Battle for Section 230 - The Situation Monitoring Thread for Monitoring the Situation of the Situation Monitor's Situation Monitoring

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Null said:
It's never coming. The problem is the banks. It is always the banks. No representative or senator since JFK has wanted to touch the banks and force them to treat people fairly.
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I forget what documentary it was, but there was one on the early days of the crisis in 2008.

Remember in the riot thread there was this one black lady going, "Why are you letting us destroy our city?"

The banks basically went, "Why did you let us do this? We need more regulation!"

Why were they saying that? Because they were shitting themselves that they basically destroyed the world and the plebs would come for them with pitchforks, rope and guillotines. When they realized it'd only fuck over the world, and not destroy it, they backed down. The rich only understand violence. That's the only language that will force them to comply with anything.

The only time you'll see them change is when they fuck up big enough that we, collectively as a society, start killing them en masse, dragging them from their homes and their private jets and beating them to death and dragging their bodies through the streets. They can no longer be dealt with like people.
 
X Prime said:
That's not really a surprise. If I recall, JP Morgan Chase was Obama's really big donors.
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Oh, I know why it was not done. Does not make me any less bitter.

Because things are going to get worse.

They needed to be hung...in Minecraft.
 
DNA_JACKED said:
I highly doubt that any 230 repeal will manage to make it through, for one reason: money. Billion dollar lobbying entities backed by google, facebook, et al will fight this tooth and nail, because even if this 230 repeal would benefit them int he short run by eliminating their competitors, they know that no modern internet company would survive. To avoid hundreds of lolsuits per day, youtube, facebook, twitter, ece would have to vet every single post, and that would be far too expensive to do, since you couldnt risk an AI fucking up and letting a post through. The highly mediated system would also obliterate engagement from users, dramatically reducing data collection, ad interaction, and overall income, along with halting the political power of these institutions. Even if the loss of money wouldnt didnt stop them,t he lost of political power would.

Both EARN IT and the alternatives would still give government power over these companies to hold them responsible, which still implies the above. Even if facebook followed along the "best practices" narrative, for instance, all it would take is one politician deciding to pick a bone with facebook on that board and Ol' Zucky would be in for a world of hurt.

Under the 230A protections, big internet companies can hide behind the shield of their token efforts. Replacing those efforts would be monumentally expensive, and they will fight these changes tooth and nail.

If they dont, well, it will likely be the end of the internet as we know it. Only megacorps with political power would survive, and then only by posting the most banal content. Normies would bore of it eventually, and the tech savvy would regress back to the era of BBS, where sites are hosted on individual computers or spread through torrent-style networks that are fly-by-night, disappearing at the first sign of legal threat.

EDIT: I'm sure someone will point out that the same lobby groups could buy out the 19 person EARN IT board. They could, but can you imagine the Facebook lobby-bought puppets trying to constantly fuck over the Google lobby-bought puppets? Or if Fox media grabbed a portion ofthe board and tried to use it to legislate facebook out of existence? This would be a recipe for political infighting, and that would still slow the giants to a crawl and open these companies up to lawsuits from any multitude of offended groups.
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I hope you're right.
 
6MillionBicycles said:
It’s becoming that anyways. If it has not already been that for a decade.
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Oh I agree it's been heading in that direction. These days, there'd still be a sizable chunk of the internet left intact in the form of things like online shopping, Netflix, and mainstream media news websites. Obviously sites like KF, chans/forums, and even personal websites would be fucked, but use of these things is now a shell of it's former self. (Sadly.)

But I'd be curious as to the state of the big social media sites. On the one hand, they're also clogged with an unholy amount of corporate content. But on othe other hand, they make so much money off of advertising and, as @DNA_JACKED said, selling off user data that the corporate stuff probably wouldn't be enough to sustain them. After all, who wants to have a Twitter account when you're not allowed to tweet?
 
Pepito said:
Ok, I get the banks wield a huge amount of political power but how does having less investors benefit them? If they have to police every transaction thanks to the US Patriot Act, they're missing a lot of micro-transactions form smaller investors because of the restrictions, not counting the resources needed to screen every single one of them. My point is, how is in the bank's best interest to deny access to credit? Isn't it the other way around?
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Once you have enough money to live comfortably for a few generations then what you really start to go after is power. Beinging able to control those below you is the highest power you can obtain.


Its why Google still keeps YouTube around or why you'll see last minute investments when a big news company is going to go under. Control is what they want not more money.
 
6MillionBicycles said:
You'll only be able to tweet at your own tiny bubble or selected people. No sharing.

They'll be a tiny place you can scream into the void. That's what most people use internet for.
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Like tumblr?

That turned out great, didn't it.
 
Hawleys plan seems like the best option, the problem is that hes a junior senator with no charisma and he looks like a smarmy rat fucker.

Hes not even that popular in Missouri because hes tainted by his links to the former governor.
 
Tsk tsk tsk. It's hard to belive that it's come to this, but here we are. Hey, if trump nukes the internet, @Null , I want you to know that I sincerely appreciate all the work you've done and all the b.s. you've put up with over the years. You're a better guy than you realize.
 
Everyday I wake up and it seems like there are new creative ways to fuck with the American people. The way I see the U.S. government, it's like them spitting in your face everyday. And one day, you wipe some of that spit off, and immediately you're called a terrorist, child molester, rapist, traitor, etc. How dare you have rights? How dare you want to be free? Remember kids, freedom is """hate speech""" is terrorism, and don't forget it. I used to wonder how people in the middle east could suicide bomb themselves, but now I understand. When you have nothing left to lose the only thing you can do is take your enemies with you.

The Boston bombers were heroes, remember how the Boston police drove down streets in tanks and aimed weapons at citizens for literally existing in the same time and place as them? And remember when the same worthless slaves cheered the police that were oppressing them? I don't even know what to do anymore. Fuck this country, fuck all you, fuck me, and fuck everything.
 
Null said:
My Plan for the Banks
All they have to do to fix online censorship is fix payment networks. No "non-kosher" alternatives to Twitter or Facebook can exist when monetization is not possible. The payment networks Mastercard and Visa card do more "editorialization" than any platform does.
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The only real exception to Section 230 immunity may already apply to Twitter's behavior if they have any connection to the deplatforming of Twitter alternatives. Specifically, "Section 230 immunity does not extend to an anti-malware software provider that blocks programs for anticompetitive reasons and that the intellectual property (IP) exception to Section 230 does not apply to false advertising claims not involving IP." (archive).

A plaintiff would have to be someone actually harmed by that behavior, like a Twitter alternative or someone harmed by their false advertising claims, and an argument could be made their deceptive Terms of Service would constitute such false advertising. Trump's EO specifically addresses this point, one of the stronger ones in an otherwise weak document.

Specifically:

The FTC shall consider taking action, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, to prohibit unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, pursuant to section 45 of title 15, United States Code. Such unfair or deceptive acts or practice may include practices by entities covered by section 230 that restrict speech in ways that do not align with those entities’ public representations about those practices.
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The EO also cites the strongest Supreme Court case for public property being able to be transformed into a public forum by the representations and conduct of its owner: "These sites are providing an important forum to the public for others to engage in free expression and debate. Cf. PruneYard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74, 85-89 (1980)." This 40 year old case has been little followed and much criticized and most subsequent case law contradicts or whittles away at it. It may be time to revive this doctrine, though, because if the shared areas of a privately owned shopping center can be considered a public forum because of the conduct of its owners, how can a privately owned social media platform, advertised exclusively for the purposes of communication, not be?

These positions aren't particularly well developed in the EO, but they seem to be the strongest arguments in favor of the position that either Section 230 should not apply to Twitter's deceptive and/or anticompetitive practices, or that Twitter should be treated as at least a limited public forum subject to First Amendment protections, because of its own deliberate conduct in advertising itself as a platform for communication, open to the general public, which purportedly does not engage in viewpoint discrimination.
 
For people who think that the tech companies will try and save 230, Facebook has already been lobbying to kill it. They supported FOSTA, the first big carve out that's already shut down websites and parts of websites. Google has backed off things like Net Neutrality because they know they benefit from smaller competitors having more hurdles to survival. The death of 230 will lock in the largest tech companies permanently, all for the low cost of swatting down the occasional nuisance lawsuit. Considering they would probably get to write any replacement for 230, tech companies will be chomping at the bit to erase all competition.

The EFF will keep you up to date on the attempts to change it. Once something's finite, the EFF will probably have a system to contact your representatives and the EFF is currently suing to invalidate FOSTA's claw backs. Make it an issue in the election year and hope that congress doesn't shove it through in the lame duck session.
 
AnOminous said:
The only real exception to Section 230 immunity may already apply to Twitter's behavior if they have any connection to the deplatforming of Twitter alternatives
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Won't hold water.


etc

Jean Lafitte 1812 said:
Google has backed off things like Net Neutrality because they know they benefit from smaller competitors having more hurdles to survival.
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As someone who is technically an ISP I can promise you that there are no such hurdles with "not fucking with other people's shit". This conflation of consumer protection and regulation is nauseating. It's "don't do something" vs. "do something".
 
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The internet is part of the public sphere and the government should enforce free speech to ensure a working democracy.
But in practice we all know its blackr0ck as 4th power of government that decides and if its no then its GG
If this is the end, then gentlemen youre all really exceptional, and I dont mean the r.tarded kind.
 
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