Posted on 05/28/2020 7:04:25 AM PDT by Kaslin
If Twitter wants to editorialize and 'factcheck' President Trump’s tweets with disclaimers, then it should be treated like any other publisher.
Twitter’s decision this week to append a disclaimer to President Trump’s tweets about the risks of mail-in ballot fraud should be enough, at long last, for us to dispense with the fiction that Twitter is nothing more than a neutral platform.
It’s not, it never has been, and it’s time to stop pretending otherwise.
Set aside the relative merits of Trump’s comments and the entire debate about whether mass voting by mail is a good idea, because that’s not what’s important here. By stepping in to flag Trump’s tweet with a warning label and a link so users can “get the facts” about mail-in ballots (which ironically links to a CNN article by Chris Cillizza), Twitter abandoned any claim it had to being a neutral facilitator. It crossed over, in other words, from being a supposedly unbiased social media platform to being a traditional publisher—in this case, a publisher with a very clear editorial position.
This has been true for some time now. Everyone knows that Silicon Valley is politically progressive and, as Vox reported Wednesday, its top executives are working hard to elect presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
The only difference now is that Twitter decided to make it bone-crushingly obvious. Social media companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google have been censoring and editorializing for years under the absurd pretext that they were just enforcing their own “community guidelines,” not weighing in on the merits of what their users were saying or embedding their own biases into the site’s rules. Who writes and enforces these community guidelines? People like Yoel Roth, Twitter’s Head of Site Integrity, whose anti-Trump tweets from 2016 and 2017 resurfaced recently. Roth called Trump and his officials “ACTUAL NAZIS,” compared Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to a “bag of farts,” and implied that Trump supporters are racists.
This person is the “head of site integrity” at Twitter pic.twitter.com/hyZcl5VIe0
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 27, 2020
What changed this week is that Twitter essentially came out and admitted these biases, discarding the façade of a neutral platform. The company itself, it turns out, has a point of view—in this case, about absentee voting—and it is willing to push that point of view on its users, not just by employing people like Roth to write and enforce its rules, but by explicitly fact-checking the President of the United States.
By doing this, Twitter hasn’t just waded into politics in an overt way, it has exposed the fiction at the heart of what social media companies are: they’re not neutral platforms, they’re biased, and like their peer organizations in the mainstream media, they’re overwhelmingly biased against conservatives and in favor of progressives.
Here’s why that’s a big deal. For decades, social media companies have wanted to have it both ways. They wanted to be able to enjoy liability protections that traditional publishers don’t have while censoring opinions they don’t like and promoting those they do.
They’ve been able to do this in part thanks to federal law. Back in the late 1990s when the internet was young, Congress exempted Internet companies from liability for publishing things that were inaccurate or potentially libelous, so long as they were uploaded by a third party.
Specifically, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, protects companies like Twitter from being sued for allowing users to post crazy conspiracy theories, malicious lies, and outright falsehoods.
That’s why, for example, you’ll occasionally see completely false news stories on Twitter like this one from December 2017, in which CNN claimed Donald Trump Jr. had been tipped off about hacked Wikileaks documents before they were made public:
Exclusive: Donald Trump, Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization got an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and link for hacked WikiLeaks documents https://t.co/hEJLhtiYKm pic.twitter.com/DCCMNhtzge
— CNN (@CNN) December 8, 2017
(Contra CNN, there was no story here at all. Trump Jr. had simply gotten an email from someone telling him about Wikileaks documents that had already been released. CNN chalked it up to an honest mistake.)
All of this to say, Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other tech giants with massive social media platforms obviously have an editorial slant, much like the New York Times or the Washington Post or CNN. Unlike those outlets, however, these tech firms have been able to hide behind the canard that they’re just providing a space for third parties to exchange ideas, so they can’t be held liable for what their users post.
No more. If Twitter wants to start fact-checking everything that gets posted by influential people, fine. But there’s no way it can do so in an even-handed or fair manner, and no way it can continue to insist on Section 230 protections.
As Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said Wednesday, “It’s pretty simple: if Twitter and Google and the rest are going to editorialize and censor and act like traditional publishers, they should be treated like traditional publishers and stop receiving the special carve out from the federal government in Section 230.”
Hawley has the right instincts here. At the very least, he and his Republican colleagues in the Senate should call on Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to explain why his company should continue to enjoy Section 230 protections when it has clearly decided to act like a traditional publisher. While he’s at it, maybe Dorsey can explain what he meant when he told Sam Harris last year, “I don’t believe that we can afford to take a neutral stance anymore.”
Then again, maybe he doesn’t need to. We all know what he meant.
I think President Trump has played this brilliantly. And I agree with the nearby thread that Trump’s recent poking at Scarborough was, at least in part, aimed at goading Twitter into finding an excuse to de-platform the President. They took the bait.
Never thought they were neutral. FB either for that matter. That’s why I’ve never subscribed to either and yet my life goes on just fine...imagine that.
I understand what both are for and were probly a great idea at one time...until both were basterdized by the left.
Social media (Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) is either:
A “platform” that allows all opinions and is protected by the 1st Amendment. Like Ma Bell in the 1950s, they couldn’t refuse to hook up a phone for you because they didn’t like your politics in your phone conversations.
A for profit private business that can do as they please and ban anyone they want, just like any other publishing house. Then they also can be sued for slander and libel for any content.
You can’t have both.
What’s with the wool caps worn indoors?
Here’s the main thing that can save the likes of Twitter, aside from the fact that they are not a monopoly. Their legal immunity is relative, not absolute. They already censor the content that gets through, and as such, they are still more of a service provider than a publisher. So it’s basically a gray area. But you know that they censor lots of things. Anything from personal threats to terrorist propaganda, pornography, hate speech, etc. etc. on and on.
The reason is that this is still a legitimate topic is because political opinion has always been considered an inherent right in the free world, and though our first amendment really only stops the government from (passing laws) infringing on right to speak, assemble, or observe religion, the press in particular has always had a massive soft spot for political dissidents who have been oppressed because of their opinions and positions. Well... until recently.
What kind of moral relativism lumps (certain kinds, but not all) political though in with other more accepted censored content? That is more of a social question, I’m afraid.
But should they be free from legal liability?
I don’t think they should.
The kid who starts a website in his parents basement can still get sued if the wrong things are conveyed on his format. It’s the big dogs with huge corporate attorneys who seem to be safe. Fk’m
Section 230 does not require neutrality.
The protections are granted in blanket fashion to any company which hosts user dialog.
Of course that can be changed with new law. But the existing law does not require these companies to allow any and every point of view in exchange for protection.
Those who conflate the two are ignorant of the law.
Maybe he’s got the AC on at high speed and is freezing. He’s probably not paying the light bill, so he doesn’t have to worry about it.
“You can’t have both.”
Section 230 clearly and unambiguously allows both.
I think those leading Twitter, FB and Google sold their souls in exchange for worldly gains.
Did they have souls to sell? Seems like they’ve been this way forever.
“sold their souls in exchange for worldly gains.”
Very well said and I wouldn’t doubt it. I understand that is a very popular practice in the entertainment industry also. For example, Dylan never gets specific but I have my opinion on who/what he’s referring to:
Twitter’s Jack Dorsey just screwed himself and his company!!! Trumpie & Zuckerberg played the idiot like the fake news fiddle he is!!! LMAO!!! If I were you Dorsey...I would immediately apologize to POTUS, Trump......period!!! Jack,baby, in NYC we have a word for dumb dudes like your self...you are called Dumb F__Ks!!! End of story!!!
Twitter CEO Dorsey is starting to sound paranoid. Maybe he’s heard from the SEC?
Some liken Trump’s concerns as if it were govt interference in private businesses.
These social media platforms are not private businesses——these are publicly-held companies subject to SEC laws.
They raise money from the public and are traded on the stock exchange,
They “say” they are common carriers-—like planes, trains, cabs, buses........
Twitter is not a common carrier-——it is a publicly-held company subject to the laws of the SEC.
TWITTERS 2013 PROSPECTUS filed with the SEC
LINK-—https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1418091/000119312513390321/d564001ds1.htm
To report your concerns about Twitter:
email .... enforcement@SEC.gov
Lemming leader scores big job at Twitter
BOYCOTT these Censor Nazis ...
VOTE WITH YOUR FEET.
BOYCOTT anyone who does business with them
VOTE WITH YOUR WALLET
Cut off and Let the evil vine wither.
.
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