Quit pretending you were ever outraged about social media “censorship” prior to Trump whining about it.See my previous post for the actions that I am talking about.No, its not.This is the appropriate remedy.“Today, I am signing an Executive Order to protect and uphold the free speech and rights of the American people,” Trump declared. “Currently, social media giants like Twitter receive an unprecedented liability shield based on the theory that they’re a neutral platform, which they are not, not an editor with a viewpoint.
My executive order calls for new regulations under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make it so that social media companies that engage in censoring or any political conduct will not be able to keep their liability shield.
My executive order further instructs the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to prohibit social media companies from engaging in any deceptive acts or practices regarding commerce.”
The United States Government should not be in the business of picking select companies to reward with liability shields, especially when they operate in ways that are against the US Constitution and Constitutional Rights.
The President did NOT take action to stop Twitters and other private companies from operating as they so choose but took action to remove govt protections that prevent them from having to face the consequences of their choice to operate their companies as they choose.
The President did not strip Twitter of anything that was 'theirs'. He just acted to deny giving companies like Twitter protections they did not earn and did not deserve.
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He had no right to shut them down, and his threats to do so were quite troubling.
But, this is every bit appropriate if they are going to continue to use Section 230 as both a sword and a shield. Either be a publication or be a provider.
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They are not editorializing, they are censoring content on their own damn property. There is no reason that they should be liable for the bad comments of others on their site.
They sensor here (and they do so in a manner that can be construed to be political). Should I be able to sue usmessageboards because you libel me? This is a sick case of Trump using the government to control the public message.
You are quite correct about "bad comments", if what you're talking about is foul language, racist remarks, threats of violence, harassment and stalking . . . if what you mean by "bad comments" is "opinions I don't agree with", that's something else. And by picking and choosing who can and can't post and what they can and can't post, they are actually MAKING themselves liable, arguably, for the content.
Who is censoring according to political content on USMB? Cite an example.
Picking who can and cannot post is not editorializing. That is just not the same thing. Disallowing Joe Noone from posting does not equate to making an affirmative statement.
I never said it was editorializing. I said it was censoring.