Topic: If you don't like something the solution is more regulation (Read 1004 times)

Saw this, doesn't really do anything in the event of the US putting out anti social media regulations because they're going to be forced to follow those regulations when US customers are involved. It's just like the EU's GDPR laws and all their right to be forgotten / deleated stuff -- US companies have to abide by it too, when they're serving EU customers.

But yeah, in the event that the US tries to take the company by force or something like that they'd totally be able to flee. But that's not going to happen. All this was was Trumps rhetoric. Nothing will come of this.

"German official invites Twitter to relocate headquarters to Europe amid Trump feud"

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/500043-german-official-invites-twitter-to-relocate-headquarters-to-europe-amid

Perhaps it is because you don't know a good God damned thing about me in spite of your projections otherwise.

What happens is the USA still remains their primary market and they are still regulated under USA law. What happened when the EU passed regulations on them when they are still based in the US? Oh that's right they changed to fit those regulations! Great try at an argument. See you next time.

I'm getting Bernie Sanders vibes from this post, except the rant is about Twitter instead of 'the 1%'.  Weird.

So what happens when one of them just relocates to the UK or the next big social media site is based out of Canada (just examples).
Do we sanction them?  Declare them enemies of America?  Build the great MAGA fire wall so nobody in America can see it?
I agree some sort of regulations are in order.  But democracies around the world need to come together to figure out what the best solution might look like.

The internet IS going to be regulated regardless if we like it or not. If the USA doesn't regulate it, the EU will, and by default that will be the precedent by which it is regulated by mere lack of action by the USA. These corporate entities are abusing protections granted to them at a time when their industry was small and weak to enable them to grow. Now they are strong and dominate the venues of modern discourse.

They should not be allowed to violate their protections as open platforms while acting as publishers. They should not be allowed to abuse their monopoly positions. They should not be allowed to dictate the directions of elections by interfering with them by picking and choosing which candidates and their supporters get to speak by enforcing the rules only for their opponents, and editorializing only their opposition. I guess to you people election meddling is fine, as long as you are doing the meddling.

This topic continues to go on, and some people continue to bend over backwards to try to support more regulations and more government control on the internet. Are we sure that we want that to happen?

Unless this is some sort of regulatory stop on tracking me online -- without my explicit opt in -- like some sort of EU privacy (not sure how that works, just assuming here tbh) then I don't want it.

Government regulation and control is going to ruin the internet, do you guys want that? More government control and agencies running this isn't going to help, its going to hurt. I understand that it may bring short term help to conservatives -- but long term all it does is allow for whoever the President is at the time to run the show.

Would you classify Twitter as a monopoly and/or a publisher? Twitter does not have to vet its content nor are they held liable for their content and I think most people agree that a private company cannot possibly be held liable for everything that its millions of users put out. This would take care of the publisher issue where they're free of liability. Twitter's competitor Facebook doesn't make Twitter a monopoly so I don't believe they're the only platform for users to congregate politically. It's certainly the most popular, but not the only one.


Colleges have a responsibility to teach its students open discourse and to engage with ideas that they disagree with. Unfortunately PC culture have turned them into extreme lefty echo chambers where you're considered racist for not going along with the norm. Stories were floating around with professors endorsing violence against conservative speakers when they would do a lecture on campuses. Then there's that time a 5'7 jew set foot on campus at UC Berkley which nearly caused people to burn the campus down:

Ben Shapiro Lecture causes 9 people to be arrested - https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-berkeley-protest-shapiro-20170914-htmlstory.html


I agree for more critical thinking in colleges but it's difficult when any dissent is classified as hate speech. That's the political culture nowadays.

Too many people think that the President is a king. They might be shocked if they heard somebody say that this is the way they were thinking. But their actions and words show they think this.

Government isn't king. Not in the USA.

Come on

Here is the most thoughtful thing I can come up: being informed, or rather having information available to them, doesn't automatically mean that the person will say smart things or behave rationally so it's pretty much a straw man in this context. By that logic no one ever should question president's words and actions, or disrespect the office of the president as you put it. I don't think that's right.

If you notice you didn't actually address my response rather just repeated your premise. This is straying far off topic anyway.

The blue bar represents revenue.
The main source of revenue for the federal government is taxes. (over 90%)
If more revenue were generated, the red bar would be smaller.

Think of it this way:

Timmy has $4,300 of expenses per month, but only earns $3,400 per month.

Each month Timmy pays his bills with a credit card, and then sends his entire pay check to the credit card company.

As a result, Timmys debt increases $900 every month.

What effect does the amount of Timmys pay check have on his debt?  

What would happen if Timmy got demoted and his monthly income dropped to $3,000?  Would he still be adding $900 a month to his debt, would he be adding more, or would he be adding less?




_answer:
If Timmy's monthly income dropped by $400, then his monthly deficit would increase by $400 and his $900 monthly deficit would become a $1,300 monthly deficit.

Given that they've done fuck all to address the spending part (e.g. still shoveling trillions into Pentagon despite claiming to be ending wars) and the only significant action affecting the debt was the tax cut, which grows the debt - it still looks that conservatives don't care about the debt anymore.

Yeah, exactly. You see that red bar there, the deficit? What effect did the tax have on that? Less than 10% of the total? What percentage of the whole is that? A very tiny fraction. Like I said, spending is more of an issue.

Everything you don't like or agree with is "cickbait" or from a "conspiracy site". You should see if Twatter is hiring, then you could be one of their "fact checkers" and be the arbiter of what is true or not. You seem to take to it naturally.

(total spending) - (revenue generated) = annual deficit/surplus.  In 2019 there was a deficit of ~$980 billion.  That means the federal debt increased by ~$980 billion in 2019.



Taxes are the primary source (over 90%) of revenue for the federal government.  

2020 will be a lot worse.  In April 2020 alone, the federal government had a ~$780 billion deficit.

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That's 43 media links in 10 minutes.

You gotta stop falling for click bait headlines.

When that section was written the big social media platform was My Space, and it mostly occupied by tweens and teens.  A lot has changed since then, and the applicable rules and regulations should be assessed far more frequently, in my opinion.  The internet is a dynamic entity, and deserves dynamic responses when large corporations start abusing protections that were applied to a fledgling industry.



The "why" is simple; to prevent abuse.  The "how" is the more difficult question to answer, and I hope that accumulating more data will make answers easier to come by.

Furthermore; it's not only the president that's being abused by some snot-nosed narcissistic chump who thinks he's more informed than the POTUS, it's half of the American people (assuming 50/50 distribution of conservatives and liberals.)  I mean, really people!  I know you don't like Trump, but look at from the perspective of the disrespect being shown to the office of the Presidency.  Do you really think Jack Dorsey and his troupe of snotier-nosed "Fact Checkers" are more informed that our President?  Don't answer that question with your emotions, answer with an honest thoughtful reflection of facts.

"How Twitter Is Making The Case Against Itself and Free Speech"

https://jonathanturley.org/2020/05/31/get-the-facts-how-twitter-is-making-the-case-against-itself-and-free-speech/

Not sure about rioting in streets (actually, that's already happening, but I digress) but if Jack Dorsey was and doing those things you mention, our dear impotus would definitely not be trying to censure the twitter platform...
more likely he'd be be kissing his (Jack Dorsey's) feet.

Reducing taxation has almost nothing to do with eliminating the debt. If you think taxes are what fuels spending you have a childlike understanding of economics. Letting people keep more of their money is not the same thing. If you are going to make an argument, at least make a valid one like his spending is excessive.

Attorney Generals are under the rule of The Department of Justice which is under the jurisdiction of the executive branch of government, making them EXPLICITLY within the president's jurisdiction regardless of it being a state office. Furthermore he is not crafting a new law, but asking for revision of enforcement of an existing law, which is exactly the authority the executive branch has.

I still have faith.  Just not as much as I used to.

That's probably not the case anymore. I don't recall any significant conservative backlash against the tax cut a couple of years ago that is ballooning the deficit.


That's one small part of it. I'm not necessarily opposed to tracking complaints but people can already file complaints with the FCC, and the FTC, etc. To ask the FTC to give him a report he doesn't need an EO.

However he's also directly asking to come up with regulations:


Then... why?

I mean one of the right-wing complaints I'm hearing against Twitter is that they're putting their thumb on the scales ahead of the election. Trump is throwing a bag of cement on the scales, given that he's a candidate and is trying to create a more favorable media landscape for himself (or an illusion thereof) with an ill-conceived EO.

Typically they believe in all of those things, though recently (last 10-15 years) people who have been elected on those ideals have jumped ship and abandoned those ideas in favor of far reaching government surveillance, a complete lack of privacy for the citizens, and so on. It's horrid to see the people that you elected to bring small government to Washington, disregard that and continue to expand the power of big government.

Both parties have been doing this for a long time, we really need change.

No, I would not support regulations.  But Trumps rhetoric is just that, rhetoric, his actions don't always resemble his tweets.  Nonetheless, assuming this isn't merely rhetoric, and he plans to act on his words, it wouldn't be the first time I disagreed with him.  However, I'm not the president. 

The EO suggest a method for citizens to complain to the FCC, and for the FCC to start tracking these allegations.  True, that may eventually result in regulations or changes to section 230, or it may fizzle out into nothing.  Surely you're not opposed to accumulating data.



I don't doubt it.  Okay, maybe "riots in the streets" is an exaggeration I used for effect, but look at all the mayhem that ensued when some political operative named Christine Blasey Ford said she may remember something that that may have happened maybe 40 years ago.  There are many such situations where the left will make mountains out of molehills because it's a useful tool to villainize the right.



Do you really have such little faith in the system?  POTUS has no authority to create laws, and certainly none to circumvent the courts. 

I guess he didn't realize that he had rights other than Constitutional rights... rights that were there before the Constitution came into being. Ninth Amendment:

Sure.  People who believe in a smaller government, fewer regulations, lower taxes, looser gun laws, stricter immigration laws, pro-life and eliminating federal debt.

From what I've experienced personally, compared to Liberals (I mean the American definition of Liberals) Conservatives have a lower tolerance for risk, are more pragmatic, more likely to have a traditional family, better at managing their finances and holding a steady job long term, more likely to be religious, less likely to have a high level of education. less likely to empathize with people from different cultures, and less open to new ideas and change.

I consider myself a Democrat but there are plenty of Republicans that I would vote for over plenty of Democrats.  Honestly I feel like general Republican characteristics make for a better president.  For example I disagree with many of Ben Sasse's votes - but the guy is so sharp, articulate and pragmatic that if he ran there's a decent chance I'd vote for him over any Democrat.  Would never vote for him to be my Senator though.

Are you the only real conservative on Bitcointalk?

It doesn't matter what you use, you advocate for this one sided policy, thus you are literally part of the problem. Yeah, why doesn't he just mute his voice and use a smaller platform! That will show those people trying to mute his voice!





You are such a poser. You don't agree with conservative/republican ideas at all. You are constantly agreeing with all the most extremist leftist opinions here. No one needs to bend over backward to justify the logic of this executive order, it makes perfect sense and it is something the people have been screaming for him to do since 2016, the first time they tried and failed to silence his constituency.

I see, so companies have human rights, and humans, well fuck their rights, letting them speak and treating these companies like all other publishers when they function as publishers hurts their feelings and violates the rights of that incorporation! You are such a tool and a poser.

Conservatives have tried to make their own platforms. You know what happens? They start attacking their hosting servers until they get dropped, they get demonized in the media as "supporting hate speech", they get their Cloudflare account shut down, they get their bank accounts closed, they get their emails shut down, and so on. This is nothing but fascism, but you keep telling me about your brilliant solutions Mr. "conservative" who is little more than a mouthpiece for liberal ideals with a red tie on.





Conservatives tend to be against CENTRALIZED education spending, you know the kind used as a tool to indoctrinate children into leftist ideals, huge costs with increasingly poor results, one size fits all, centrally managed, from the top down, federal dictate level using the Soviet model of education kind of policies. This is of course opposed to the more efficient, more culturally and ideologically diverse, less costly and better results that come from state managed systems. No, but because we oppose you milking the nation dry with a failing system designed to indoctrinate children to your ideals, we are "against education."

Give me a break, you "wouldn't give a shit" my ass. You people form fucking mobs to swarm anyone who strays from your strict leftist indoctrination, and do everything in your power to not only silence them, but destroy their lives using any means necessary if they dare violate the ethos of the hive mind in any way whatsoever. You do it using classic media. You do it using social media. You do it using every level of the educational system. You do it by using people's livelihoods against them. In every case the ends justify the means, all the while shrieking "NAZI!" as you spread your totalitarian ideals by any means available. You keep pretending like you don't care though.





Either the US regulates social media, or through the lack of regulation, foreign countries will regulate it anyway. This is something that needed to happen a LONG time ago, even if it is regulation to preempt foreign regulation. We shouldn't let American institutions, and systems created and funded by Americans be hijacked by foreign entities and be used to violate American freedoms and ideals. They can relocate all they like, this is still their primary market, that means they play by American rules.

Actual conservatives my ass. You want to define what facts are, now you want to define what conservatives are too eh? Why not just get it over with and define yourself as the richest king in the world and retire to enjoy your vast wealth?





He doesn't need to convince his supporters, his ACTUAL supporters have been screaming for him to take action against social media bias since 2016, and he has done virtually nothing. They also experience the censorship, they don't need convincing, he is lagging behind what they want. Of course as an "actual conservative" you have experienced this yourself right? I doubt a West Virginian coal miner much enjoys being stripped of having the ability to have their own voice while anyone to the left of Mao gets to. As a "real" fake conservative, you underestimate how much actual conservatives value free speech.

Totally a political event, he's trying to convince his supporters that the media is against him again and they're trying to censor him. I know this will go well with his base - most things do - but I'm unsure on how moderates are going to feel about this.

I highly doubt that the coal miners in WV, the former factory workers in the rust belt, or the people that are suffering from the Coronavirus really care about his spat on Twitter. They'd much rather that Trump focus his resources and time on things that will help them.

Hoping for no new regulations. Last thing gov needs is more regulations.

If they keep doing business in the US they would have to comply with US laws and regulations, regardless of where they're headquartered. Remember, "social media" or "search engine" are just euphemisms for "ad agency". And I doubt they would provide those platforms to US users for free without trying to monetize them. So they would have to either abandon the US market or cave to Trump.

I think some sort of regulations are inevitable.  I'm not sure what it will look like, but I think it would have to be a long process and include some sort of agreement with many other countries.  

This EO is a political stunt, but say Trump gets re elected and finds a way to navigate or circumvent the courts and gain the power to actually control social media sites on his own without any actual legislation, why wouldn't they just relocate to another country?  If that happened, then what?  I guess they could sanction them?  The great MAGA firewall?



Actual Conservatives^^

Trump is now demanding that FCC and other agencies come up with regulations. It's not a done deal that they will (FCC is supposed to be independent) but do you support what he's trying to do here?


The government can surely support certain education standards but conservatives tend to be against education spending.


I doubt that. Most social media users (trigger warning - blatant stereotyping follows) don't really give a shit. Might explain why there's no right-wing social media (assuming the existing social media is leftist).

Poor choice of words, geese and ganders and all.



True, but not all unpopular opinions are treated equally.  Like it or not, these social media platforms have become the place where ideas congregate, where humans virtually "assemble," both things that are protected by the first amendment.  It's painfully obvious that they shadow ban, or out-right ban proponents of conservative ideals.  On the other hand they are businesses, which are free to conduct business any way they choose.  I would never condone restrictions on free enterprise.  However, when free enterprise are extended certain protections for one reason or another, they should not be allowed to abuse those protections.  It was our government that provided them with those protections in the first place, so it's up to us to act when there is abuse.



I never suggested any regulation, I would be opposed to any, and I fear that specifically conservative notion could be the end of conservatives in this nation.  Conservatives are more likely to support the very freedoms that are currently being used and abused to paint them as evil racists.  That's a risk I'm willing to accept, however.

I am more likely to support an effort by our government to educate the public, but that begs the question of where and how?  Schools?  Colleges?  Can we really expect some of the most liberal organizations in this country to support such a conservative notion as freedom of speech?  Many of these organizations are directly responsible for political correctness, which is a form of suppression of speech.  

It's been a long time since I've been in a class room but I remember taking a critical thinking class in college.  However, I don't see many implementing those skills.  The most critical thing being ignored by liberals in this particular social media battle is that the shoe could very easily be on the other foot.  Imagine if Jack Dorsey was a bible thumping homophobe, shadow banning Planned Parenthood, and transgender-rights groups.  We'd have riots in the streets.  

Being a conservative in a very liberal environment, I'm fairly sensitive about these issues.  I feel like those who think and believe the way I do are under attack.  The movies undermine us, the news misrepresents us, intentionally many times, and now social media giants want to silence us.  This is an issue that should be of concern to all Americans, it is an affront on our most basic of rights.

Honestly I couldn't agree more with ya here SuchMoon. I'd still consider myself someone who agrees with the ideals of a Republican and a Conservative, but watching supporters of the party and the party itself attempt to bend over backwards to find some logic to support this EO is insane.

This is an attack on the rights of companies here, and in the past Republicans would've been appalled to hear the government is getting involved in capitalism and business. But no -- they're all just sitting around and complaining.

I'm against Twitter / Facebook / Instagram (etc) censoring, but they do have a right to do as it is their platform. If you don't like it - MAKE A NEW PLATFORM - DON'T GET BIG GOVERNMENT INVOLVED.

Poor guy had his constitutional rights violated for 7 days.

As I said I barely use Twitter and most of that use is reading Trump's rants so I'm still suspecting that you don't know what "literally" means.

And assuming that what you're saying is true, shouldn't Trump stop using the platform run by criminals. That's not a good look. He could pick a smaller platform that doesn't discriminate against conservatives, his loyal base would surely follow, media would surely follow, sounds like a win for everybody. And he can still prosecute the criminals without letting them monetize his presence on their platform.

Of course it is going to be challenged, but he has a solid legal basis to stand on. Holding them to the same standards all other publishers are held to is not "over reach". Section 230 was created when the internet was a new thing, and it was an industry in its infancy. Now these corporate behemoths abuse this overly broad grey area carved out for them with rights granted, but no matching responsibilities enforced. There is a simple solution to the smaller sites problem, simply define these new restrictions as only applying to operations which pass a certain user base threshold. This approach is used in other legislation. Of course you don't care about any of this as long as only the people you agree with can tweet, or have any access whatsoever to the necessities of communicating in the modern world. Literally, yes, literally.

I'm just asking since you seem to have... uhm... unique knowledge on the subject so you should know the answers, like who the criminals are, what crimes they've committed, why haven't they been prosecuted, how is Trump going to avoid legal challenges to his EO, etc.


I doubt anyone here is a big fan of Twitface. Personally for all I care the big social media sites could disappear tomorrow and I would hardly notice. They also have resources to fight the government's overreach or to comply with ludicrous bureaucracy. This attempt to overturn Section 230 is more likely to have a devastating effect on smaller sites and potential competition. But why should we care as long as Trump can tweet.

Also look up "literally". You literally don't know what it means.

Monopolies have a legal definition (not the garbage you just pulled out of your ass), standards which these social media companies meet.




Cool story bro. Funny you mentioned the fact that you stupid cunts were calling a few thousand dollars of Facefuck ads election interference, but selectively cutting off, censoring, and editorializing a political candidate and his party is not. Not really an argument that supports you, but maybe if you put it in Drake format no one will notice your hypocrisy.




It is all so simple when you get to define what facts are. Also forcing social media companies to obey laws is not equivalent to it being "state run", but whatever fuels your fascism LAARPing fantasy to give you an excuse to burn everything down and pretend you are freedom fighters while you literally destroy freedoms in the name of corporate behemoths trying to interfere in our elections.

Twitter is  disrespecting (questioning) our dear leader.  That is never ok. /s

On what basis should they be state actors when they are a private company? They aren't a public utility and the only argument you could make for Twitter regulation is that it's a forum open to the public, but not a public forum, that alters discourse. Even then, you're talking about stepping on a private companies toes for the reason of wanting to shift a platform to benefit your political party.

Going to respond to this - don't have time now.

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What you are describing is a 'free market'.
A 'monopoly' is when one (1) company dominates an industry and prevents any sort of competition - not when when more than one company does something similar...even if you'd prefer they did it differently.

I just explained why, but you enjoy being full of shit and pretending like I didn't anyway.


"33 Examples of Twitter’s Anti-Conservative Bias"

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/techwatch/nb-staff/2020/05/28/33-examples-twitters-anti-conservative-bias

I don't know who. You said there are criminals. Why doesn't Trump order to prosecute the criminals but instead creates more regulation for everyone? Even if you accept the ridiculous premise that this is a better way of dealing with crime, it's not going to be faster. It will get tied up in courts just the same.

Well since you are full of shit, that doesn't mean much.
Prosecute who? The corporation? Meanwhile they have the opportunity to interfere in the results of the upcoming election while it works its way through the courts for years? Good plan.

False.


Wouldn't it make more sense to prosecute the supposed criminals instead of creating more red tape?

You are a liar that thinks the ends justify the means. The government wouldn't need to tell private companies these things if they weren't run by criminals subverting free speech while screaming that it is being violated when forced to actually be the neutral platforms they pretend to be so they can enjoy protections set out for public platforms of under the law. These companies are illegal monopolies intentionally seeking to interfere with the election process and subverting free speech. They need to suffer consequences.


https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/nj-naacp-leader-calls-for-paterson-mail-in-vote-to-be-canceled-amid-fraud-claims/2435162/

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndwv/pr/pendleton-county-mail-carrier-charged-attempted-election-fraud

Weird, the "fact checkers" assured me this doesn't happen. Must be fake news!

No, I don't think that censorship is great, therefore I don't like the government attempting to tell private business what kinds of otherwise lawful speech they must allow or disallow.

I am very much on topic. You think all this censorship is great so you pretend it doesn't exist. You are too dense to realize once this is a permanent precedent, that standard is going to be turned around to censor you too, then no one will be able to speak freely. Of course that is not important, what is important is you defeat Trump at all costs, even if you have to burn down the country and destroy all of our freedoms to do so. Of course when that happens, that will be Trump's fault too of course.

Think! There isn't anybody in the world that does 100% right or 100% wrong. Smart crooks make themselves look as good as they can, so that behind the scenes, they can get away with as much as they can.

Sounded like it, that's why I'm asking. Trump is trying to implement regulation to deal with something he doesn't like, and you said that's why crooks get into government. So is he a crook or not?

Did I call Trump a crook? Where? Got a link?     

Since I already realize that I can do that, then someone telling me so wouldn't be surreal. A bit redundant perhaps.


Fascinating. Any chance you can get back on topic? How about limiting your outbursts to one vituperative diatribe per page, would that work for you?


Are you calling Trump a crook?

You know what is really surreal? The actual entitled assholes in each and every one of these platforms telling you that you have the option of going to the other place with the same assholes who think they are entitled to tell you what you can and can not say. You are a mob of idiots cutting your own throats never once questioning your correctitude. Unfortunately you aren't going to realize this until just before you bleed out.

If you don't like something the solution is more regulation.


This is exactly why the REAL crooks get into government.

No one is disputing that the Internet as a whole offers diversity and whatnot. But this statement (in the "findings", not the "policy" BTW) definitely doesn't mean that every site must offer "true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity". If that were the policy then we should start by closing Bitcointalk since it doesn't have a knitting circle and a chess club.


Twitter didn't remove Trumps tweets, he got triggered merely by the presence of other info next to his tweets, so your contrived example fails right there. If Twitter linked to a fact check proving that I am indeed a convicted thief (or not) I don't think I would have a case. If Twitter removed a tweet saying that I'm not a thief and threatening my accusers with violence I don't think I would have a case.

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It quite surreal to have this discussion on a forum where most people (except for a few entitled assholes) seem to realize that if they don't like the way it's moderated they can go to Reddit or wherever.

Well, at least we'll have a lot of new government jobs to review every tweet and Bitcointalk post and judge their neutrality.

The platforms should divide their content into two parts:
1. Things that they readily accept;
2. Things that they would like to censor.

But they should let it all go through.

The intent of the law is clearly that service providers should be neutral platforms. Twitter and others have hidden behind their ability to remove content they deem “objectionable”, however this is an incorrect reading of the law.

I am sure there is at least one person who is willing to say that Suchmoon is a thief (I have no reason to believe you are a thief). In an extreme example, if Twitter only allowed people to tweet that SM is a thief and tweets that say you are not are removed, they would and should be liable for damages (provided that saying SM is a thief is false and caused you damages). They would clearly be using editorial discretion.

Further, separate from section 230, the actions of Twitter likely qualifies as “in kind” political contributions, which has long been regulated and is subject to additional reporting requirements.

Jack Dorsey decided to risk it and be the guy who tells the big bully that he is an indecent asshole. Its just that the method he used turned out to be a self-goal. Trump's hurt ego wouldn't let this go.

The intent of the order per se doesn't seem all that bad considering the fact that a lot of people have been claiming censorship. The problem as usual is deciding what is right to be censored and what is wrong to be censored. This is where this should be an interaction between Twitter and the person/ organization being censored, with costs to both sides. These corporation shouldn't have unlimited powers to censor depending on their own viewpoints. The main thing in the executive order seems to be the definition of

I think it is duty of the platform to provide opportunity for explanation if they feel (or their algorithm decides) that some political opinion can be censored in good faith. Or whether some information is fake. Unilateral censorship is far easier to them as a company than actually trying to have a fair argument with these people with "differing opinions".It will take a lot of work, time and money to conclude what is right or what is wrong on a case-wise basis. Yet, Haven't these "Social Media" platforms (FB/Google/ Twitter) making millions by giving every idiot a megaphone to spout bullshit? If this "regulation" leads them to put more effort in actually verifying "fake news", well then, its oughtta be done.

Trump is a narcissistic asshole who has only shown the world that America isn't all that great indeed. America has long enjoyed a cultural hegemony through its widely prevalent media houses. Media houses like BBC, CNN highlight to not end that "Indians practice caste system, Women are treated unequally" but they do nothing to actually explore the biases and prejudices that lead a police officer to press a knee on to a man's neck for five minutes, choking him to death. To its credit, liberal media seems to stand for "humanist" values. Yet, it seems more like a propagation of consumerism with a focus on sexualizing everything. Encouraging a whole generation of young people that they must flaunt their bodies in the name of "liberation", Women should be "careerists" because male patriarchy etc. The liberal media can easily be blamed for raking up non-issues to boost consumerism. They aren't without blame completely and if this regulation leads to a little bit of self-correction, it wouldn't be all that bad.

In my opinion, lets just get rid of post 2000's social media so people can go back to talking confidently only about the shit they actually practice rather than saying the most wild-ass thing to cater to the prejudices and biases of society.

Here is CDA section 230, which is what Trump is trying to reinterpret with his executive order:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

Which part of it requires moderation decisions to be neutral?

This is an old way for the governments to stop things that they do not like.
First they start with a lite regulation and then the regulation becomes harder.
One measure they use is also taxation... If they don't like something they raise taxes. An example is also, cryptocurrencies where they have made it difficult to the people that they are not involved in the crypto area to understand how to buy BTC or other currencies.

Out of the top three platforms (Facebook, Insta, Twitter), firmly believe Twitter that's the only problem. Facebook and it's subsidiary Instagram have already taken approaches that don't include censorship and Zuckerberg has said it doesn't want Facebook to be the arbitrator of truth. It's not their place to do so. Twitter on the other hand is a leftist cesspool that is actually littered with communists. Their demographic is to the left and it's no surprise they suppress conservative voices.


I agree with you that they need to be neutral but I don't consider Twitter publishers. Twitter does not endorse the content its users put out and anyone is free to sign up. They can't be held liable for the content their users post and they're a private company, so dabbling in the business of government intervention into these private companies is a huge mistake. Take Trump out of the picture and imagine the next democratic President and the potential abuses that could derive from a bad precedent like this. You can bet if Trump is successful in censoring Twitter that it's going to bite conservatives in the ass when Democrats use it to start censoring right wing media outlets.

The The number of election fraud cases most likely is a very small percentage of total instances.
This is news to me.

If twitter wants to fact check tweets, they a) need to be accurate, b) need to be objective (the tweet history of the person in charge of site integrity shows he is incapable of being objective), c) need to be consistent across viewpoints and d) the fact checks should not contain opinions

I don't have a link to that tweet. What are the circumstances in which the warning was put on that tweet? It is my understanding tweets making the claim the coronavirus originated in the US by Chinese propaganda remained unencumbered for a long time.

Are you ok with twitter fact checking the Chinese government?  Or Trump blaming twitter for not deleting their tweets about the corona virus earlier?



I think I'm ok with them fact checking anyone that they decide to bend the rules on.  If Trump were treated as a normal Twitter user, he would've been banned long ago for threats of violence.  And probably for the Joe Scarborough killed his staffer bc he got her pregnant thing.

But I wish they would be consistent.


You're right, I've never had to do anything other than give my name, address and a signature.
But it's even harder to prove that there is not wide spread election fraud.
1200 convictions over 30 years seems extremely low and basically irrelevant.

Trump claims as fact that 3-5 million votes were cast illegally in 2016 and they were all for Hillary.  That's a lie.
He claims as fact that the governor of CA is sending ballots to "anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there", that's not true.

Social media companies, including Twitter have special protection from libel lawsuits under the law. Twitter's business model is based entirely on this special protection. I don't see why a company engaging in such blatant political activism should get special treatment under the law that is worth billions.

Case in point, yesterday, Mark Zuckerburg was interviewed on Fox News and said he didn't believe private companies should be arbiters of truth, and not long after "delete facebook" and other hashtags that reflect negatively on Facebook were trending on Twitter. I don't think Zuckerburg's position is radical enough that anyone would react by wanting to delete their Facebook account. I think more likely, someone at twitter put their thumb on the scale to make those hashtags trend. This is probably a good example as to why Twitter is a publisher.

The above special protection was intended to allow platforms to serve as a neutral place for people to voice their opinions, but Twitter especially is far from neutral.

Ignoring the executive order, what Twitter did was reckless, and was a major blow to its credibility as a platform. Tech companies in social media have been very profitable in recent years, with the exception of Twitter. Twitter has been focused on "orange man bad" and has been distracted from making money.

It is very difficult to catch specific cases of voter fraud because the standard is so low to vote in many areas (often you only need to state your name/address, which is public in voter registration rolls), and there is very little if any trace that fraud occurred after the fact. Often the only reason someone is convicted of voter fraud is they blabbed about what they did and were convicted based on their statements. Sometimes prosecutors will use voter records to confirm the statements are true, but someone looking at voter records alone would not produce evidence the person engaged in voter fraud.

The Attorney General of Texas gave 3 main reasons on why he disagreed with Twitter regarding voter fraud and mail in ballots:

1)
In 2007 he heard a democratic lawmaker say during a debate:

The AG went on to claim:
2)

3)



1) Hearing someone else make a claim 13 years ago during a debate is not evidence of anything.  Even if it were, he didn't mention who said it, or on what date it was said.
And the Heritage Foundation has a database of over 1,000 voter fraud convictions.


2) Here's the database he's referring to: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud
There are 1,285 proven instances of proven voter fraud.  This is every conviction the foundation could find going back over 30 years.
If you click 'all data', you can filter by type of fraud: https://www.heritage.org/voterfraud/search?combine=&state=All&year=&case_type=All&fraud_type=24489

Absentee ballot fraud accounts for ~210 of the 1250 convictions.

3) According to the heritage database that he just mentioned, Texas has had 90 voter fraud based convictions.  35 of them are for fraudulent use of absentee ballots. This is far less than the 'around two-thirds' that he claimed.

I rule that the Texas AG's claim on voter fraud is:

Only "big" ones?

These are basically on-demand services, they don't broadcast the same thing to everyone - users choose what they want to see, and there is no lack of "unpopular opinions" on those sites, or other sites all the way to 8chan or whatever it's called these days.

How far do we go with regulating the content? Should we mandate that comment sections of Fox News and Huffpost give equal space for all opinions or do we accept that there will be different moderation standards on different sites? Seems like the free market should sort out what kind of media is in demand. If someone wants Dorsey's sanitized vision of Twitter they'll use that and if someone wants Zuckerbook's Russian propaganda site they'll use that.

Well then, I guess all you need to do is just yell "FACT CHECK!" before you burn the books containing the ideas you don't like then it makes it all A-OK! That is funny you think Facefuck is any different than Twatter, or that these companies aren't illegal monopolies that are impossible to compete against. Interesting you bring up the terms of service, because thousands of people who didn't even violate it are banned, censored, or muted in violation of that contractual agreement when not even violating any terms of the TOS. Kind of like when you see a drawing of one of your butt buddies getting made fun of and pretend it violates the rules to get it removed. There is so much wrong with what is going on here, but your pretend to not see it because you think it means you will get what you want. In the end you are going to get it in the end.



No, they aren't. Comparing regular people to the president and small reach venues to the instantaneous information superhighway is just completely disingenuous. These platforms are enjoying the protections of public platforms while operating as publishers free from liability. They are also operating as illegal monopolies, intentionally interfering with elections, and violating user agreements with their users. None of this is acceptable and they need to be held accountable.

Yeah, no need to get upset, you are only short sighted morons selling out the precious right of free speech, the linchpin to our free society, unique to the USA and nearly unheard of in human history because orange man bad. No big deal. You are cutting your own throats regardless if you comprehend that or not, unfortunately you are taking the rest of us with you.

Big social media platforms need to be called out for what they are.  The public needs to be informed that they are censoring information, and it's become pretty obvious to those of us with unpopular opinions. 

I think a clear distinction needs to be defined, are these companies publishers or utilities?  What makes a publisher?  Is it that they are actively filtering information?  Obviously, none of us want a free-for-all with all kinds of illegal and unethical shit posted on twitter or youtube, so at what point does their activity make them publishers?  Certainly a fair and equitable consensus can made. 

If they're going to be protected from the libel they must remain neutral.  Flagging posts you don't like for political reasons is not remaining neutral. 

Ironically the fact check that twitter applied to Trumps post is wrong according to the Texas Attorney General:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/texas-ag-ken-paxton-trump-is-right-and-twitter-is-wrong-is-saying-mail-in-ballot-fraud-is-a-real-problem

So, should twitter charged with libel in this situation?  Obviously what they did was misleading and false. 

Yeah.  They are comparable.  Few people in the world have a platform comparable to the President of America.  Just being the president is a platform.  If you don't like how Jack Dorsey runs the app that he literally built from scratch....go build your own or become a majority share holder?


Hey we're just having a discussion.  No need to get all worked up like that.

Please refrain from making shit up. No, election interference is not ok. Fact checking is ok. Switching to Facebook is ok if you don't like Twitter. Creating your own site is ok.


Nobody "reads" the whole Twitter either. People follow content that they want on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. And Twitter has a lot more stuff on it than just Trump so obviously it's going to be more visited. But Trump could easily tweet "go to whitehouse.com to read my shit". It's not like opening twitter.com has Trump's shit on the front page anyway so he gets the exposure from elsewhere.


Not being popular doesn't mean you're censored. Breaking TOS of a service and getting banned doesn't mean you're censored. The government telling a private business what kind of content it must allow or not allow might be considered censorship.

I'd love to see this dispute in the Supreme Court. The pretzels of Trump-supporting free speech and anti-regulation advocates would be delicious.

Trump does kind of have a point, and regulating it benefits both sides. Places like Twitter have massive power, and someone with bias who works over can just label something somebody said as fake news, then that can have major consequences. That would be for both parties.

I am sure you will regardless of the facts of the matter. You will note all of your examples are the equivalent of yelling out of a window in the middle of the night, while the platforms claiming to be for public use are broadcast into nearly every home globally onto multiple devices all day every day. They are not at all comparable. You smug disingenuous cunts have no idea what you are doing. You think this serves you, but there is going to come a day when this machinery is turned upon you too, and then it will be too fucking late to do anything about it. It is too bad you all are too stupid to recognize a trap when you see one. Enjoy your cheese before you get your neck snapped.

He could also have a rally, a press conference, he could write a book, address the nation from the oval office, he's got the State of the Union every year, he could pick whoever he wanted and give them an exclusive interview, he could write an op-ed, he could post on his campaign website, he could make a new website, he could create his own social network, he could make his own cable network (isn't that the plan?)  Should I go on?

How about instead of doing a google search to prove whatever argument you're trying to win, and then posting the first 10 results with headlines you like (which are *pretty much* always just media links), do a google search for the opposite - and then actually read more than the headlines - and be open minded.

I see, so election interference is ok, as long as it benefits who you want it to benefit, is that it? What could go wrong? Yeah, right because how many people read whitehouse.gov?

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/whitehouse.gov current rank #3,290

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/twitter.com #48

Totally comparable! Of course you would love it if you could force your opponents to be relegated to carrier pigeon while you use fiber optic cables. These services are clearly operating not as public forums, but as publishers by selectively removing and silencing political opposition, and providing millions of dollars worth of unreported in kinds donations. This is not acceptable regardless how much you lie to pretend none of this is happening.




OOo you found a whole handful of them, I guess that means they aren't locked out, censored, silenced, and muted by all the most popular services claiming to be public forums while they act as publishers selecting who gets to have a voice. If any of you had a halfway decent argument you wouldn't be afraid to have an opposing viewpoint heard. The only people who rely on silencing opposition are ones who have no argument to stand on.


"Media Bias: Pretty Much All Of Journalism Now Leans Left, Study Shows "

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/media-bias-left-study/



" The Deep Roots of Trump’s War on the PressLong before cries of ‘fake news,’ there was Brent Bozell and his Media Research Center."

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/26/the-deep-roots-trumps-war-on-the-press-218105



"American views: Trust, media and democracy"

https://knightfoundation.org/reports/american-views-trust-media-and-democracy/?utm_source=link_newsv9&utm_campaign=item_235796



"92% of Republicans think media intentionally reports fake news"

https://www.axios.com/trump-effect-92-percent-republicans-media-fake-news-9c1bbf70-0054-41dd-b506-0869bb10f08c.html



"Americans’ Attitudes About the News Media Deeply Divided Along Partisan Lines"

https://www.journalism.org/2017/05/10/americans-attitudes-about-the-news-media-deeply-divided-along-partisan-lines/



"Liberal News Media Bias Has a Serious Effect"

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/11/11/why-has-trust-in-the-news-media-declined/liberal-news-media-bias-has-a-serious-effect



"These Three Charts Confirm Conservatives' Worst Fears About American Culture"

https://www.businessinsider.com/proof-of-liberal-bias-in-hollywood-media-and-academia-2014-11?



"Former NPR CEO opens up about liberal media bias"

https://nypost.com/2017/10/21/the-other-half-of-america-that-the-liberal-media-doesnt-cover/



"Journalists shower Hillary Clinton with campaign cash"

https://publicintegrity.org/politics/journalists-shower-hillary-clinton-with-campaign-cash/



"Special Report: Columbia University"

https://www.mrc.org/special-reports/special-report-columbia-university



"Survey: 7 percent of reporters identify as Republican"

https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/05/survey-7-percent-of-reporters-identify-as-republican-188053



"The Top 50 Liberal Media Bias Examples"

https://www.westernjournal.com/top-50-examples-liberal-media-bias/



"Audit suggests Google favors a small number of major outlets"

https://www.cjr.org/tow_center/google-news-algorithm.php



"Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey: I 'fully admit' our bias is 'more left-leaning'"

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/402495-twitter-ceo-jack-dorsey-i-fully-admit-our-bias-is-more-left-leaning



"How the liberal leanings of Google, Facebook shape the political landscape"

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/oct/23/internet-giants-show-power-to-shape-politics/


If you believe this machine isn't eventually going to be turned against you too, you are a fucking moron.

Trump has signed an executive order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/

Lots of whining there but the main part seems to be instructing the FCC and other agencies to create regulations for social media.

Those articles and blogs and networks and youtube channels and radio stations that often complain about how the media is unfair to trump and fake news....they're also the media.

fox, breitbart, zerohedge, daily caller, newsmax, NY Post, tim pools youtube channel  <==all media

He's the president, so...he could have a rally, a press conference, he could write a book, address the nation from the oval office, State of the Union, he could pick whoever he wanted and give them an exclusive interview, he could write an op-ed, he could just post what he wants on any federal website, he could post on his campaign website, he could make a new website, he could create his own social network, he could make his own cable network (isn't that the plan?)  Should I go on?

They're not publishing anything. If Trump doesn't like how his tweets are presented next to a fact check or whatever the latest tantrum is about (doesn't seem that any if his "speech" was removed or modified) then he can surely use Facebook where he claims he's #1.


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What about the billions of dollars of in-kind media time Trump gets with his rallies and press briefings and other stuff. But more importantly, what about the topic of this thread, namely the attempt of the government to tell businesses to broadcast government propaganda and to do it in a certain way (e.g. no fact checking).


If he's so inclined, but there is also whitehouse.gov, which is accessible to anyone just as Twitter is.

Not really, if you think about it. The left control the media. The left control social media. Where exactly is he supposed to be able to get a neutral platform? Flyers and a bullhorn on Pennsylvania Avenue?

So he's complaining about Twitter on Twitter? The irony!

Publishers don't enjoy that protection.



What was it a while back you guys were arguing was a FEC violation by Trump? Because he paid off some stripper to shut up out of his own money?

You want to claim that is a FEC violation, but not the millions of dollars of in kind donations of promoting liberal candidates and silencing conservatives on social networks? How much do you think that is worth in advertising dollars? I mean, after all Russia spending like $3000 on Facefuck ads was supposed to be a big deal, but not this election interference right? Really, you people brought this on yourselves. We have been telling you for a long time this has been happening and you pretended it wasn't real because you thought the ends justified the means. Well here are the ends. Hope it was worth it.

I don't think conservative voices should be silenced on Twitter but you can't go around dictating how private businesses operate. This is a really bad slippery slope to go down.

They're not having it both ways. Moderation is allowed by the same law that provides the protection. They're not creating the content themselves.

I am very much on topic, you just don't like my reply. Social media platforms want to curate content like publishers while also receiving the safe harbor protection from liabilities as a public platform. They can't have it both ways.



"Trump Is RIGHT, Twitter Is Interfering In The Election With FAKE NEWS "Fact Check" On Voter Fraud"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZELaKn4vXrc

Joe Rogan didn't like Youtube regulation. He is moving his multimillion viewers over to Spotify.

If people like regulation, they might be regulated out of existence. This means that if we don't like regulation, it's time we regulate the regulators out of existence.

I know it takes a lot of effort for you to stay on topic so if you're unable to do it please start a REEEEEEEEE: THE LEFT SENSOR SHIPS TRUMP thread.

Trump is the one threatening to regulate social media and he's speaking on behalf of the Republicans. Do you support regulating and/or closing down Twitter? How about Bitcointalk? Should we only post pro-Trump stuff here just so that he doesn't decide to shut us down too?

I thought the left liked regulation. I guess they only like it when they are doing the regulating.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265601611310739456

That's right, let's close down businesses we don't like, fuck the constitution and all its amendments. A wonderful caricature of what the Republican party used to stand for... pretended to stand for... something like that.

Edit May 28: Trump has signed an executive order aimed at creating regulations for social media: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/