Posted on 01/20/2021 8:33:58 AM PST by Starman417
Last week Twitter & Facebook decided they would stifle the speech of the leader of the nation that gave them birth and allowed their owners to become billionaires many times over. We’re not of course talking about the oppressive China and Chairman Xi… No, we’re talking about the United States and President Trump. Think about that. The duly elected President of the United States is no longer able to communicate to supporters and opponents alike via the biggest microphones on the planet because of the decision of two unelected billionaires, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg.
This is a watershed moment in modern American history. As a virulent capitalist I believe that private businesses should be allowed to do what they want, and that includes Twitter and Facebook and Apple and Google et al. As long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others. This is particularly true as it relates to the 1st Amendment. The Amendments limit the actions of government, not private industry. As such, they should be exempt…
Except, however, when they shouldn’t be. In 1996 Congress passed the Communications Decency Act which included this language in Section 230: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Publishers exercise editorial control over what they publish, which is why if the New York Times printed “John Smith is a bank robber” John Smith could sue for defamation, and if he proved the statement was false, he could be awarded damages. Indeed, 230 was written specifically to give Internet firms protection from such circumstances. It was the result of an early ISP, Prodigy, being sued for defamation by Jordan Balfor – the guy Leo DeCaprio made famous in “The Wolf of Wall Street” – after someone on a Prodigy-run message board had accused Stratton Oakmont of fraud.
The author of the legislation, then Washington Rep. Ron Wyden, was concerned that if Internet companies were treated as publishers they would be sued into oblivion, killing the baby of the Internet in its crib. If a tech company was financially liable every time an Internet troll called someone a liar or a Nazi or claimed Jim Jones was cheating on his wife we’d never have Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or Yelp or customer reviews on Amazon or doctor reviews on Healthgrades.com or memes on Instagram or virtually anything involving user input.
But we do have Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and Amazon and Apple. Using the shield of 230 these companies grew not only to become the biggest and most valuable companies on the planet, but they also became the most powerful companies in the everyday lives of Americans as it relates to free speech and the exchange of ideas. Americans barely read newspapers anymore. In 1995 the year before 230 was written, 23% of Americans read a newspaper on a daily basis. Today that number stands at 8.3%. In 1995 0% of Americans used Facebook or YouTube or Twitter on a daily basis… because they didn’t exist. Today 74% of Americans use Facebook every day, 51% use YouTube and 42% use Twitter. Overall in 2019 Americans spent an average of 395 minutes on the Internet verses 11 minutes reading newspapers. They are no longer “as the publisher” they are publishers.
Essentially, social media has become the du jour American town square of the 21st century. That is where we get our information, where we exchange ideas and where we interact with one another. And they became that because of 230, based on the premise that they did not exercise editorial control.
But now today, when they have become the modern equivalent of the town square they’ve decided they do indeed have editorial control over their platforms. They most certainly have that right, but their choosing to do so should remove from them the shield of 230.
Of course all of this comes down to the 1st Amendment and the right of Americans to speak out without censorship or coercion by the government.
(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...
Before it’s too late was five years ago.
It’s too late, Twitter and Facebook are not public squares. Make sure they don’t have the power to censor websites for any reason. That should be the goal.
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Simply do not use them, we continue to enable and feed the beast. I know quite a few people who have dropped Twitter and Facebook products, just have the will power to do it. I’d also like to suggest that Freeper’s stop posting anything from a Twitter or Facebook link.
I figure at this point the only solutions for Facebook and Twitter is to either bankrupt them or undermine their leadership somehow. Can’t imagine there is a possible political solution.
Prominent conservatives need to exit Twitter and make it known. Then, changes will happen.
President Trump should have exited Twitter and Facebook long ago, at least since the start of 2020. Plenty of FReepers kept appealing to him to dump Twitter with no avail.
If he'd dumped Twitter in January, and joined Gab/Parler etc, they'd have tens of millions of users by now and Twitter would have bled tens of millions of users back then.
That's absolutely false. If Twitter of Facebook claim John Smith is a bank robber Smith can absolutely bring a defamation suit against them.
The protection is if a random Twitter or Facebook user makes the claim the platforms can't be sued.
Just as the NY Times couldn't be sued for a comment made by a user on one of their message boards.
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