
Trump's executive order targets political bias at Twitter and Facebook: draft - tobltobs
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-trump-executive-order-social/trumps-executive-order-targets-political-bias-at-twitter-and-facebook-draft-idUSKBN2340MW
======
pr_nik
The gameplan might be to build a direct connection between the vast financial
resources of the republican party and their ability to influence online
audiences. This has already worked quite well with the Super PACs which amount
to unlimited anonymous donations to parties or candidates. This was declared
legal based on the 1st amendment in 2010. The same goal could be pursued here:
cite 1st amendment and rule by decree that fact-checking violates 1st
amendment principles, fight it out up to the supreme court (which is firmly in
republican hands) and then write it into law for the foreseeable future. In
the meantime, sue social media providers for ridiculous sums if they provide
fact-checking prior to the election. Technically, you still have a democracy,
albeit one that is no longer united in its perception of reality.

~~~
deathgrips
The 1st amendment isn't the issue here. The issue is Facebook pretending to be
a publisher when it is in fact much more like a newspaper editor. You don't
get to run a private company with unparalleled influence over US politics and
not play by the rules of other media companies.

~~~
raesene9
All social media sites effectively curate content by dictating what is allowed
on the platform and what is not, and removing content which doesn't meet those
requirements.

This isn't just about facebook and twitter, it's about _every_ site that
allows user generated content, reddit, Hacker News, Instagram, heck even Stack
Exchange counts, I'd imagine.

~~~
deathgrips
As long as those sites curate according to their transparent terms of use
these rules wouldn't apply to them.

~~~
raesene9
I'd argue there's no such thing as "transparent terms of use" that wouldn't be
open to legal challenge. Twitter and facebook have terms of use, they're as
transparent as any other site in that regard.

Reddit has banned whole sub-reddits and shadowbanned others, Hacker news has
human mods who make qualitative decisions to curate conversations on this
site.

This hits every forum, every newsgroup, every site that has user generated
content.

------
DarkWiiPlayer
> The order asks the FCC to examine whether actions related to the editing of
> content by social media companies should potentially lead to the platform
> forfeiting its protections under section 230.

Honestly, that part seems very reasonable. If a platform curates or modifies
content or promotes it beyond what some system thinks the specific user might
like, then yes, the platform should be responsible for that content.

The real question would be, should the platform become responsible for _all_
ontent, or just the content it curates / modifies / promotes?

My opinion is that this should work on a per-content basis, where the platform
only becomes legally responsible for a unit of content once it associates
itself with it by promoting, modifying, etc. this content. Whether it is
realistic to enforce it this way is, of course, another question.

~~~
sytelus
This is actually much more far reaching. Websites modify user content all the
time. For example, if you post link on Twitter, you don't decide thumbnails.
Another example, appending an ad or "fact check" link are modifications of
user's original content. Technically, if you change your website's theme or
design in future, you modified all of user content as well.

~~~
yadco
I think you do choose to use the thumbnails and metadata of the site you are
linking to and allowing the site to change it.

------
originalvichy
Imagine being a part of a party that has been pushing for the destruction of
net neutrality, and complain that specific services on the internet are
censoring the internet.

Deciding what traffic to allow on the networks is OK but services shouldn’t be
allowed to police things on their own platform.

------
zpeti
I guess this was inevitable in the end, it must have come to this, but I just
find what twitter did so silly. At least if they'd have used some sort of
impartial looking fact checker, or an independent panel, or something, as
facebook is doing, perhaps they would have prolonged this for longer.

But calling CNN a fact checker on the president is so inherently stupid, it's
asking for trouble. And of course CNN couldn't get their facts right either,
so they are blatantly just representing the other side and not "facts".

Twitter really could have done a better job here.

~~~
dmarchand90
I love that they started to fact check the president, but the very stupid
choice to use CNN basically means that shot themselves in the foot...

~~~
Rapzid
Perhaps they did it to antagonize him. CNN is probably Trump's least favorite
news outlet.

Besides, all news outlets post a bunch of BS under the cover of "analysis",
"opinion", and "op-ed" pieces. Those are all carefully crafted to engage a
target audience. NYT does it. WAPO does it. CNN. They are all running outrage
factories just producing slightly different flavors..

~~~
blaser-waffle
> Perhaps they did it to antagonize him. CNN is probably Trump's least
> favorite news outlet.

That's the point, me thinks

------
Operyl
All of this because they finally chose to draw a line in the sand. Wow.

------
puranjay
What's stopping another company - or Twitter itself - moving somewhere outside
the US jurisdiction?

I can't imagine it would be easy to regulate a service that isn't really
location dependent.

~~~
bcoates
Too much of their revenue comes from the US. Big US advertisers would be
incredibly skeeved out by advertising to US users via a US jurisdiction
dodging middleman.

They could survive just fine as a communication tool but not so much as a
business.

~~~
puranjay
If US advertisers are comfortable advertising on TikTok, I can't see any
reason why would be skeeved out by a largely American-owned company
headquartered in Europe

------
seanwilson
> The executive order would require the Federal Communications Commission
> (FCC) to propose and clarify regulations under Section 230 of the
> Communications Decency Act, a federal law largely exempting online platforms
> from legal liability for the material their users post. Such changes could
> expose tech companies to more lawsuits.

> The order asks the FCC to examine whether actions related to the editing of
> content by social media companies should potentially lead to the platform
> forfeiting its protections under section 230.

> It requires the agency to look at whether a social media platform uses
> deceptive policies to moderate content and if its policies are inconsistent
> with its terms of service.

Is there any merit to this?

------
ilaksh
> The draft order also states that the White House Office of Digital Strategy
> will re-establish a tool to help citizens report cases of online censorship.

> Called the White House Tech Bias Reporting Tool, it will collect complaints
> of online censorship and submit them to the Department of Justice and the
> Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

> It requires the FTC to then “consider taking action”, look into whether
> complaints violate the law, develop a report describing such complaints and
> make the report publicly available.

------
lazyjones
IANAL, but this seems reasonable and similar to what e.g. Germany is already
practising: if you assume responsibility of your users' content by
verifying/correcting it, you are held liable. For example, portals that
collect user reviews and check whether they are complete and correct:
[https://medien-internet-und-
recht.de/volltext.php?mir_dok_id...](https://medien-internet-und-
recht.de/volltext.php?mir_dok_id=2820) (German).

~~~
grumple
It’s not reasonable in context, which is as a temper tantrum resulting from
having a fact check posted alongside Trump’s blatant lies. The content wasn’t
edited and taking responsibility for the speech of others is absurd.

~~~
syshum
>>resulting from having a fact check posted

Except for the Fact

1\. It was on opinion not a statement of fact that needed fact checking

2\. Twitter supports directly an opposing opinion

3\. The "Fact Check" organizations linked are provably bias and are not fact
check organizations

4\. The links went to opposing opinion pieces not a statement of fact

~~~
grumple
Let's take a look at the tweets in question:

> There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than
> substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged
> & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of
> California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the
> state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will
> be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom
> have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This
> will be a Rigged Election. No way!

This composed two tweets. It's from an authority figure (granted, one known to
be extremely untrustworthy). There are many statements of "fact", or what any
reasonable reader would take as assertions of fact.

Sentence one:

> There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than
> substantially fraudulent.

This is clearly a statement of fact. It's asserting (and context is important
here, because Trump has repeatedly said mail in voting is rife with fraud)
that mail-in voting is rife with fraud. Even a charitable interpretation would
have to see this as intended to degrade trust in our voting system (to what
end?) and discourage voting. If I say "The sun will rise tomorrow", it's a
statement of fact, even though it's about the future.

> Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed
> out & fraudulently signed.

Again, this is a statement of fact. There is no qualifying clause to make this
opinion, such as "I believe", or "I think".

> The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone
> living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get
> one.

Another statement of fact, this one clearly about the present.

> That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people,
> many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to
> vote.

Statement of fact.

> This will be a Rigged Election.

Again, a statement of fact.

That's five lies in 6 sentences.

Now let's look at the Fact Check link - it goes here:
[https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384](https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384)

This is a feed leading to many articles from many sources about the matter in
question.

~~~
swamp40
* >> That's five lies in 6 sentences.*

Zero lies in 6 sentences, says I.

------
T-A
I guess somebody at the White House is reading HN:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23330463](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23330463)

~~~
bcoates
I don't get it, is there a legal obligation for twitter to follow its own
terms of service?

This EO seems to be a nothingburger, the courts have already established that
the text of 230 creates broad immunity, they aren't going to defer to the FCC
about that.

Has the FTC even established that platforms have obligations towards their
non-customer users?

~~~
rsynnott
> I don't get it, is there a legal obligation for twitter to follow its own
> terms of service?

The ToS will be written to allow discretion; that is why Trump hasn't been
banned.

------
sneak
Here comes the real deal government-on-server censorship, not the fake stuff
that they’re complaining about.

Censorship platforms, even the “good guys” who only censor occasionally or
predictably or “according to law” (or whatever), are all vulnerable to this.
The state can threaten them with guns and imprisonment, ultimately, and they
have no immediate recourse. The content comes down. Maybe it gets restored
later, after the election or war is over. Maybe it doesn’t. Either way, it
comes down today. Neither Jack nor Sundar are going to jail to protect your
hosting account showing videos of war crimes.

This is an inherent danger in all censorship platforms. Whether you like Jack
or not, trusting him not to censor arbitrarily (while Twitter always has the
technical capability) is not a reasonable choice for the society-wide message
bus.

This failure mode is inherent in these censorship-possible systems, and it
must be addressed if we are to maintain publishing that cannot be suppressed
by the state during emergencies.

[https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-
bias/](https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/)

~~~
deathgrips
Twitter is being threatened because they are arbitrarily censoring people.

~~~
raverbashing
It's a private platform

~~~
deathgrips
Yes, they are an unaccountable private platform that influence public
elections.

------
boomboomsubban
>The working group will also monitor or create watch-lists of users based on
their interactions with content or other users

What the hell does this mean? As it sounds like they're arbitrarily creating a
list of people they'll actively target for enforcement of state laws.

------
w_t_payne
On the face of it this seems to be a dangerous step towards the industry being
coopted by the lunatic conspiratorial fringes and forced to spread their
dangerous nonsense against our will. Not a game I'd be happy to play.

------
psych-W
Seems like we're relying now upon the same "bureaucracy" that was detested
when someone got what he wanted. Now someone very delusional is butthurt. Good
thing twitter can basically do whatever they want - it's a private company,
first amendment rights are not in question here. If crazies want to eat their
fish tank cleaner, but twitter wouldn't let them post selfies promoting this
stupidity, then stupid people need to learn how to create their own company
and isolate from reality a little longer like maybe a few more generations. I
bet that'll work well...

------
cft
Section 230 should stay but the definition of re-publisher vs publisher should
be narrowed down.

The law should be written such that if you go beyond removing spam and illegal
content, and especially if you are editorializing user-submitted content, you
are are a publisher, rather than a re-publisher.

This will put large platforms in a situation where they will have to chose
whether they maintain neutrality. Each platform can then pick whether to be a
publisher or a re-publisher.

------
nojito
Very clever. This has nothing to do with the twitter tagging of his tweet that
everyone is talking about.

The tagging incident just accelerated the idea that social media shouldn’t
enjoy the cost benefits from being classified as a publisher or a platform
depending on how much it costs to answer a legal question poised to them.

This has nothing to do with free speech, so I completely expect the
conversation to go completely off the rails.

------
ENOTTY
Here is a link to a purported draft of the EO: [https://kateklonick.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/05/DRAFT-EO-...](https://kateklonick.com/wp-
content/uploads/2020/05/DRAFT-EO-Preventing-Online-Censorship.pdf)

~~~
loopz
Rich coming from leadership that is implementing new tricks of deception and
manipulation on an ongoing basis.

------
tinus_hn
Do people really not see through this transparent attempt at distraction?

------
apatters
Why does the federal government miss the ball Every. Single. Time?

Twitter censoring conservatives wouldn't be a big deal if Twitter had more
competitors. America keeps on saying it's committed to free and open markets.
Why doesn't it make one here?

Break up Twitter. Or make them open up their protocols. Or whatever. I don't
care. Just promote competition. Enough of these quasi-fascist state regulated
oligopolies run and reaped by 1-3 companies while the rest of us stand in the
bread lines. It's not the American way, not the democratic way, not the
capitalist way, and I'm sick of it.

~~~
loopz
Isn't this what the free market is supposed to deliver? Now you want a
marginalized gov under fire to save you?

~~~
apatters
There's nothing marginalized about the American government, it's the biggest
and most powerful government in the world and it has an unfathomably huge
budget.

I haven't seen a free market in America in decades.

Free markets can be destroyed by governments or by megacorps, but most often
they're destroyed by a collaboration between the two.

Put two and two together and resist.

------
netcan
It's so depressing how low the bar is, for regulatory frameworks.

Maybe it's totally co-opted by industry incumbents, and serves as a moat
against competition. Maybe it's about electoral politics. IE, the problem is
stifling of specific voices supportive of Trump... or the opposite. We can't
even hope that it will be designed logically to serve a principle or goal.

I'm not saying regulation (or better legislation) isn't necessary. Twitter set
out to be the "public square" and succeeded. It's a privately controlled
public square. This _is_ a problem for democracy. It's no joke either. Twitter
& Facebook can and have been the launch point for elections, revolutions,
coups and such. "It's their site, they can do what they want" is not, IMO,
reasonable.

On a related point "platform monopolies," are a well established problem, and
we've even had some court ruling to that effect. Courts are narrow though.
Legislation is the only way to establish principles.

This should be a "step back and think big picture" situation. Establish
principles that guarantee freedoms, media diversity or whatever the goals are.
Instead, the debate will be dictated by electoral considerations... on both
the pro and con side. I doubt they're even thinking past the immediate
election.

------
archagon
If we accept corporations as people, I wish some of the ones with actual power
had the backbone and gall to do a bit of civil disobedience, instead of
rolling over at the first sign of trouble. Twitter should double down and add
a fact-check sticker to every single Trump lie, past and current — to hell
with lawsuits and the FCC. Otherwise, we'll "maybe parts of this sound
reasonable" our way straight into an authoritarian, thought-shaping,
Republican-ruled dictatorship. Surely, even the people who scoffed at this
idea a few years ago can see this future taking shape.

I am aghast that there's _any_ support of this in the once-countercultural
Silicon Valley. It's abhorrent and shameful, and it makes me fear that maybe
the gravity well is already too large to escape.

------
jonnypotty
Fight America, please.

------
GnarlyWhale
This period of Trump benefiting off unfettered, direct access to the public,
and Twitter benefiting off of greater clout through hosting the president is
most definitely coming to a conclusion.

------
sudhirj
In scenario 1, this is a Sabre rattling move, where Trump is hoping that the
social media companies will allow his nonsense against the threat of more
legal headaches from section 230 complaints and violations. This might happen.

In scenario 2, this backfires phenomenally against the very bullshit that
Trump is trying to protect - the goal of section 230 seems to be enforcement
of terms of service, and the first action of companies trying to enforce their
terms against hate speech and lies will be to block Trump and his entire
cohort.

Seems like a risky play, threatening someone with legal action if they don’t
destroy you hoping that the threat will get them to stop destroying you.

This might also just the universe conspiring against Trump - he’s plugging OAN
and Fox is slowly inching away from him, choosing to break on mask wearing.
His Twitter soapbox now carries a bullshit warning on the stuff he says, his
other platforms will follow, now that precedent has been set. The Democrats
have chosen a nominee white enough to appeal to Trump supporters but black
enough to have Obama in his corner. A black man was murdered by a MAGA cop,
causing riots and police overreaction. There might not be an avalanche yet,
but this is the scene where there’s a slight rumbling sound and everybody
looks up at the mountain.

~~~
syshum
Personally I hope twitter does ban Trump, but not for the same reasons I
suspect you do. Not because I believe he has violated a nebulous and
subjective "hate speech" policy, not be cause I believe "Trump lies" and all
Democrats are pure virtue and sunshine (which is largely the opinion of the
twitterverse)

No I hope they do, because Trump will select another platform, and that
Platform will see a HUGE boost and hopefully start to crack the foundation of
the Silicon Valley social media oligopoly

I want to see a return to Open Protocols, and Federated Communications, not 4
or 5 companies controlling most human communications

------
alpacaillama
I hope they look into whether social media platforms can use safe harbour
(Section 230) stuff or not. Personally I don’t think so. Since they do act as
publishers.

I know HN will focus on the Trump part but I am more interested in hearing
about what you think of section 230, safe harbour, social media as publishers.

~~~
loopz
I've not much love for administrators' love for banning posts and users for
unquantifiable reasons. This from 30 years of experience on the matter. One
gets to see all kinds of variations, and there's absolutely nothing new here
in core powergames and surrounding mechanics.

However, such social media platforms can either exist in any form protected by
freedom of speech, or they cannot exist at all. This as no moderation is
illegal and frowned upon, purported to sway public opinion with false data.

The thing is, the power games are inseparable from the mechanics, no matter
how well-intentioned on either "side". The inevitable outcome is separation of
users, which happens again, and again. What we will see coming is the Great
Divide, caused by social media technologies, powered by tribal human nature
and selfishness.

------
Causality1
If Twitter just up and bans him I will laugh so hard I'm likely to stroke out.

~~~
deathgrips
Hahaha political censorship is so funny hahaha

~~~
arrrg
Ordinary users would be banned for the stuff he said. No question about that.

Twitter is already giving the president a lot of leeway in what he can say.

------
cletus
So I would guess that Twitter is internally torn apart on this. I imagine the
rank-and-file for the most part despise Trump but as a business Twitter (and
its shareholders) are more than happy to be the Propaganda Wing of the
Republican Party.

So I imagine an effort to distance themselves from the outright lies of the
commander-in-chief was token resistance to this role, probably aimed at
mollifying the collective consciences of the employees.

But it's doomed and they've fallen into a trap. Here's how this is going to
go:

There is simply no line in the sand you can draw between objective truth and
objective lies. What's more, even if you can, propagated lies exist because
people want to believe them and they see any effort to disabuse them of their
provably false views (eg vaccines cause autism) as biased actors trying to
hide the "truth".

Human nature can be ugly at times.

The take on Section 230 is actually an interesting one and I imagine that's
going all the way to the Supreme Court if the administration pushes on this.
Like you can remove objectionable or illegal content from your platform (in
fact you're required to by law) and still maintain safe harbor but where does
that end? If you're Google you don't want Youtube filled up with a bunch of
racist crap. It's bad for your brand. That content may fall under free speech
(from a S230 perspective) and if you decide to remove it for the health of the
platform and/or the value of your brand, does safe harbor still apply?

Whatever the case, this administration needs to lose in the next election.
Badly. The attack on societal norms and institutitotions is unprecedented and
reprehensible and I so would like Trump, McConnell, Ivanka, Jared, Pompeo,
Barr and a whole bunch of others to end up in prison after all this is over.

This is what scares me the most: in the Watergate era even Republicans found
Nixon's behaviour beyond the pale. I am utterly convinced that if that
happened today there'd be a strict party-line vote as the President's party
would happily look the other way.

Look no further than the administration's so far successful efforts to block
Congressional oversight. At no time in history did any administration think it
was totally above the law. Make no mistake: that's what they're doing. Worse,
no administration so blatantly engaging in obstruction would've continued to
have ~40% of the population support it no matter what. Thanks to decades of
gerrymandering in state Houses and voter suppression that 40% almost controls
the election by itself as higher-population states are essentially
disenfranchises in the modern electoral system.

For the record, I'm against the popular vote deciding the presidential
election but that's a whole other topic.

How anyone who can call themselves "Christian" and support this president and
his policies is utterly beyond me.

~~~
zrail
> in the Watergate era even Republicans found Nixon's behaviour beyond the
> pale. I am utterly convinced that if that happened today there'd be a strict
> party-line vote as the President's party would happily look the other way.

This already happened. I know it's hard to remember six months ago, but the
president* was impeached by the House and was acquitted on a party line vote
in the Senate.

~~~
cletus
My point is that Nixon quit to avoid an inevitable impeachment. Today he
wouldn’t have to because he’d get a party line vote. Norms of acceptable
conduct have been greatly eroded.

