
White House proposal would have FCC, FTC police alleged social media censorship - jonas21
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/tech/white-house-social-media-executive-order-fcc-ftc/index.html
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bediger4000
A surprisingly decent article. Well-sourced, sources named, sane viewpoints
given and explained in context, history of the issue brought in.

I believe that this executive order is being written in bad faith. That is,
the purpose is not to protect free speech, but rather to boost holders of
certain ideological positions. But how do they write such an executive order
without making those who enforce it suffer from cognitive dissonance? Some
people get boosted, others get punished or downgraded, all on inconsistent or
unstated criteria. This will have unexpected side effects. I'm not sure how
I'd respond to such a regime if I was an on-line media company like Youtube or
Twitter. They might end up just restricting every body to only the most bland
and conformist expressions. They might adopt the Chinese government's "One eye
open, one eye shut" style, and occasionally and unpredictably punish some
random offender, just to cow everyone else into bland and conformist
expression only. Nobody would actually know where the line between "allowed"
and "punished" expression, so most people would stay well inside the safe
zone. If holders of certain ideologies are allowed to express ideas further
from bland and conformist, it won't go down easily. Maybe twitter can police
people from saying politely that XXXist's are allowed to post more extreme
opinions than YYYist's are and that's not fair, but what's to keep everyone
from making that observation on Instagram, or heaven help us, TikTok? Word
will get around, and maybe torches and pitchforks will be gathered. Or maybe
Twitter will just wind up its business and quit.

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olliej
You would be right - the purpose is disallow platforms from blocking racist,
sexist, homophobic, etc content. That is its specific purpose.

We know that it is specifically targeted because it does nothing to address
truly biased sources like Fox News.

On the plus side it is so plainly unconstitutional that it will be instantly
blocked literally anywhere it is challenged - there's even direct precedence
in the Supreme Court, there was an "fairness" rule for news shows that was
overturned to allow thinks like Fox News to exist. That one wasn't even
horrifically biased and only applied to shows that explicitly stated that they
were news and current events.

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bediger4000
> On the plus side it is so plainly unconstitutional that it will be instantly
> blocked literally anywhere it is challenged

I'm not so sanguine - our current Supreme Court has 2 rather new members, who
are probably not as predictable as those they replaced. Roberts, too, has been
less predictable than his predecessor Rehnquist.

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olliej
Well yeah, but if they do say it’s constitutional then people can immediately
turn around and sue Fox News, gab, stormer, etc for “censoring” “leftist”
content.

Which will be expensive for everyone, hopefully such that even today’s
unconstitutionally appointed Supreme Court will day no.

