Yeah, and Koch had a cameo in “The Muppets Take Manhattan!”
A clue lies in how Trump pronounces China.
1 Like
My skepticism wasn’t aimed at you, more at the Trumpster.
1 Like
Republican lawmakers aren’t afraid of Trump, they’re hoping he succeeds in his illegal power grab, because that helps them hang onto power too.
3 Likes
How does he pronounce it? Sinae/Sinai? Cathay/Kate? Citae/Kitai? Tchina/90ina? Tcheina/90eina? Han?
dʒaɪnə
1 Like
1 Like
…that they’re still not wearing masks.
2 Likes
(from Bruce Reed’s article)
[…] we must concede that given the way federal courts have interpreted telecommunications law, some of Facebook’s highest crimes are now considered legal. It may not have been against the law to livestream the massacre of 51 people at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand or the suicide of a 12-year-old girl in the state of Georgia. Courts have cleared the company of any legal responsibility for violent attacks spawned by Facebook accounts tied to Hamas. It’s not illegal for Facebook posts to foment attacks on refugees in Europe or try to end democracy as we know it in America.
There’s a hell of a lot to criticize Facebook for, but how on earth is any streaming platform or communications platform supposed to pre-emptively prevent these kinds of things? Do they need to hire an army of people to monitor every thing every one of their users does 24/7?
The Christchurch thing was only live for around 17 minutes, and Facebook took pretty prompt action to try to remove any copies of it as well as censor people supporting the sicko. How does that end up being one of “Facebook’s highest crimes”?
6 Likes
Comstockian prior restraint got iced by 1st amendment decisions decades before section 230 codified it.
1 Like
You mean like Anthony Comstock?
2 Likes
This paper well summarizes Comstock’s nefarious activities.
Cato Institute Policy Analysis No. 232:
New Age Comstockery: Exon vs. the Internet
1 Like
He was the postmaster general a hundred-plus years ago. Sort of J Edgar’s role model. He hounded people to death, had mail opened for everyone who was anybody on the left.
1 Like
Problem is, with an axed 230, F—book will survive. We won’t. F—book can afford an army of moderators. We can’t. A single bad actor – say, any one of the people who’ve flounced from here or been kicked out – could bring this entire board down with a single report.
The Other Place already has plans to axe the entire BBS if 230 goes, because they already deal with attacks from bad actors and they can’t afford to be legally liable. Neither can we.
So, the big guys like F—book, Twitter and Oracle are salivating at the idea of losing 230, because they can afford the army of mods, and will soon become the only choice for people who want the web. They can afford the legal challenges. Smaller, independent sites can’t.
Like us.
7 Likes
Yeah, I know who he is - I’ve read enough histories of entertainment and literature and the mails, lol. He was pre-Hays. Just another asshole given power as a reward.
2 Likes
Absolutely, that fact really gets me worried when reading the kind of horrible argument that’s in that article.
I’ve seen this argument before, and I mostly agree with it… but I’m not entirely sure they can afford what they would need. The sheer amount of content that needs moderating is already a serious problem that they’ve pushed large reserves into, and most of the current legal liability is in copyright. And there’s already segments of the population pushing the idea that they moderate too much.
How much worse is that going to get if they suddenly have to judge legal liability for any little thing posted by any user? AI would probably help, but as we already know just from its use in copyright, it’s no magic bullet - how is it going to deal with the subjectivity of the vast array of other laws that would need constant judgement?
4 Likes
At what point will people who can hear the articles of impeachment be willing to act on the clear danger Trump poses to us all?
1 Like
Absolutely agree. If the protections afforded by 230 go away and aren’t replaced by something better, this place ceases to exist, full stop. This site exists precisely because another site choose to exercise its discretion under 230 in a way that a number of its users did not agree with. That doesn’t make section 230 bad, or at fault. If you want to run a website like a doofus, I support(from afar) your ability to do so, and section 230 enables that. It also enables me to run this website like a doofus, but hopefully a friendlier one. 
Here’s a good, in-depth article on Section 230:
6 Likes
In 1994, an anonymous user made a series of potentially defamatory statements about a securities firm called Stratton Oakmont, claiming on a Prodigy message board that a pending stock offering was fraudulent and its president was a “major criminal.” The company sued Prodigy for defamation in New York state court.
The Stratton Oakmont?
3 Likes