
Statement by FCC Commissioner Starks on Section 230 Executive Order - aspenmayer
https://www.fcc.gov/document/statement-commissioner-starks-section-230-executive-order
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aspenmayer
“I’ll review the final Executive Order when it’s released and assess its
impact on the FCC, but one thing is clear: the First Amendment and Section 230
remain the law of the land and control here. Our top priority should be
connecting all Americans to high-quality, affordable broadband. The fight
against COVID-19 has made closing the digital divide—and helping all Americans
access education, work, and healthcare online—more critical than ever. We must
keep our focus on that essential work.”

~~~
otterley
I read that as, "I'm really irritated that the FCC is being used as a pawn in
these silly games."

~~~
malwarebytess
doubt it. he's a trump appointee, though i suppose that doesn't mean he must
be a sycophant.

i read it as a perfunctory CYA message after media inquiries.

~~~
belltaco
The way it works is that the President's party gets 2 appointees and the
opposition gets 1. Starks is the dem choice.

~~~
malwarebytess
Huh. That's weird. Is that only the FCC or does it apply to other federal
appointments.

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beirut_bootleg
I've read through the whole order and there are dozens of mentions of
restricting access and censoring, deleting, or "disappearing" of content. It
sounds like Twitter is erasing or burying content when all they did was add a
"Get the facts" link.

IANAL and all that but how is this censorship, and how does it relate to 1A?
Wouldn't a better name for it be "annotating"?

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casefields
Reminder: The FCC is currently 3-2 Republicans. Starks is a Democrat.

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geuis
Link to the executive order: [https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
actions/executive-or...](https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-
actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/)

Clearly not written by POTUS himself.

~~~
AaronFriel
From the text:

// Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets
in a manner that clearly reflects political bias. As has been reported,
Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician’s tweet.
As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead
his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and
Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of
so-called ‘Site Integrity’ has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets.
//

As far as executive orders go, this one strays pretty far from the legalese
into just making a bunch of wild accusations.

~~~
ccleve
Yes, this isn't legalese, but in what sense are these accusations "wild"?
They're factually accurate.

And even if you disagree (perhaps you believe there was some form of Russian
collusion, despite the Muller report) the accusations are certainly well
within the bounds of mainstream debate. Nothing wild here.

~~~
aea19
Following your position to completion, you’ve just admitted that you’re
willing to be personally targeted on social media, mentioned in an order of
the United States government, and pilloried in the liberal media for the
actions of your employer because that’s “within the bounds of mainstream
debate,” right? Should someone take that as a cue to scan your company’s
LinkedIn until they find a job title close to their gripe, then drag that
person through the media before they’ve had a chance to get their boots on?

You glanced at a Node dependency of the particular gripe once, so your skin in
the game under these rules of mainstream debate is sufficient to dox you and
threaten you and your family with death based on job title alone. Am I
understanding your position correctly? If so, are you perhaps molding your
definition of mainstream debate to suit your political beliefs?

Bold of you to dismiss that aspect so out of hand when you advertise your
employer on HN, as if it couldn’t happen to you.

~~~
ccleve
I have no idea what you're talking about, or how you got any of that from my
comment.

~~~
aea19
...the end of the very quote you replied to under three hours ago and your
direct, blanket assertion that the entirety of the described allegations are,
quote, “well within the bounds of mainstream debate” and “nothing wild”?
Including the personal attack on a complete random at Twitter? Who, by the
way, got death threats because one dude trolled Twitter employees on LinkedIn,
found a job title close enough to “guy who runs fact checking,” and put his
name and resume all over conservative media then said “gee willikers, Norma,
inciting a mob online makes people read about their children being murdered
before their eyes? I had no idea. Gosh, when has that ever happened before?”

No? Nothing? Not a clue? That’s not ringing any bells whatsoever? I read
someone else’s comment?

k.

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NomDePlum
Surely Trumps most valid recourse would be to not use Twitter? Why is anything
else close to appropriate? There are certainly better and more important
things for him to be focused and working on at present. I'm not from the USA
but I thought the President was supposed to serve the country, not the
opposite way around. From the outside this looks like a personal vendetta not
a proportionate or necessary action.

~~~
mike503
It’s totally a vendetta. If it was legitimate it would have come at a
different time, not a couple days after his tweet was marked and especially
during a pandemic. He’s a big crybaby, and somehow wants a private company to
abide by 1A

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ac29
This statement doesnt appear to add any new information to the discussion.

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chad_strategic
Just for a little humor...

Is this executive order 66?

~~~
sammalloy
> Is this executive order 66?

This comes pretty close to it:

[https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/5/28/21265799/inspecto...](https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2020/5/28/21265799/inspectors-
general-trump-linick-atkinson)

