LogFAQs > #949299492

Zeus posted...

Do you post things not knowing what they are or do you deliberately conflate them in an attempt to try to confuse people? You're comparing a civil matter to government-led censorship, which bears no resemblance between the two. And it wasn't Trump calling Zuckerberg and the others to a hearing.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act specifically protects sites (or "interactive computer services") that allow user-submitted content from liability for (most) criminal things posted by users. If it were fully repealed and revoked, as the Tang-faced buffoon in the Oval Office desired in the waning moments of his failed Presidency, Parler would have to implement a strict moderation policy or find itself shut down for being criminally liable for the criminal bullshit users have posted there. Likewise, Google and Apple would have to remove the Parler app from their respective stores or find themselves criminally liable for the criminal content posted via an app on their stores.

Enough damage has already been done to Section 230 by useless bullshit legislation like FOSTA, but a full repeal of Section 230 would have far more damaging effects on free speech than allowing private entities to moderate user-submitted content according to clearly delineated Terms of Service, Rules, and Guidelines would.

And this "government-led censorship" you're harping on about? That is frankly bullshit. The three latest hearings attended by Facebook were:

1. A hearing in late 2019 regarding Facebook allowing disinformation and outright lies in political ads posted to their service, as well as violations of housing discrimination laws. This, predictably, went fucking nowhere. Democrats wanted to know why Facebook would allow malicious ads in which Donald Trump's campaign told deliberate lies about Joe Biden to run on their service, and Zuckerberg just waffled off with a "I think we did the right thing, we strike a good balance, etc." (I'm severely paraphrasing). This accomplished nothing.
2. A big-ass anti-trust hearing in July of 2020, to which Google, Amazon, and Apple were also party. Lawmakers believed that the four companies were getting so big that they were stifling competition, whereas the four companies believed they needed to be giant, monolithic corporate gods in order to help their tiny competitors discover fire or whatever. This went nowhere and accomplished nothing.
3. An honest-to-God useless sham of a hearing about Section 230 (also involving Twitter and Google), with Democrats demanding to know what the companies involved were doing to rein in hate speech and voter suppression, and Republicans demanding to know why they were doing things to rein in hate speech and voter suppression. It was a big clusterfuck that accomplished nothing.

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The problem with the internet today is that it's filled with entire generations that did not grow up with the great wisdom of the Wyld Stallyns.