GOP's latest attack on Section 230

[Midsize Jake]

Sorry, I missed this. It's a few weeks old now, but still relevant.

Well, technically that's the Democrats' latest attack on Section 230, not the GOP's.

Meanwhile, this was just posted on Slate a few minutes ago — written by Mike Godwin, no less:

Clarence Thomas Is Begging Someone to Sue Over Conservatives’ Most-Hated Internet Law

And because it's Godwin, he mentions Wikipedia a couple of times, something most of the current crop of articles haven't been doing.

Still, it seems to be a fairly reasonable prediction of what the right-wingers will do if they lose both houses of Congress as well as the White House in the upcoming election. Clarence Thomas & Co. want to add the concept of hands-off, non-participatory "information distributors" to the current "information service provider" and "content provider" distinctions, with distributors being the only operators who get liability protections as long as they don't flag Trump's posts as false or dangerous. Striking down the law as "unconstitutional," as if the people who wrote the Constitution ever even considered the possibility of global distributed computer networks, would force the Democrats to replace it with something more to Thomas's liking — assuming they don't do the smart thing and just pack the court ASAP.

In the unlikely event that they do get their way, that could effectively force Facebook and Twitter to not interfere with the right-wing propaganda machine... but on the plus side, Wikipedia probably wouldn't survive in its current form at all, and would have to make major changes of the sort we've been suggesting for over 15 years now.

[Poetlister]

Parler CEO says Facebook, Twitter 'not acting in good faith'

John Matze, cofounder of Twitter competitor Parler, said Friday that Facebook and Twitter are not "acting in good faith" in line with Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Section 230 gives liability protections to internet platforms and social media websites that allow third-party users to publish content, but it also states that platforms must act "in good faith" when they voluntarily take action against material that it deems "objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected." Matze praised Section 230 as "a good idea" for tech companies like Parler, but said the problem with Facebook and Twitter is that they are "not acting in good faith" during an interview on FOX Business' "Mornings with Maria."

Fox News

I'm not familiar with Parler but I assume it's a Fox News version of Twitter and is therefore a good guy and entitled to protection.

[Daniel Brandt]

Changes needed on Wikipedia:

1) The Wikimedia Foundation must be more hands-on in matters that involve content related to living persons. Jimbo should resign from any Foundation business related to content on Wikipedia. He has demonstrated over the years that he is not qualified to make decisions about content on Wikipedia.

2) The Foundation must initiate a clearly-defined process that enables living persons who are named in Wikipedia articles, to either answer and/or correct those articles, or at that person's discretion have their name deleted from those articles.

3) If the Foundation claims any sort of immunity regarding content in Wikipedia articles, the originating editors or contributors of such articles must be identified by their real names and U.S. location. If these editors are not U.S.-based or otherwise not liable under U.S. laws, then the Foundation is liable unless they delete the relevant content from those articles.

[Poetlister]

Changes needed on Wikipedia:

1) The Wikimedia Foundation must be more hands-on in matters that involve content related to living persons. Jimbo should resign from any Foundation business related to content on Wikipedia. He has demonstrated over the years that he is not qualified to make decisions about content on Wikipedia.

2) The Foundation must initiate a clearly-defined process that enables living persons who are named in Wikipedia articles, to either answer and/or correct those articles, or at that person's discretion have their name deleted from those articles.

3) If the Foundation claims any sort of immunity regarding content in Wikipedia articles, the originating editors or contributors of such articles must be identified by their real names and U.S. location. If these editors are not U.S.-based or otherwise not liable under U.S. laws, then the Foundation is liable unless they delete the relevant content from those articles.

This is all very sensible, though of course it is unlikely to happen. (3) in particular would mean that every US editor would have to be validated; that is quite inconceivable. It would be great for stopping sockpuppetry of course.

[Daniel Brandt]

This is all very sensible, though of course it is unlikely to happen. (3) in particular would mean that every US editor would have to be validated; that is quite inconceivable. It would be great for stopping sockpuppetry of course.

This is not particularly shocking. Think of a newspaper: you have the publisher, the editor, and a gaggle of reporters, usng real names on their bylines. There's a ton of case law regarding liability for those engaged in reporting. When Seigenthaler first saw his bogus "article" on Wikipedia, he contacted Southern Bell because someone found out that this is who owned the IP address on that libelous stub of an "article." Seigenthaler reported that Bell's lawyers wouldn't tell him anything. That's not surprising either; there's a long tradition of not holding telephone companies responsible for what their subscribers do over the telephone.

It's only shocking that Section 230 has allowed Jimmy Wales, who has the Wikimedia Foundation in his back pocket, to run amuck for 20 years or so. It's shocking that he allows bigshot administrators and editors, such as Essjay and Slimvirgin, to do whatever they want on Wikipedia. If you repeal Section 230 then everything changes. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen if you keep it repealed instead of tinkering with the language of that section.

Imagine a newspaper where the top editors and reporters are anonymous to the world, with zero supervision from the publisher, who lives abroad. Just repeal Section 230. If Wikipedia has to start over or die, that's okay by me.

[el84]

So if this were to go through, would Wikipedia have to basically remove themselves from any physical location in the USA, and then geoblock all USA IPs from accessing the site? I can't see any other way of complying with point (3) stated above other than deleting all the affected content.

Since the implementation of GDPR, some United States sites have been blocking EU/UK IPs from accessing their content because they don't want to comply with GDPR regulations, so I see that WMF would have to do something similar.

[Daniel Brandt]

That's a tough question from el84. The answer is, "Nobody knows." But for the sake of argument, let's assume that Section 230 is repealed outright, with no conditions attached to this in the language of the repeal.

My best guess is that the Wikimedia Foundation would have to get busy. First, they'd have to make an internal list all BLP articles. This would include movie stars and even retirees, as there are no doubt some Hollywood "Greta Garbo" types out there who are retired, and now prefer a quiet life.

Next, WMF would have to internally list the Wikipedia editor who started the original stub on each BLP. Then they'd have to invite each of these editors to reveal their real name and address, with the understanding that this information will be posted on the article by the WMF in order to avoid WMF's possible liability.

It might be easier for the WMF to just delete all BLP articles, and wait to hear from the original Wikipedia editor or from the subject of the BLP. If they can negotiate a reasonable solution that absolves the WMF of liability, the article can stay. But it would still have to be locked down, with a date stamp on the lockdown notice.

What about articles that are not BLPs, but have one or two sentences in the article that names someone or some corporation that complains to the WMF? The WMF should just delete the offending material, and leave a note in the comments section that WMF deleted "objectional" material consisting of XXX sentences, without naming names in this comment.

[Poetlister]

Big tech's biggest shield is under fire from all 3 branches of government — here's how repealing Section 230 went from a Trump threat to an impending reality

After years of threats, the US government appears closer than ever to stripping away one of Big Tech's biggest shields. In the weeks before the election, President Donald Trump has called with growing urgency for the repeal of Section 230, a law that prevents internet companies from being held liable for the content of users' posts as long as they make a good faith effort to remove illegal content. This week, officials mounted more immediate threats to the law that could fundamentally reshape the internet and its biggest companies.

Business Insider

[Midsize Jake]

A new bill from the Democrats: The Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act.

This one basically denies the immunity shield to large operators (apparently based on visitor count, not registered-user count, but see below) if they have recommendation/suggestion-making code in their software to steer users towards harmful content — in other words, Youtube and Facebook. So essentially it's an anti-QAnon et al bill — maybe it could be used more broadly than that, but unlike the Republicans' "plan," not to mention Section 230 itself, it's quite specific in its intent.

To wit, it restricts shield-denial only to cases involving "conspiracy to interfere with civil rights" (42 USC 1985), "actions for neglect to prevent" such conspiracies (42 USC 1986), and terrorism cases (18 USC 2333, though it's not clear if this only applies to international terrorism or if the domestic variety is also included).

AFAIK-AISK, Wikipedia doesn't use a suggestion algorithm, at least not of the type Youtube and Facebook use, and it's rarely used to recruit terrorists or to attack people's civil rights (though I guess that might depend on how you define "civil rights"). So WP should be safe from this one, even though they wouldn't qualify under the "small business exception" due to the amount of traffic they get. The authors of this bill are slightly more clear about the visitors vs. registered-users distinction, but unfortunately they do use the words "or users" in the relevant section when it might be better if they didn't:

SMALL BUSINESS EXCEPTION.—This paragraph shall not apply to an interactive computer service that (in combination with each subsidiary and affiliate of the service) has 50,000,000 or fewer unique monthly visitors or users for a majority of the preceding 12 months.

Something like this could probably pass if the Democrats take the US Senate, which would be great because if you're familiar with these recommendation algorithms at all, you already know how insidiously evil they are. (Of course, the soon-to-be-far-right Supreme Court might strike it down as part of their ideological support for insidious evil.)

Anyway, it's just too bad that it doesn't cover stuff that Wikipedia does. "Baby steps," I guess.

[Midsize Jake]

These guys don't waste time! Within 48 hours of SCOTUS declining the MalwareBytes case, the Trump FCC is now taking their shot a it, with just days to go before the election...

The FCC General Counsel's office has now published their legal rationale for taking over the Section 230 Interpretation business.

This document doesn't contain any actual rulings, of course (the commissioners do that stuff), but given the fact that the election is just days away, I think we can expect some sort of ruling very quickly. My guess would be that they'll allow for some sort of comment period on such a ruling (again, this is typically 60 days); there could easily several lawsuits ready and waiting to be filed whose success would depend on such rulings, and if so, we could see something as early as next week. Maybe even tomorrow.

As I've probably already mentioned, it's extremely disturbing and embarrassing to me that the same arguments I've used in the past (regarding the overly-broad scope of Section 230) are now being used by Republican hacks to justify penalizing people and organizations whose only transgression is that they occasionally put warning tags on dangerously sub-moronic things the President tweets during his nightly Adderall jags. My concern, and IMO our concern here has always been anonymous personal defamation, not bogus "censorship" claims by sociopathic narcissists and their enablers. Maybe that's just what The Year 2020 is all about, and maybe I should just accept it at this point... Unfortunately, none of this changes the fact that this law has always been interpreted too broadly, and it was going to blow up in everybody's face eventually, somehow.

[Poetlister]

Everyone Is Still Talking About Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

In a recent post, we addressed the US Department of Justice’s recent recommendations to reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) to provide incentives for online platforms to address illicit material on their platforms, and the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (PACT), legislation proposed by two US senators that is also aimed at reforming Section 230 of the CDA. Since the time of that post, we’ve continued to track developments regarding Section 230 of the CDA and we have some updates for our readers.

Lexology

[Poetlister]

Section 230 and the Supreme Court: Is Too Late Worse Than Never?

The Supreme Court recently denied a request to clarify the meaning of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which, as interpreted by lower courts, immunizes internet platforms from liability for user conduct. But Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately to explain why the views the current dominant interpretation of Section 230 to be overbroad, arguing that the Supreme Court should, at some point in the future, correct this mistake.

I'm of two minds as to Thomas's statement. On the one hand, I agree with his legal analysis that lower courts wrongly read far more expansive liability protections into the law than Congress intended. On the other hand, I'm frustrated: Why has it taken until now for a justice to pay attention to Section 230?

Lawfareblog

[Midsize Jake]

I'm of two minds as to Thomas's statement. On the one hand, I agree with his legal analysis that lower courts wrongly read far more expansive liability protections into the law than Congress intended. On the other hand, I'm frustrated: Why has it taken until now for a justice to pay attention to Section 230?

Of all the pieces I've read about this since the issue sort-of blew up back in late May, this might be the one I like the most. He doesn't mention Wikipedia (or any other specific internet entity), but he understands the historical context, knows what's at stake, and seems reasonably well-dressed.

[Daniel Brandt]

It wasn't Rozenshtein's intention, but he presents a good argument for my position. That is to say, just pass a one-sentence law that says Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act is hereby null and void.

Then see what happens down the road.

Maybe Google, Facebook, Twitter, et.al. will collectively buy out the U.S. economy and declare the U.S. government and its Constitution null and void. If that happens, at least no one will be starting up another war in southeast Asia anytime soon. And no more silly debates from candidates for President!

[Vigilant]

You're smoking crack if you think the House would ever pass a repeal of the CDA.

And Section 230 is not getting reined in anytime soon, either.

The best outcome that could be hoped for would be a series of Sherman anti-trust actions that break up big tech and, maybe, allow for some modifications to 230 in a decade or so.

[Poetlister]

Are You Sure Section 230 Is What’s Bothering You?

So, what if I maliciously and knowingly write something false here about the poke bowl place a block away from me? I’d clearly be liable, but my poke friends would probably want to go after deeper pockets. Slate would be on the hook, too (sorry, guys) as the creator of the content that would also be published on its website. But who else? I called up Jeff Kosseff to walk through the chain of defamatory liability to find out.

Slate

[Midsize Jake]

You're smoking crack if you think the House would ever pass a repeal of the CDA.

And Section 230 is not getting reined in anytime soon, either.

Well... "reined in" isn't the term I would use, but the latest bill from the Democrats suggests that they, too, may want to disapply it selectively to sites that help conspiracy-mongers, just as the Republicans want to disapply it selectively to sites that say mean things about Trump.

If you're saying the most-likely outcome here is that nothing will happen, then I agree with you... but that said, the FCC's involvement is a new wrinkle. A lot of this depends on how close the vote counts are on the day after the election. If the results are close enough that the Republicans think they can steal the election by just getting one or two states to either throw out their mail-in ballots or throw out their voting results altogether (most likely this would be Wisconsin and/or Pennsylvania), Trump is going to want full cooperation from Twitter and the other platforms for whatever bullshit he wants to post about "fraudulent" ballots and other things that will have never happened, not to mention that he'll want to use Twitter to exhort the neo-Nazi militias to get their guns and head on over to wherever they're counting votes. (Or worse.)

That means the newly-self-empowered FCC will have to rule on eliminating Section 230 protections for "anti-conservative censorship" very soon, i.e., early next week. It will all still probably amount to nothing, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.

[Midsize Jake]

The folks at Axios have written a nice summary of the current situation regarding the FCC's involvement, but I'm not sure I agree with this part of their conclusion:

...If Trump loses reelection next month, any project to have the FCC chip away at Section 230 — or use that attempt as a vehicle to have the Supreme Court do it — is dead in the water.

Even if the Democrats take the Senate, their majority won't be veto-proof, and even that won't happen until Jan. 7th. So in that scenario, it's only "dead in the water" after Biden takes over on Jan. 20th. That gives the Republicans 10 weeks, with a compliant far-right Supreme Court and an interventionist FCC, to file as many lawsuits as they can against the Big Platforms in "friendly jurisdictions." Even if all of those lawsuits are ultimately thrown out, there could be a lot of legal intimidation happening during those 10 weeks. And during the first half of that period they'll be fighting tooth-and-nail to get states to throw out their election results too, so they'll have already moved waaaaay past the point where negative PR is going to matter to them.

This might sound like a worst-case scenario, but what if the Republicans manage to get a case in front of the fascist SCotUS before New Year's Day that allows them to strike down Section 230? Even with both Houses of Congress and the White House in Democratic hands, the Dems will have no choice but to replace it — and will probably have to expand the Court to ensure that doesn't get struck down along with the ACA, reproductive rights, marriage rights, etc. Generally speaking that would be a good outcome, but I'd be willing to bet serious money that the "new" Section 230 immunity shield will look like a piece of Swiss Cheese compared to the old one.

[Midsize Jake]

This is getting a little silly, but FWIW, here's another bill, this time from one-term House Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL-17). This one rather explicitly tries to impose S230 disapplications (though they're temporary this time, only lasting one year each), along with $500K fines, whenever a platform causes an "adverse incident" in which their actions are not "reasonably consistent with the First Amendment to the Constitution." It also adds a few paragraphs about child porn, presumably to give the Republicans at least some political benefit (i.e., so they can say "the Democrats voted in favor of child porn!") if it somehow ever came to a vote.

It would be nice if Republicans like this Steube guy would actually read the First Amendment to the Constitution before submitting this kind of legislation, but I guess that's asking too much. This one also defines "market dominance" by revenue, not actual internet traffic, and penalty-wise it pretty much limits itself to "market-dominant" services. So, unfortunately, Wikipedia would be safe even if it somehow passed — which it won't.

[Vigilant]

I suspect one of the reasons the GOP won't call for Sherman anti-trust actions is because they support most other monopolies and wouldn't want to see the ball get rolling in that direction.

[Midsize Jake]

I suspect one of the reasons the GOP won't call for Sherman anti-trust actions is because they support most other monopolies and wouldn't want to see the ball get rolling in that direction.

I'm guessing the Democrats offered to add a special new "carve-out" to Section 230 that would explicitly allow the GOP guys to tweet anything they want about Hunter Biden without consequences, if only to get them to go along with that idea, but then someone reminded them that Bills of Attainder are unconstitutional.

Anyway, assuming anyone is still trying to keep score at this point, this piece on mondaq.com (written by some lawyers working for this firm) is probably the most complete run-down (or various bills and "calls for action") I've seen so far.

I mention this because it looks like the folks working on Wikipedia's Section 230 (T-H-L) article have pretty much given up themselves, for now at least — they don't mention the Steube bill in the current version, and nobody seems to have even noticed the Budd bill at all, including us... though I guess that's because it's really just a "companion" to the Josh Hawley bill from earlier this year, which is already a dead issue. Presumably everyone is focused on the election now, so maybe the WP folks will fill that in later. (Not that any of these bills have any chance of passing, or even being considered in most cases.)

[Poetlister]

The latest Section 230 hearing showed that Republicans want to make the internet smaller

We know what happens when you add liability to tech platforms, but lawmakers want to hear it

The dream with this sort of thing is that Congress shows up with a full command of the issues, and asks the CEOs good-faith questions about matters of policy and law. And then I’d come along at the end of the day to walk you through the more provocative questions and productive answers, and gesture at what likely policy outcomes we could expect from this exercise in representative democracy.

But “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big Tech Bad Behavior?,” a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, was not that kind of exercise. The word “sham” got kicked around a lot, especially by the participants. “Stunt,” too. Some of the Democrats declined to ask any questions at all.

It was not the first of these...

The Verge

[Midsize Jake]

This story slipped right by me, and it explains why the FCC hasn't acted yet on their newly self-appointed role as the Official Section 230 Interpreter, as I'd thought they would. Apparently the term is ending for one of the existing commissioners, Michael O'Rielly (T-H-L), and he was going to be renominated for another term, but at some point he "expressed reservations" about the FCC's authority to interpret Section 230 and said that the First Amendment actually prevented the FCC from "interfering with social media platforms." So Trump rescinded his nomination and chose a guy named Nathan Simington instead — apparently this is the guy who drafted the Executive Order directing the FCC to interpret and interfere, so there's not much doubt about how he's going to vote on that issue.

Congress, With Nothing Important On Its Hands, Seeks To Rush Through Nomination Of Anti-230 FCC Commissioner

There's no Wikipedia article on Simington yet, but his Senate confirmation hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 10, just a week from now, which will be right smack in the middle of Trump's efforts to steal the election (assuming he loses — the fun starts tomorrow, but we probably won't have final counts from most states for a couple of weeks).

[Poetlister]

Movement in Washington on Section 230

Various lawmakers, government officials and a Supreme Court justice continue to signal a willingness to revisit Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the law that gives internet platforms some immunity from liability for content posted by others on their sites.

Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press

[Poetlister]

A Year of Content Moderation and Section 230

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is a critical but widely misunderstood law. Passed in 1996, Section 230 includes two key provisions, the so‐​called “sword” and “shield” of the law. The shield states that interactive computer services are not – with few exceptions – the publisher of content users upload to the interactive computer service. The sword portion of the law states that such services are free to moderate content as they see fit. Although social media platforms are the most discussed institutions in Section 230 debates, interactive computer services also include websites such as Wikipedia and Reddit as well as comments sections such as those found on newspaper websites.

Cato Institute

[Daniel Brandt]

The "Wayback Machine" (also known as "Archive.org") is planning on a new effort to "fact check" entries. See: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/505437-interne ... ery-slope/

My first impression is that this is a clever way to Cover Your Ass in a "post-Section 230" world. Facebook and Twitter, for example, are now more active when it comes to deleting material, or adding qualifiers to user's posts. These are a CYA effort if I ever saw one. (If it wasn't for YouTube, Google would probably not get included along with Facebook and Twitter when it comes to hearings in Congress, but so far Google seems relatively unworried.)

But I can see where Wayback has a problem. Presently it seems possible to write a program that would isolate all Wikipedia "Talk" pages and pull out all that insane crap that has accumulated over the years. I see no evidence that the Wikimedia Foundation has informed their engineers that they don't want ANYBODY crawling ANY "Talk" pages. Whether that material ends up on Google's index or on Wayback's index, it could become actionable at some point in a post-Section 230 world.

Considering recent events, it seems reasonable for Wayback to create the impression that they are trying to conform to new Internet standards of decency and responsibility. It makes them look better. But it's such a huge task to do it properly, that I suspect it's mostly Wayback's hot air at this point.

[Poetlister]

How long has this been going on? The RT article links to The Hustle dated September 28, 2018. Is there a link to the Archive.org blog? RT has of course a strong POV so it might be helpful to review what Archive.org itself says.

[Daniel Brandt]

Poetlister:

I don't have any answers, but I know that the Internet is going to hell in a handbasket.

I found a long essay (47 pages) that is worth reading:

Digital Realignment: Rebalancing Platform Economies from Corporation to Consumer
Dipayan Ghosh and Nick Couldry
Harvard Kennedy School & London School of Economics and Political Science
October 26, 2020

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/defau ... _final.pdf

[Poetlister]

Poetlister:

I don't have any answers, but I know that the Internet is going to hell in a handbasket.

I found a long essay (47 pages) that is worth reading:

Digital Realignment: Rebalancing Platform Economies from Corporation to Consumer
Dipayan Ghosh and Nick Couldry
Harvard Kennedy School & London School of Economics and Political Science
October 26, 2020

https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/defau ... _final.pdf

Many thanks Daniel.

[Daniel Brandt]

How long has this been going on? The RT article links to The Hustle dated September 28, 2018. Is there a link to the Archive.org blog? RT has of course a strong POV so it might be helpful to review what Archive.org itself says.

Yes, RT has a strong point of view. But the author, Helen Buyniski, lives in New York and knows quite a bit about Wikipedia. Here's a long 2018 article with 149 footnotes that mentions many of Wikipedia's scandals:

http://www.helenofdestroy.com/index.php ... o-the-core

[tarantino]

How long has this been going on? The RT article links to The Hustle dated September 28, 2018. Is there a link to the Archive.org blog? RT has of course a strong POV so it might be helpful to review what Archive.org itself says.

Yes, RT has a strong point of view. But the author, Helen Buyniski, lives in New York and knows quite a bit about Wikipedia. Here's a long 2018 article with 149 footnotes that mentions many of Wikipedia's scandals:

http://www.helenofdestroy.com/index.php ... o-the-core

Helen occasionally comments here.

[Poetlister]

The loser of the election: Section 230

It seems it might be a while until we know who will sit in the White House next year, but there’s one clear loser of this election: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

San Francisco Chronicle Nov 4th (paywalled)

[Poetlister]

A repeal of Section 230 could create big changes for online retailers—or not

Is the end near for Section 230? And, if so, could its repeal dramatically change social media and ecommerce as we know it? Maybe, but maybe not. Section 230 protects websites, including ecommerce sites and other online platforms, from legal responsibility for most of the content provided by their users—with a few exceptions, such as violations of federal criminal law and intellectual property law. The provision also protects websites from liability arising from their decisions to moderate content. However, Section 230 does not safeguard content created by the publishers of websites and social media platforms from defamation or other claims.

digitalcommerce360.com

[Midsize Jake]

FWIW here are my thoughts/predictions as of today (sorry in advance about the length):

I don't think the election results are going to have much of an impact on the Section 230 situation at all — maybe they would have if it had been more of a landslide for the Dems, but it wasn't, and now we won't even know who will control the Senate until Jan. 6th. So there's really no chance of anything happening legislatively, at least in the near term.

Meanwhile, Simington's FCC confirmation hearing on Tuesday will probably only be a one-day affair, so he'll be confirmed by the end of the week. Simington will give fuzzy non-answers to any Section 230-related questions, and the media won't cover it anyway because they never do. That means we could, but probably won't, see some sort of "fast-tracked" anti-Twitter ruling as early as Nov. 17-18, whereby they either strip Twitter of its immunity, or (more likely) tell them that the next time they "censor" one of Trump's tweets, then they'll strip it.

IMO, a lot of this depends on how many recounts Trump can get, which states those recounts are held in, and most importantly, whether or not State Supreme Courts (or the US Supreme Court?) will order a whole bunch of ballots to be thrown out prior to, or during, the recounts. If he gets really lucky with this and can extend the "election mess" for a few more weeks, that increases the likelihood of a hugely controversial ruling. Right now, though, it looks like Trump's luck may have run out.

Still, if the FCC does issue such a ruling, it's going to be headline news for at least a day or two, not to mention that it will engender several lawsuits. Lots more people are going to learn about Section 230 than ever before, Trump might even be banned from Twitter before his term runs out, and some people are going to start asking why we even have an FCC in the first place, given that Trump has turned it into little more than a corporate-fascist political tool. The corporations who currently dictate what the FCC is (or isn't) allowed to do don't like this kind of attention.

So... right now, I'd say there's only about a 20 percent chance that anything will happen at all, and even if something does happen, the term for Ajit Pai (T-H-L) expires in June 2021, at which point Biden will be able to nominate a non-fascist for the Chief Commissioner job. And even if something does happen, the lawsuits and appeals are going to take months, probably long enough for Pai's replacement to come in and get that ruling overturned.

As for the Supreme Court, there's still a slim possibility of some action there (i.e., they might uphold any FCC ruling that's issued, despite it presumably being unconstitutional). But like the FCC, they probably won't want to stick their necks out for Trump if it looks like they can't help him win the election on recounts. They're going to have much bigger priorities during the transition period anyway, like cancelling health insurance for tens of millions of Americans in the middle of a pandemic.

[Daniel Brandt]

One last comment by me on Helen Buyniski in this thread. It's related to Section 230, if only because Wikipedia is going to have a problem unless new Section 230 legislation carves out a special place for anonymous Wikipedia editing shenanigans -- not to mention Wikipedia's anonymous critics. The program "On Contact" with Chris Hedges has a 29-minute interview with Helen Buyniski about her Wikipedia research. The interview is dated 2018-10-21, when Buyniski was 31 years old. She's a fine journalist, but was too young or otherwise occupied, to cover much of the earlier (pre-2016) scandals of Wikipedia. For example, there's mention of Essjay in this interview, but no mention of Slimvirgin.

https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/441 ... iscussion/

[Midsize Jake]

The program "On Contact" with Chris Hedges has a 29-minute interview with Helen Buyniski about her Wikipedia research. The interview is dated 2018-10-21, when Buyniski was 31 years old. She's a fine journalist, but was too young or otherwise occupied, to cover much of the earlier (pre-2016) scandals of Wikipedia...

For those of you who don't want to click on links to RT: We also have a previous thread on the subject, from two years ago.

N.B.: One nice thing about Biden winning the election (assuming the results aren't overturned) is that people like me are likely to be less concerned about Russian dark-money propaganda for a while. A lot of what I myself wrote in that thread is significantly less applicable now. Also, I referred to Chris Hedges as an "almost" far-left-winger at one point, which was mostly just me being snarky because he had a show on RT.

[Midsize Jake]

There's no Wikipedia article on Simington yet, but his Senate confirmation hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 10, just a week from now, which will be right smack in the middle of Trump's efforts to steal the election (assuming he loses...).

Still no Wikipedia article on Simington, but his confirmation hearing was today and, predictably, he dodged most questions about Section 230 and about Trump's Executive Order directing the FCC to "clarify" it, saying that "his role was minor editing and proofing after the policy had already been hammered out." Mm-hmm.

Apparently, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is going to try to hold up Simington's confirmation vote unless he "commits to recusing himself from any decision on the fate of Section 230." The Republicans can defeat the hold with a simple majority vote, but that would mean they'd have to go on the record by voting on something, which is a thing they fear more than slow, painful death. I doubt that Moscow Mitch would normally want spend that kind of political capital on Simington, and Politico seems to agree, but Trump has already been tweeting about it, so I'd say the chances of this are at least 50-50.

So far it looks like this is getting almost no media attention at all, since pretty much all news outlets are reporting on Trump's efforts to steal the election, stall the transition, and cause coronavirus case numbers to explode, turning the USA into a vast wasteland of disease and death. So despite the Senatorial hold thing, it's actually going pretty well for the Republicans.

[Daniel Brandt]

N.B.: One nice thing about Biden winning the election (assuming the results aren't overturned) is that people like me are likely to be less concerned about Russian dark-money propaganda for a while.

Good grief, Midsize Jake! "Russian dark-money propaganda"?

Don't you remember Edward Snowden's revelations about NSA spying on Americans in 2013? Your favorite Democrat, Obama, had more than two years remaining as President to say that he'd prefer that the NSA not be so naughty, but I don't remember him saying anything. Of course, Trump isn't any better. Does it matter who is President?

Compare and contrast: Helen Buyniski openly writing for RT, vs. NSA spying on Americans:
http://wikipedia-sucks.org:83/nsa2.jpg

Hell, I even found Buyniski's street address and age by searching the Internet. She's real, she's informed by excellent research, and she's someone I can believe in. Who are you, Midsize Jake?

[Midsize Jake]

Are you saying we should be more concerned about Russian dark-money propaganda for a while?

Also, the Russian dark-money propaganda problem and the NSA domestic spying problem are two different things.

[Poetlister]

Sparring With Section 230: A New Content Moderation Challenge

Fifteen conservative YouTubers are suing the platform and parent company Google for deleting their content just three weeks ahead of the 2020 presidential election in the United States. On Oct. 15, YouTube announced it would purge creators’ videos as part of its effort to rid the site of QAnon content and other “harmful” conspiracy theories in the runup to Election Day.

law.com

[Mason]

Having heard that a number of Trump supporters are moving to Parler due to Twitter tagging the president’s tweets as false or disputed, I wonder what impact the changes to 230 would have on smaller services like Parler.

Wouldn’t it make it more risky and expensive (e.g. lawyers, insurance) for them to host false or disputed material? Wouldn’t this end up disadvantaging them more than the big guys like Twitter due to economies of scale?

[tarantino]

Having heard that a number of Trump supporters are moving to Parler due to Twitter tagging the president’s tweets as false or disputed, I wonder what impact the changes to 230 would have on smaller services like Parler.

Wouldn’t it make it more risky and expensive (e.g. lawyers, insurance) for them to host false or disputed material? Wouldn’t this end up disadvantaging them more than the big guys like Twitter due to economies of scale?

Trump's on Gab, too.

[Mason]

Trump is very cross with Twitter for letting #DiaperDon trend, and so has declared “For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!”

Trump declares Twitter national security threat after #DiaperDon trends following meltdown at miniature table

[Midsize Jake]

Trump is very cross with Twitter for letting #DiaperDon trend, and so has declared “For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!”

This story is on CNN.com and The Hill too, and a number of other sites... It's Black Friday today though, and the election mess is still going on, so it's not getting much traction.

These tweets are probably the best proof yet that Trump never knew what Section 230 is at all — I'd say it's about 95% likely that some equally-stupid person just told him "if we repeal this, Twitter will be forced out of business," and he simply ran with it.

Honestly, from the perspective of serious Section 230 critics, Trump's entire 4-year-long regime has been an unmitigated disaster. He almost single-handedly removed the focus of criticism away from defamation and anonymous character assassination, and like everything else he's done, he made it all about himself and his narcissistic victim-complex — and specifically, whether or not just one website (out of tens of millions) should be punished for running "warning tags" under his posts just to clue people in to the obvious fact that he lies constantly. At this point, the chances for any serious Section 230 reform during the next two years are basically zero, and it's mostly (if not all) because of Trump.

[Daniel Brandt]

I disagree that Section 230 is dead because Trump has a big mouth and doesn't know what he's talking about. Yes, he probably got started on Section 230 criticism because someone told him, "If we repeal this, Twitter will be forced out of business." Soon after, a bunch of Republicans in Congress probably joined in the chorus, without knowing anything about Section 230. If it's good enough for their boss, it's good enough for them. If a vote for repeal comes up months from now, many Republicans will vote with Democrats that are lined up behind Biden. (I'm assuming that Biden is the next President.)

Biden is still talking about "repealing" Section 230. That's fairly strong language! Are the former Trump supporters in Congress going to do a 180 turn on this issue months from now, just because Trump lost and Biden won? Not very likely. One very serious critic of 230 is Biden's aide Bruce Reed. He co-authored a chapter about 230 in a book that came out last month. I ordered it, but it hasn't arrived yet: Bruce Reed and James P. Steyer, "Why Section 230 Hurts Kids and What to Do About It", pp 94-102 in James P. Steyer, "Which Side of History: How Technology is Reshaping Democracy and Our Lives" October 13, 2020

Bruce Reed was Biden's chief of staff from 2011-2013. Biden is still talking about revoking Section 230, and Bruce Reed is expected to play a major role in the new administration.

See also: https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-b ... 30-2020-11

When Trump opened his mouth about Section 230, I suspect that this was the first time most Republicans in Congress heard about the issue. By now those Republicans are ready to vote against Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The Democrats in Congress will back up Biden, at least for the next year or so. The Supreme Court probably does not have jurisdiction when a law is revoked, unless some weird procedure occurred during the process.

I agree with Midsize Jake that "These tweets are probably the best proof yet that Trump never knew what Section 230 is at all -- I'd say it's about 95% likely that some equally-stupid person just told him 'if we repeal this, Twitter will be forced out of business,' and he simply ran with it."

I disagree with Midsize Jake's conclusion: "At this point, the chances for any serious Section 230 reform during the next two years are basically zero, and it's mostly (if not all) because of Trump."

[Midsize Jake]

...One very serious critic of 230 is Biden's aide Bruce Reed. He co-authored a chapter about 230 in a book that came out last month. I ordered it, but it hasn't arrived yet: Bruce Reed and James P. Steyer, "Why Section 230 Hurts Kids and What to Do About It", pp 94-102 in James P. Steyer, "Which Side of History: How Technology is Reshaping Democracy and Our Lives" October 13, 2020

For those of us who are too cheap to buy books, this chapter is apparently available on Google Books for free (not sure for how long though):

https://books.google.com/books?id=vfj6D ... &q&f=false

Having just read it now myself, I'd have to say I'm impressed at how well they've worked in the child-protection argument, though they're probably hurting their chances by bringing in the revenge-porn and gun-control arguments towards the end... Still, "this law will protect our kids" remains one of the best tried-and-true ways to get legislation passed, maybe even while Mitch McConnell is still alive. So if they (i.e., Reed et al) can sell that to Senators and Congresspersons, then yes, I agree that they could overcome the Trumpian odor that's currently permeating the issue.

They'll need some help from the media, though. And not that any reporters actually read our blog, but this might be a good angle for our own post on the subject, especially since we're about 8 months overdue for one.

[Daniel Brandt]

And not that any reporters actually read our blog, but this might be a good angle for our own post on the subject, especially since we're about 8 months overdue for one.

This hint from you, I presume, might relate to how a repeal of Section 230 would or should suggest a policy change on Wikipedia, imposed by the Wikimedia Foundation. My favorite example in this regard is Slimvirgin's creation of a BLP stub on me (actually, there was no BLP policy when she did this, as that evolved months later). This was sometime around 2004, as I recall. A more egregious example was the Seigenthaler affair in 2005, although that was solved because Seigenthaler was media-wise and powerful, compared to me. Jimbo came by and zapped the Seigenthaler page when it became an issue. My situation lasted for a long time before Slimvirgin got exposed and exhausted, whereupon my bio was finally deleted after 14 AfD (Articles for Deletion) votes.

Wikipedia has no business creating BLPs without first asking the person and giving them a chance to say "no." Furthermore, any BLP article should include the main author's name and contact information, in case the BLP victim has objections to specific content in that article. I said "no" to Slimvirgin within a couple of weeks after Slimvirgin started that stub, but her reply to my request for a permanent removal was, "We don't do that." Jimbo backed her up 100 percent.

If it hadn't been for Section 230, I could have sued the Wikimedia Foundation, or at least encouraged Jimbo to investigate and reveal Slimvirgin's real name and location.

[Poetlister]

U.S. Republicans balk as Trump uses defense bill for leverage on Big Tech

Unusually, members of Trump’s Republican Party broke from the president to join Democrats in objecting to his threat to veto the annual National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a $740 billion annual bill setting policy for the Pentagon, if it does not include a measure eliminating a federal law - known as Section 230 - protecting tech companies such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc.

“First of all, 230 has nothing to do with the military. And I agree with his sentiments. We ought to do away with 230, but you can’t do it in this bill. That’s not a part of the bill,” Senator Jim Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters.

Reuters

How do these things work in the USA? Over here, if someone tried to add something completely irrelevant to a bill, the Speaker would probably refuse to allow the amendment to be moved.

[Midsize Jake]

How do these things work in the USA? Over here, if someone tried to add something completely irrelevant to a bill, the Speaker would probably refuse to allow the amendment to be moved.

That happens here too, when legislation is moved, either out of a committee or from the other house. It won't really matter in this case, though — both parties (especially the Republicans, natch) are addicted to defense spending, which means such a veto would simply be overridden. They're not going to repeal Section 230 as part of a Defense Authorization bill, though there may be a token attempt to add it as an amendment in the Senate, just to appease Trump. That attempt will presumably fail, though there might be some harsh words exchanged, as if anyone would notice.

I don't believe there's any way for the Democrats to take advantage of the situation in terms of reducing the defense budget or reallocating it to, say, pandemic relief — at least not intelligently. But who knows, maybe I just lack imagination.

Whoever convinced Trump that repealing Section 230 would solve all of his Twitter problems seems to have done a pretty thorough job of it, and I'd even say I'm impressed, except that it clearly isn't hard to convince Trump of anything if you're willing to plant your tongue in his butt while doing so.

[Capeo]

How do these things work in the USA? Over here, if someone tried to add something completely irrelevant to a bill, the Speaker would probably refuse to allow the amendment to be moved.

Irrelevant things get added to bills all the time over here, but they are usually small things added to gigantic budgetary bills, not something as significant as repealing a law. A president threatening to veto a defense budget bill, unless it also repeals an act that has nothing to do with defense, is basically unheard of. Hell, a president threatening to veto any defense bill is unheard of.