Still throwing a fit on his way out the door
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I hope they ignore him and pass the bill anyway and he does nothing, but Trump today threatened to veto the defense bill if a revocation of Section 230 wasn’t included.
Note this has nothing to do with defense at all, and his (and other conservatives) problem is not based in reality. They say that social media like FB and Twitter have a left bias and are censoring right wing voices. The opposite is actually true, both Twitter and FB cater to and amplify right wing voices on their platform.
The implications if this happens are staggering though, as it removes platform’s liability release for their users content. Which would lead to a large scale change in how the internet operates and would definitely kill small sites (like this one).
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I guess it's not at all shocking that Trump doesn't understand something, but it's really amazing that he doesn't get that this would lead Twitter and others to instantly ban him, since there's no way they want the liability associated with his speech if the section 230 protections go away. Unfortunately, it could of course also result in the destruction of any other user content sites.
And he seems to think getting rid of it will prevent Twitter and Facebook from labeling or removing his nonsense, but any government interference there would pretty clearly be an affront to the 1st Amendment.
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And of course so many military lovers out there will still love him,
My 'Nam-veteran USMC uncle who loathes 45 even more than I do no doubt has some fun things to say about this.
And yeah, social media is very tolerant of right wing bullshit - it's all about the clicks and $$$, if it makes money, it stays.
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@facw the thing is that the first amendment doesn't actually protect any speech on. A social media platform, it only protects from government censorship. A non-governmental organization is freely able to censor, hide, promote, sell and so on as much communication as it wants.
What section 230 did was release internet companies from liability of what users post. For example before section 230 facebook could have been sued for for lible a statement a user made.
This release of liability is the foundation of the internet as we know it.
Now section 230 does need some adjustments to do things like put limits on the unfettered data collection and the spread of misinformation, but it does not need to be torn up. No question if that happens this site (and millions of others) go dark and comments get turned off almost everywhere else.
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@jminer The First Amendment absolutely protects you from the government saying "You have to allow people to post whatever they want on your platform", which is what Trump wants (at least for his speech)
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@facw I think what Trump is really upset about is the fact checking part of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. He can post what he wants but they have the right to call BS.
Plus free speech doesn't protect you from falsely posting bomb threats or dangerous information that could be detrimental to people's health like saying you should pump Clorox in your veins to disinfect yourself. Trump wants his propaganda to be unfiltered and social media companies are not having it.
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@krustywantout said in Still throwing a fit on his way out the door:
@facw I think what Trump is really upset about is the fact checking part of social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. He can post what he wants but they have the right to call BS.
Plus free speech doesn't protect you from falsely posting bomb threats or dangerous information that could be detrimental to people's health like saying you should pump Clorox in your veins to disinfect yourself. Trump wants his propaganda to be unfiltered and social media companies are not having it.
They only started to push back once it became likely he’d loose the election and that they were going to face actual regulation. He and all of the right wing was not only left alone but rewarded for pushing lies and disinformation for a decade now. This has led to a major problem and they started doing not-quite the bare minimum. For example Facebook hasn’t banned Brietbart after countless lies and they’re even a ‘trusted source’ and they blatantly promote the lies. Facebook also didn’t ban or reprimand Steve Bannon when he called for the beheading of government officials while also spreading lies about election fraud.
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@jminer The whole getting rid of the 230 law is just payback for them filtering his nonsense . As everyone else has said, it would actually hurt him more by getting rid of the regulations . He wants to hurt them thinking the social media sites will lose money by getting sued if they are liable for users content .
