There is increasing evidence supporting the idea that certain social media platforms are getting too big for their already huge britches. Two of them, Twitter and Facebook, cannot seem to kick the habit of censoring some of their participants.
As the owners of a platform, Twitter and Facebook have complete control of it, of course. And both of them have millions of users, thereby putting them in a very small class with a lot of weight to sling around.
And because of their huge number of users and the influence that those big numbers carry with them, they should not arbitrarily restrict or block what some users post, while leaving others alone to post as they please.
We also need to keep in mind that these platforms are under no legal obligation to monitor the postings of their users for accuracy, only for certain criminal and intellectual property-based claims, as are those sites classified as “publishers.”
In fact, social media are protected from legal action for what their users post by 47 U.S.C. § 230, a Provision of the Communication Decency Act (CDA), unlike media that are considered publishers, such as newspapers and broadcasters.
Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."
This means that online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. Twitter and Facebook are not responsible for the truth/accuracy of any posts made by users, beyond the criminal and intellectual property-based claims mentioned earlier.
Despite the protections the CDA provides to social media, both Twitter and Facebook routinely block user posts/comments that breach their nebulous “rules of the road,” often on the premise of inaccuracy.
So why are Twitter and Facebook so concerned with what their users have to say on their platform, when they are under no legal obligation to be concerned about accuracy and such?
And, as it turns out, most or all of those censored posts/comments are made by … wait for it … conservatives/Republicans.
Among users that have been, and perhaps still are, arbitrarily blocked or restricted are President of the United States Donald Trump, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, the satire site The Babylon Bee, and the 219-year-old New York Post, the fourth largest newspaper in the country. The latter had all references to a story it published on the Hunter Biden email situation removed/blocked by Twitter, even when made by other users.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey last week called it “unacceptable” that his site blocked users from sharing links to the Post story without providing a clear message as to why it was taking the action. But is that all that Twitter did that was improper?
“Social media companies have a First Amendment right to free speech. But they do not have a First Amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets, such as newspapers and broadcasters,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai tweeted recently.
Pai recently announced that the FCC plans to “clarify the meaning” of Section 230 that protects these tech giants from being held responsible for content posted by their users.
“The Commission’s General Counsel has informed me that the FCC has the legal authority to interpret Section 230. Consistent with this advice, I intend to move forward with a rulemaking to clarify its meaning,” Pai added.
Perhaps, if social media platforms are going to act like publishers, they will be held to the same legal standards and eligible for the same potential penalties, as are newspapers and broadcasters. Most likely, arbitrarily censoring some users for certain infractions, but not all of them, will carry serious penalties.
These Left-leaning platforms are all too happy to cheat to help push their political agenda. They should not be allowed to use their platforms to affect the beneficial information that users see, and perhaps especially when that information has influence on election choices.
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The Presidential Debate Commission has come under criticism, particularly from President Donald Trump’s campaign and his backers on the political right, for what those critics charge are politically motivated actions.
Without getting into the weeds of those charges, the Commission is the sole agent that organizes the presidential debates, with all details based upon what its members alone decide.
Instead of using an independent commission, that could conceivably be biased, why not allow the campaigns of the two, or perhaps three, candidates who have the most support to work together to establish the details of the debates, including the number of debates, their locations, who the moderators will be, what topics will be included, etc.
With campaign officials agreeing on these details, there would be much less for individual campaigns to disagree with, and it might even produce better debates.
The debate commission system has been around for a long time. Maybe it is time for a new approach to presidential debates.
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