Trump's Social Media Executive Order

[Meadmaker]

So now, a tool created by and managed by Twitter is censoring the activities of those Nazi accounts I've blocked. Doesn't that seem like something that would open Twitter to sanctions under this new EO?

I don't think so, because Twitter was not involved in any decision to block or censor the speech.

On the other hand, if Twitter banned them, it would. Trump also seems to think that if Twitter attached some sort of warning to them, it would.

(Assuming the executive order is declared legitimate anyway.)

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

That's a really good idea. If Twitter took away Trump's ability to block followers or people responding to his post and just let people from all over the world vent on him unfiltered, Trump would go mad.

I thought that already happened when Trump declared his Tweets were his formal statements or something like that.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Exactly. This is not a fight Trump can hope to win. Besides, it's just an executive order, those don't require much to overturn. If court battles over this last five months the order was already useless.

McHrozni

Many of his EOs are a joke. But they make Baby Trump feel all powerful.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I believe the accounts, being the official statements of the White House, are already disallowed from blocking followers and comments by the First Amendment.

Yeah, this ^. Better said than my post.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I always assumed trying to get around that was the reason "Donald J Trump" and "President Trump" are seperate, distinct (but both verified) accounts on Twitter.

I think one of those is a parody account, started posting before Trump had is POTUS account or something.

It's all fuzzy in my mind.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I thought that already happened when Trump declared his Tweets were his formal statements or something like that.

Trump is still able to do it, even though the Courts have made it clear that he is not allowed to do it.
The courts didn't tell Twitter to take his power away - and he is still blocking people all the time.

 

[dann]

They should work to remove him from office for their own good. Maybe even kick him off the planetform for a violation in September so there's no time to get on and develop a following of his supporters on another platform.

Hasn't the time come to use space force?!

 

[Norman Alexander]

All Twitter has to do is move its official headquarters to the Channel Islands Greenland and it is no longer an American company. So Trump's EO, and also the US constitution, and SCOTUS and all the other US stuff no longer apply. He can be told to go suck an antique family dick.

Unless Trump wants to go the China route and filter the whole Internet in the USA. Which would be even less successful than China's effort was.

 

[dann]

All Twitter has to do is move its official headquarters to the Channel Islands Greenland and it is no longer an American company.

I can't speak on behalf of our Northern Atlantic brothers, but Twitter may face 14 days of quarantine.

 

[C_Felix]

To me, the key issue/question, is going to be, "Does putting a link below a tweet stating, '! Get the facts about (mail in ballots)'" count as editing?

(And, as discussed, it putting a link below does count as editing, the platform moves from providing a voice to being an editor of content.)

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Much has already been said about the vagueness and pointlessness of Trump's latest EO about section 230. No serious legal expert thinks it has any legs.

It's funny that conservatives think adding liability to social media companies would result in more freedom for conservative opinion. If social media giants suddenly became liable for things posted on their platforms, moderation and censorship is going to go through the roof. You can say goodbye to pretty much every right wing crank on the platform, because many of them are advocating for medical misinformation or open violence of some form or another that these tech giants aren't going to want to get sued over.

Conservatives already have mostly free reign on the internet. A crack-down would only make things worse for them.

 

[Horatius]

Conservatives already have mostly free reign on the internet. A crack-down would only make things worse for them.

And that shows just how stupid and delusional this crowd is. If they really think they're going to come out ahead in this mess, they're nuts.

 

[BobTheCoward]

Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of it. On the one hand, I do think it's dangerous to have a company like youtube having so much power to exercise censorship, because although they are technically a private company, their near monopoly gives them almost governmental power.

Youtube is an entertainment product. It is in competition with things like....going outside. It doesn't not have a near monopoly.

 

[Giordano]

To provide some actual information as to the political leanings of social media and censorship: if anything Facebook predominantly displays conservative and right wing views. Trump’s presence on social media is particularly overwhelming:

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/05/28/media/trump-social-media-conservative-censorship/index.html

 

[pharphis]

Today, Donald Trump issued an executive order regarding "censorship" on social media.

You can read the order here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/

It's an interesting order. The core issue is that once upon a time, in a section of the Communications Decency Act, there was a provision that declared internet sites to be people providing a place for speech, as opposed to publishing content. In other words, my words here are not the opinion of ISF. ISF is just presenting a platform that I, and a lot of other people, can post in. They are not publishing my work, so ISF cannot be held to account if I say something bad.

The basis of that judgement is that they aren't picking and choosing what goes in here. They are just providing a platform.

As part of that act, media giants like Twitter (I don't know if it existed yet, but maybe Myspace would be a better example) would also be allowed to eliminate "harmful" material, like pornography. Court rulings had said that if they edited data, removing objectionable material, that meant that they ceased being a public platform, and became a publisher, because they were influencing the content. The CDA provision got rid of that idea, at least in part.

From 230 (lifted from wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secti..._230's_protections_for_Big_Tech_(2016-present))

"obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected", as long as they act "in good faith" in this action."

With the highlighted it seems to have a catch-all that allows websites to moderate whatever they want for whatever reason they want, and not be held responsible as publishers for this action, if I understand correctly. So it's even more general than "harmful" material (they get to decide what is "otherwise objectionable", don't they?)

I think the big problem with Trump blocking people is that, on twitter, if a person blocks you, you can't even see their tweets:


So they had the situation where Trump's tweets were "Official statements from the POTUS", but certain US citizens weren't allowed to even read them, just because they had personally annoyed Trump. We obviously wouldn't accept that situation for other types of official communications, so they said Trump wasn't allowed to block people on Twitter.

Yes, but that only applies in you're logged in. The simple fix is to: log out.

Sure, you won't be able to comment on that in that tweet thread... but you can comment anywhere else in the world on it. I don't see blocking as a first amendment issue or an issue of preventing people from seeing the president's tweets.

 

[Giordano]

I too share concerns about social media, but I also am well aware that evil people inevitably seek to cloud their agenda by cloaking it to appear to have good intentions. Believing that Trump’s actions have any goal but to intimidate and to suppress the ability of others to counter his lies is naive. One can count on the executive order to be selectively enforced to punish Trump’s opponents and to stifle their freedom of speech. Have any of Trump’s actions to date, or his behavior in general, provided any, any reason to believe otherwise? Why, in fact, did he formulate and announce this order in the first place? Because Twitter dared, for the first time, to suggest that maybe one of his many lies might be less than fully accurate.

Absolutely a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

 

[Giordano]

Youtube is an entertainment product. It is in competition with things like....going outside. It doesn't not have a near monopoly.

Gee Bob, I actually find myself agreeing with much of the spirit of this your post. I find YouTube very entertaining but not essential. I never did understand the attraction of Facebook. In theory anyone could set up a website that competes with either of these. However there really is a frightening amount of money, and therefore power, behind the social media sites. And financial deals that link the giants into even bigger entities.

It worries me, although I don’t know what the correct response should be.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

As POTUS, Trump has every possible way to get a message out if he wants to - that he made himself wholly depended on Twitter shouldn't be Twitter's problem.

 

[Meadmaker]

Youtube is an entertainment product. It is in competition with things like....going outside. It doesn't not have a near monopoly.

In my opinion, CNN and Fox News are also entertainment products. That's the problem.


But, regardless of the big picture source of Youtube's revenue, it is also a source of political information.

As I noted earlier, this lawsuit was triggered by Twitter fact-checking Trump's tweets, but the executive order has more to do with Dennis Praeger than anyone else. He has been involved in a long running legal dispute with Google/YouTube because they have put many of his videos on a "restricted list", normally used for sexual content, so that they are not found in normal searches.

 

[I Am The Scum]

I think the big problem with Trump blocking people is that, on twitter, if a person blocks you, you can't even see their tweets

This is not accurate. The problem is that Twitter, in this case, is acting as a public forum, like a town hall meeting. A town hall meeting is not allowed to engage in viewpoint-based discrimination when it comes to public input. This is true even if the meeting is held in a privately-owned convention center. As such, it applies to a digital discussion forum, as well.