General; and evidently other agencies as well, such as the Census Bureau, the FDA, the FBI, the State Department, the Treasury Department, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. And it rises to the highest levels of the U.S. Government, including numerous White House officials. Defendants have objected to producing some of the most relevant and probative information in their possession.”

This “Censorship Enterprise” is proven by the Department of Justice’s productions thus far, but the full extent of federal officials’ collusion with social media companies on censorship is unknown until the Department of Justice produces further communications requested by Missouri and Louisiana.
...

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by wexter » Thu Sep 01, 2022 7:24 pm

refused to provide communications between top-ranking officials and social media companies.
A bit of political pander to generate support, the low hanging fruit of pander replaces the need to develop a pragmatic policy.

Here in FLA they are even politicizing, and thus destabilizing, education to get folks mad enough to vote (or donate money, or rally for Desantis 2024.) The reality here is that you cannot "hunt" "liberals" where I live because they are an endangered species and thus are nowhere to be found. So if you are a "conservative" politician complaining about gender politics brainwashing children in local public schools you are essentially complaining against yourself! PANDER!

Unfortunately in the next few months meeze tinks that; "its the economy stupid" may, by necessity and desperation, replace "identity-pander" and "maga-libertard-pander."

“Dissen ganna be bery messy! Me no watchin!” Jar Jar Binks
Wikipedia - "Barely competent and paranoid. There’s a hell of a combination."

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by SkepticalHistorian » Tue Sep 06, 2022 3:52 am

Kiwi Farms, a website that made fun of people, harassed, swatted, hacked their Ubereats password and ordered food to their house and doxed them — three allegedly committed suicide over it — got essentially blacklisted and is offline because trolls on the website threatened someone who was giving hormones to boys who wanted to become girls. Kiwi Farms also had an active Holocaust Denial thread that had 250,000 views.
New York (CNN)Cloudflare, a major American internet services company, pulled its support for Kiwi Farms, a controversial online message board, Saturday evening citing "imminent threats to human life." The move temporarily forced Kiwi Farms offline.

Cloudflare's decision came as Kiwi Farms was linked to a campaign of harassment and violent threats targeting Clara Sorrenti, a Canadian trans woman who is a streamer on Twitch, a platform popular among video gamers.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/04/tech/clo ... index.html
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keffals#H ... t_campaign

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by badmachine » Tue Sep 06, 2022 4:26 am

SkepticalHistorian wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 3:52 am
Kiwi Farms also had an active Holocaust Denial thread that had 250,000 views.
well then its a good thing they got nuked because the holocaust is a thing that is so true that no part of the official story should ever be questioned or discussed.

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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by wexter » Tue Sep 06, 2022 9:40 pm

badmachine wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 4:26 am
SkepticalHistorian wrote:
Tue Sep 06, 2022 3:52 am
Kiwi Farms also had an active Holocaust Denial thread that had 250,000 views.
well then its a good thing they got nuked because the holocaust is a thing that is so true that no part of the official story should ever be questioned or discussed.
Wikipedia is "the holocaust" chronlogy-mutilator - Britannica hedges on the start date by referencing the Holocaust as occurring "during World War II." Wikipedia starts with "WW II" ; and then falls back to 1941.

The Wikipedia article on the Holocaust reads as a C grade college paper; complete with "hard copy references" nobody will or can check so it must be true (sort of). Older versions are just plain hilarious;
Prior to the Third Reich, Berlin was considered a liberal city, with many gay bars, nightclubs and cabarets. There were even many drag bars where tourists straight and gay would enjoy female impersonation acts. And there had been a fairly significant gay rights movement under Magnus Hirschfeld around the turn of the century. - not linking or studying the topic here
Ah no.. but sort of - (when you cannot eat because your nation-collapses what do you do?; Wiemar republic, Soviet collapse; same type of thing complete with mobsters - sex tourists -| Currency collapse or societal collapse is such a fun thing; you know the sort of problem that would help NAZI's along.)

Reality can be whatever you want it to be so Kiwi Farms and Wikipedia share some features.

ON TOPIC

Section 230 need not apply to Kiwi Farms; my guess is that Cloud-flare was ordered or threatened to take action. Its the same way "Sex workers were de-banked" or "craigslist was adjusted to drop personals," or folks with grocery stores accused of structuring for accepting cash instead of more taxable credit cards.

Section 230 only works to protect the big boys- the rules apply to all to the "hoi polloi" (the common thus dirty masses) but not the insiders.

"We are also not taking this action directly because of the pressure campaign. While we have empathy for its organizers, we are committed as a security provider to protecting our customers even when they run deeply afoul of popular opinion or even our own morals." https://blog.cloudflare.com/kiwifarms-blocked/
Well no, not even "sort of" pwock pwock pwock pwock... these days the truth of the matter tends to reside in the exact opposite of what was said. " Affordable health care; build it back better; kinder and gentler"

"Strike that reverse it" - Willy Wonka
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Re: Section 230 is in trouble -- at last !

Post by ericbarbour » Fri Sep 09, 2022 6:41 pm

230 is now one of Mike Masnick's favorite "trigger words". When he's not bitching about insane police officers.

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/09/whi ... ction-230/

And how did Mike address the Kiwi Farms business? With another long weird rant:

https://www.techdirt.com/2022/09/07/fur ... oderation/
Anyway, as I’ve tried to make clear over many, many years, anything related to content moderation is crazy complicated and there are no easy answers. I appreciate people pushing and prodding me to think more carefully about all of this.
He doesn't seem to "think carefully". He seems to go off on tangents. Thus complicating it even further.

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