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Senate Democrats Are Circulating Plans for Government Takeover of the Internet: Reason Roundup
Reason ^ | 31JUL18 | Elizabeth Nolan Brown

Posted on 08/06/2018 9:09:48 PM PDT by vannrox

All your base are belong to us. A leaked memo circulating among Senate Democrats contains a host of bonkers authoritarian proposals for regulating digital platforms, purportedly as a way to get tough on Russian bots and fake news. To save American trust in "our institutions, democracy, free press, and markets," it suggests, we need unprecedented and undemocratic government intervention into online press and markets, including "comprehensive (GDPR-like) data protection legislation" of the sort enacted in the E.U.

Titled "Potential Policy Proposals for Regulation of Social Media and Technology Firms," the draft policy paper—penned by Sen. Mark Warner and leaked by an unknown source to Axios—the paper starts out by noting that Russians have long spread disinformation, including when "the Soviets tried to spread 'fake news' denigrating Martin Luther King" (here he fails to mention that the Americans in charge at the time did the same). But NOW IT'S DIFFERENT, because technology.

"Today's tools seem almost built for Russian disinformation techniques," Warner opines. And the ones to come, he assures us, will be even worse.

Here's how Warner is suggesting we deal:

Mandatory location verification. The paper suggests forcing social media platforms to authenticate and disclose the geographic origin of all user accounts or posts.

Mandatory identity verification: The paper suggests forcing social media and tech platforms to authenticate user identities and only allow "authentic" accounts ("inauthentic accounts not only pose threats to our democratic process...but undermine the integrity of digital markets"), with "failure to appropriately address inauthentic account activity" punishable as "a violation of both SEC disclosure rules and/or Section 5 of the [Federal Trade Commission] Act."

Bot labeling: Warner's paper suggests forcing companies to somehow label bots or be penalized (no word from Warner on how this is remotely feasible)

Define popular tech as "essential facilities." These would be subject to all sorts of heightened rules and controls, says the paper, offering Google Maps as an example of the kinds of apps or platforms that might count. "The law would not mandate that a dominant provider offer the serve for free," writes Warner. "Rather, it would be required to offer it on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" provided by the government.

Other proposals include more disclosure requirements for online political speech, more spending to counter supposed cybersecurity threats, more funding for the Federal Trade Commission, a requirement that companies' algorithms can be audited by the feds (and this data shared with universities and others), and a requirement of "interoperability between dominant platforms."

The paper also suggests making it a rule that tech platforms above a certain size must turn over internal data and processes to "independent public interest researchers" so they can identify potential "public health/addiction effects, anticompetitive behavior, radicalization," scams, "user propagated misinformation," and harassment—data that could be used to "inform actions by regulators or Congress."

And—of course— these include further revisions to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, recently amended by Congress to exclude protections for prostitution-related content. A revision to Section 230 could provide the ability for users to demand takedowns of certain sorts of content and hold platforms liable if they don't abide, it says, while admitting that "attempting to distinguish between true disinformation and legitimate satire could prove difficult."

"The proposals in the paper are wide ranging and in some cases even politically impossible, and raise almost as many questions as they try to answer," suggested Mathew Ingram, putting it very mildly at the Columbia Journalism Review.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bloggers; control; democrat; internet; power
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1 posted on 08/06/2018 9:09:48 PM PDT by vannrox
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To: vannrox

Well, the “Real Russian Secret Service” appears to be the Democrat party


2 posted on 08/06/2018 9:11:35 PM PDT by realcleanguy
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To: realcleanguy

communism is a dem value.


3 posted on 08/06/2018 9:13:14 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: vannrox

I thought they already did take it over? Can’t steal what you already own. Best thing to do is bring down tech stocks. It’s going to hurt, but destruction of tyranny has a price.


4 posted on 08/06/2018 9:18:24 PM PDT by Bommer (Jesus is God! Deal with it.)
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To: vannrox

The Founding Fathers would have been pleased with the creation of the Internet. They would be deeply saddened the direction it is headed in terms of what remains of our freedoms.


5 posted on 08/06/2018 9:18:38 PM PDT by CatOwner
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To: vannrox

And Jeff Sessions’ DOJ & Congress Critters are doing nothing to stop this, since they are in on it.


6 posted on 08/06/2018 9:24:01 PM PDT by Trumpisourlastchance
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To: vannrox

I saw this coming.. this is all bull crap. Theresay is no substance to it. There was no hacking of the dnc by Russia. But the lie is that the bad old Russian post things on the net. Who cares!? You don’t have to read anything!! Then they say that to stop them from posting they need to stop YOU!! Unconstitutional!! Must be crushed!!


7 posted on 08/06/2018 9:26:05 PM PDT by raiderboy (Trump has assured us that he will shut down the government to get the WALL in Sept.ith the solar)
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To: vannrox

For all those clamoring for the government to step in and do something about fb, apple, twitter, youtube, et al, censorship:

Hello, We’re from the government and we’re here to help you. And we have a plan for you.


8 posted on 08/06/2018 9:28:36 PM PDT by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!)
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To: vannrox

Astounding. Back in the generals would destroy villages in order to save them. Now the Dems want to destroy our rights in order to save them. I’m just sayin’


9 posted on 08/06/2018 9:36:53 PM PDT by Captain Compassion (I'm just sayin')
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To: vannrox

...and since the GOP-e still uses Rove and his White Board for technical advice, by the time they realize its been taken over, most of us will be dead.


10 posted on 08/06/2018 9:39:26 PM PDT by Zathras
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To: vannrox

Well, if it is for our own good, then okay.(/S)


11 posted on 08/06/2018 9:40:41 PM PDT by Mark (Celebrities... is there anything they do not know? -Homer Simpson)
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To: KC_Lion

Ping.


12 posted on 08/06/2018 9:42:54 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: vannrox

First, Obama signed ICANN over to the world, so if we want a free social media platform we can simply register it in Tuvalu or Russia. Of course, the gov may want to limit access to international sites to us domestics ... how very Red Chinese of them.


13 posted on 08/06/2018 9:43:08 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: vannrox

Meanwhile none of the Democrat troll and bots attack RT news

Russian collusion my arse

It is all domestic news that they attack


14 posted on 08/06/2018 9:47:58 PM PDT by JudgemAll (Democrats Fed. job-security Whorocracy & hate:hypocrites must be gay like us or be tested/crucified)
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To: vannrox

Seems like someone is planning on taking over the internet. All that is needed is Net Neutrality and all Google, Facebook, Twitter, You Tube employees will be government employees or those organizations so over regulated so as to make little difference. I’m just sayin’


15 posted on 08/06/2018 9:52:01 PM PDT by Captain Compassion (I'm just sayin')
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To: vannrox

They continue to play the Russian tune for one purpose only.


16 posted on 08/06/2018 9:55:47 PM PDT by firebrand
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To: raiderboy

This is so dangerous and un-American. The democrat party needs to go. Are Americans going to vote for this scum?


17 posted on 08/06/2018 10:00:49 PM PDT by virgil (The evil that men do lives after them)
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To: vannrox
If they or the RINOs ever passed any crap like that, I’d delete all my accounts except for FR.

By then, hopefully Jim and John will have located a pirate satellite to use. And we’d all be using code to communicate. It would be worth watching the lib fascists implode à la ‘Atlas Shrugged’.

18 posted on 08/06/2018 10:03:37 PM PDT by rfp1234 (I have already previewed this composition.)
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To: vannrox

Russia Russia Russia for months, then because of Russia, become like Russia. Seems to be an agenda here, no?


19 posted on 08/06/2018 10:04:21 PM PDT by bluejean (I'm becoming a cranky old person. It really annoys me.)
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To: Captain Compassion

Wont demand ID for voting

Demand ID for writing on the internet

No ID to prove citizenship

Demand ID for flying

idiots


20 posted on 08/06/2018 10:30:55 PM PDT by Secret Agent Man ( Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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