Could govt legislate to keep social media neutral?

[alani123]

Given Trump's recent executive order, I'm inspired to ask the forum's thoughts on the matter. For context:
Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship

Let's not focus on what might've been Trump's motivation for the above. I'd rather discuss if such measures are good at serving any purpose.
First of all, in the case of the U.S., such measures could find their way into higher courts and be deemed unconstitutional sooner of later. Constitutionality is a whole other discussions. But the merits of such a measure is worth debating IMO.
Really, on what merits could one bring such measures forward?
Should platforms really be forced to host content and opinions they might not agree with? Is it worth to offend the rights of a corporation over alleged censorship? One might argue that moderation on social media is much like decisions made by owners on private property. You have the right to what you do with your back yard, and by extension, you can control who enters and what behaviors are permitted. If we remove this right from owners of social media companies, then we let the government play referee on what speech is allowed instead.
Personally, I'd rather have people question the integrity of platforms they spend their time on, and rather start relying on personal filtering to create an environment they feel comfortable in, other that expecting the platform to provide for such, or trusting the government to arbitrate between platforms and politicians about what forms of speech should have a platform or not. I think a change of mindset is needed more, which might sound too idealistic at the moment, but the alternatives to social media are already out there. I'd rather just see people educating themselves on trustlessness other than expecting the government to fix freedom of speech. Govt should focus on not interfering when it comes to speech, not policing platforms.

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[jackg]

Facebook, tritter and a few other companies moved a lot of their operations to ireland for tax purposes... What's to say they won't do the same for "intellectual property" purposes (at least to ensure european media isn't corrupted in the same way)...

I don't think the US has the capabilities to take on the EU (in all honesty - there's a point where they won't be able to push them further and that's probably the point)...

There may be a fine line between wrong and partially correct too (and few things are wholly correct)

[acroman08]

social media and media should have been neutral in the first place they are a source of information which millions of people rely on, and believes in them to give proper, correct and unbiased information. if they can't do that or they get offended on something that they don't agree with and decides to censor it they are nothing but a propaganda machine pushing the agenda they believe in(I am talking about all the media and social media platform).

[Coyster]

imo the government should not interfere in social media activities, it's censorship, what it hosts and doesn't etc; this media houses have their own 'laws' and their restrictions and users on those platforms would not be censored if they do not break any of those laws, and will express themselves freely.

The media should at all times remain indepent of the government. The media is a very strong point in our century and any government that controls the media becomes too powerful, I've seen some governments try to gag and control what is posted on social media to their own favor and this only creates a totalitarian government.

[alani123]

Facebook, tritter and a few other companies moved a lot of their operations to ireland for tax purposes... What's to say they won't do the same for "intellectual property" purposes (at least to ensure european media isn't corrupted in the same way)...

I don't think the US has the capabilities to take on the EU (in all honesty - there's a point where they won't be able to push them further and that's probably the point)...

There may be a fine line between wrong and partially correct too (and few things are wholly correct)

Governments have some negotiating power in that regard. They could do more so money earned by social media companies through their nationals gets taxed more and leverage this bargaining power to make social media companies cave in some of their demands. I thin it would be much like how Facebook caved into policing "fake news" and controlling political ads while Mark was initially opposed.
I don't think it's a EU vs. US matter. US companies the primary income source of social media. They are paying for ads on social media company earnings are getting taxed elsewhere, then legislators could play it as so they can put their own spin on it and pressure them by threatening tariffs etc to restrict the flow of capital. Now that I think of it, the U.S. two party system probably has a well vested interest to make social media their own mouthpiece.

[squatz1]

Facebook, tritter and a few other companies moved a lot of their operations to ireland for tax purposes... What's to say they won't do the same for "intellectual property" purposes (at least to ensure european media isn't corrupted in the same way)...

I don't think the US has the capabilities to take on the EU (in all honesty - there's a point where they won't be able to push them further and that's probably the point)...

There may be a fine line between wrong and partially correct too (and few things are wholly correct)

Not exactly sure on the tax purposes or what they did here, I'm assuming that this surrounds something where Twitter, Facebook (and honestly many large companies around the world) park money in Ireland and wait for then best time to repatriate it when they have a need to use it. Makes sense from a business perspective,

But back onto the topic here, the situation when it comes to government legislation is a real horrid one. The last thing all of us want is the big hand of government to try to fix things -- government doesn't fix things, all they'd do is ruin innovation in the social media space. Remember - Government regulation TYPICALLY only helps the big companies that are already established and have the money to deal with regulatory concerns.

Don't kill innovation, don't censor companies that are trying to ensure that their platform is what advertisers want it to be. Come on folks.

[Cnut237]

Given Trump's recent executive order, I'm inspired to ask the forum's thoughts on the matter. For context:
Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship

This is all about section 230, as mentioned repeatedly in that link. Previously companies could be either i) distributors of information, in which case they let everything through unfiltered and have no legal responsibility for any of it, or ii) they could moderate their platforms, in which case they became legally liable for anything that was published on it. 230 is really the basis of the modern social internet, in that it allowed moderation without acceptance of legal responsibility.

So what does he hope to achieve here? There's no way that totally unmoderated content is acceptable; that would allow loads of truly horrific and illegal stuff through. But if he doesn't want moderation, what's the alternative?

[alani123]

Given Trump's recent executive order, I'm inspired to ask the forum's thoughts on the matter. For context:
Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship

This is all about section 230, as mentioned repeatedly in that link. Previously companies could be either i) distributors of information, in which case they let everything through unfiltered and have no legal responsibility for any of it, or ii) they could moderate their platforms, in which case they became legally liable for anything that was published on it. 230 is really the basis of the modern social internet, in that it allowed moderation without acceptance of legal responsibility.

So what does he hope to achieve here? There's no way that totally unmoderated content is acceptable; that would allow loads of truly horrific and illegal stuff through. But if he doesn't want moderation, what's the alternative?

It's not unlikely that the passed legislation will be a fuck you to trump, or at best, not willing to fulfill any political motives he might be eyeing with such legislation. Who knows, we can only wait and see. But it will be interesting.

[BADecker]

Government has trouble legislating anything that people don't really like. Why? Because it isn't in the general authority of government to do this.

People developed the blockchain to make money neutral. If a blockchain was privately developed for media, it might be free for everybody to report anything without censoring.