
Leaked Draft of Trump Executive Order to 'Censor the Internet' Denounced - noja
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/08/11/leaked-draft-trump-executive-order-censor-internet-denounced-dangerous
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MrSlovenia
A lot of outrage on reddit. But it seems that this is not a censorship law at
all: instead it makes social media sites liable to be sued if they remove
political content they don't agree it.

So it's more a free speech law that avoids censorship.

Copy paste from a reddit comment:

Since no one apparently read the article or paid attention to the actually
meaningful quote:

The draft "calls for the FCC to develop new regulations clarifying how and
when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or
suppress content on their platforms."

In other words, this isn't about the federal government removing content. It
is about the extent to which social media platforms are legally shielded from
lawsuits when they choose to remove content.

The "worst case scenario" of this leaked draft isn't the federal government
picks and chooses what content is censored—it's that platforms might have to
allow almost every kind of content or risk being sued. Which is the opposite
of censorship.

(Please note: I am not arguing in favor of this draft. Only pointing out what
it is actually saying sans the rampant fear-mongering going on right now.)

~~~
IgorPartola
So basically if you run a forum and someone posts a Nazi manifesto, and you
choose to remove it because your forum is about Chia pets, the government can
come after you. Do you think this makes sense? I would argue that removing
something from my own site is as much me exercising free speech as adding
something.

~~~
CBLT
That is a strawman argument. Re-read the article, this does NOT say everything
is protected. Rather, it is clarifying what is protected and what is not.

~~~
theturtletalks
Regardless, why can’t a platform censor anything they want? It’s their
platform and they can do what they want. If censoring eventually pushes people
away from your platform, then the market corrected itself.

~~~
CBLT
There's nothing factually wrong with your opinion. I understand it and respect
it. For me, I believe that platforms as massive and widespread as Facebook or
Twitter distort the free-market ruleset, and that some amount of regulation is
in fact healthy for the industry they participate in and society as a whole.

Once we get to take a look at the actual text, we'll be able to have rational,
reasoned discussions about whether this particular regulation is healthy, or
unhealthy.

~~~
theturtletalks
I respect and understand your opinion as well, but making companies become
regulated as far as what content they can or must show is opening Pandora’s
box. Especially with a government that gets a lot of bad press, they could use
that regulation to drown out any voice.

If the government is really concerned about people’s voices and free speech
being impeded, they should make their own forum or social feed where nothing
is censored. We’ll see how that turns out.

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master-litty
This draft isn't available anywhere. This article cites a CNN article:

[https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/tech/white-house-social-
media...](https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/09/tech/white-house-social-media-
executive-order-fcc-ftc/index.html)

In that article, CNN reports on the draft order:

>According to the summary seen by CNN

CNN hasn't even seen the draft apparently. They've only seen a summary of it
and they dare make all these extrapolations.

This seems deceitful. I'm not impressed.

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chadmeister
Please don't flag or remove this. This seems rather important and worthy of
rational discourse on a site like this.

P.S. If this Executive order comes to fruition I'm going to file a lawsuit if
this post gets removed!

~~~
burfog
No, the article completely distorts the truth. It makes the order sound as if
Trump is implementing a censored internet in the style of China.

A less-biased article would describe the order as an attempt to reduce the
political favoritism being done by social media.

~~~
harimau777
Attempting to reduce political favoritism by social media is presumably the
stated aim; however, I don't think it is clear that it is the actual aim.
Assuming that any politician, and particularly Trump, is altruistic seems like
a bad idea to me.

------
harimau777
It seems to me that platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter have
become the de-facto public square and therefore, freedom of speech needs to
apply to them in order to have a real democracy. However, I think that a
better way to approach this might be to declare the platforms to in some sense
be public utilities.

~~~
theshadowknows
It seems strange to me that something becoming popular is what means it
suddenly should be regulated. Pens are very popular yet they are not
regulated. And sure there are many to choose from but really Bic has a pretty
extensive hold on the market. Should we regulate what people can and can not
write with Bic pens? Twitter is Bic here. If Trump and his followers don’t
like using Twitter then they are free to go use Mastodon.

~~~
harimau777
I don't think that pens and social media are comparable in this way. Pens are
a tool for writing while social media is a platform for having your writing be
heard.

In addition, choice of pen has no effect on the ability to communicate your
message while choice of social media does. Switching from Twitter to Mastodon
isn't a solution because Twitter is the place where the public discussion is
taking place.

Finally, writing instruments such as pens are something that anyone can easily
make on their own. On the other hand, due to the required technical expertise,
infrastructure, and network effects it is difficult to enter the social media
market.

~~~
theshadowknows
I’ll most certainly agree that Twitter has the market cornered. But if
tomorrow Trump tweeted that he was switching to TrumpNet and would only be
using it from then on, how many people would join. He could create the market
if he wanted to.

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tj-teej
If the problem with Twitter/Facebook is that they have too much influence (a
fair point IMO) and thus need regulation shouldn't we solve that monopoly
problem rather than trying to remove the right of forums to choose what
content they host?

------
apo
> Civil liberties groups are warning of a major threat to online freedoms and
> First Amendment rights if a leaked draft of a Trump administration
> edict—dubbed by critics as a "Censor the Internet" executive order that
> would give powerful federal agencies far-reaching powers to pick and choose
> which kind of Internet material is and is not acceptable—is allowed to go
> into effect.

Why doesn't this article directly link to the allegedly leaked documents?

The quoted paragraph (the article's first paragraph) contains a link to a
Tweet which links to a blog post which links to a CNN article.

AFAICT, none of them link to the actual documents.

To future journalists: link to the documents in your article. Otherwise you
run the risk of readers writing the whole thing off as a misinformation
campaign. This possibility can't be ruled out at this point.

~~~
McGlockenshire
> AFAICT, none of them link to the actual documents.

Nobody involved has the actual documents.

From the second paragraph of the CNN article:

> The draft order, a summary of which was obtained by CNN,

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baby
I clicked through several links and can't find that document.

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HocusLocus
Until there is a draft available, there's no story.

If they claim a draft is available and it isn't, there IS a story, and it's
that they are deceitful.

IF CNN and Politico can both claim to have seen it yet neither sees fit to
make full and original text available... while telling us there is serious
evil afoot...

...then I just shrug it off with an eye-roll and conclude they are "The Enemy
Of The People".

And of course I'm using Trump's rhetoric just to annoy them and save a lot of
breath trying to explain it further. Oh the time it saves!

------
Cyder
We know AG Barr is against the 4th amendment. It's not hard to believe Trump
would float an idea regulating the 1st amendment.

------
ausjke
Google and Facebook etc are acting like online government and run their
censorship at will based on their own ideology, they need to be checked and
held liable legally, the top management should go to jail for any wrongdoings.

While we hate censorship from the government, the same should be applied to
those de facto online big guns and those who actually are in control inside
the companies.

