For the Conservatives here... Name a Single Website that does not exercise editorial control

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I am calling bullshit.

In defense of Trump in his fight against Twitter, the argument is being made that there is a difference between websites that "exercise editorial control" and websites that don't. Name a single website that doesn't exercise editorial control. I don't think such a thing exists. Not on the left. Not on the right.

This argument is bullshit. The real argument is whether sites should be held liable for what their users post. The principle should apply equally to all websites no matter who runs them or what their politics are.

To me the correct policy is simple. Each website exercises its own editorial control based on the politics, religious views or values of the people running it. The government should just stay away from regulating how private sites are run.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I am calling bullshit.

In defense of Trump in his fight against Twitter, the argument is being made that there is a difference between websites that "exercise editorial control" and websites that don't. Name a single website that doesn't exercise editorial control. I don't think such a thing exists. Not on the left. Not on the right.

This argument is bullshit. The real argument is whether sites should be held liable for what their users post. The principle should apply equally to all websites no matter who runs them or what their politics are.

To me the correct policy is simple. Each website exercises its own editorial control based on the politics, religious views or values of the people running it. The government should just stay away from regulating how private sites are run.

The question is not what they can be sued for but what a plaintiff can win a lawsuit for. You can be sued and just ask the court to dismiss the lawsuit. The question is what the court won't dismiss.

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You are not answering the question.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You are not answering the question.

It doesn't matter. They may well all get sued if they can't justify keeping their liability exemption.

They will probably have to prove they allow all views and don't redact with political bias against certain viewpoints and not others.

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@livinglava,

The law gives them liability exemption. They already have it without justifying anything. If you don't like the law, talk to Congress. I imagine that you would have been fine with this law had Trump not tweeted about it.

I happen to think that giving all websites this exemption is a good thing. You are free to disagree. Either way, I think the rules should be the same for everyone. Setting up a Government Panel to give privileges to some websites and not to others sounds awful to me. Sure you could base this decision on whether the members of the panel feel each site adheres to government regulations or not. It still sounds awful.

I am just pointing out that your pretext that there are any websites that don't exercise editorial control is nonsense.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I think the rules should be the same for everyone. Setting up a Government Panel to give privileges to some websites and not to others sounds awful to me. Sure you could base this decision on whether the members of the panel feel each site adheres to government regulations or not. It still sounds awful

Isn't there already a distinction between online platforms that are protected from lawsuits and others that aren't?

Which ones aren't already protected? We should compare those to the ones that currently are, to see what the difference is and whether the distinction is justified.

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@livinglava,

You can read the law yourself.

All websites that allow for user content are protected under 230(c).

This is the simplest way to do it, and it avoids having Federal Government regulators judge between websites (something I would strongly oppose).

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You can read the law yourself.

All websites that allow for user content are protected under 230(c).

This is the simplest way to do it, and it avoids having Federal Government regulators judge between websites (something I would strongly oppose).

Once the lawsuits begin, we may see some interesting nuances come out in legal arguments.

E.g. some web platforms might argue that they allow anyone to annotate others' posts, regardless of political leaning; and that will cause the judge to find in favor of the defendant.

Personally, I wouldn't want to deal with lawsuits and defending against them in court, though; and I suspect many companies will just try to figure out ways to avoid lawsuits altogether to begin with, i.e. by making sure no one is so dissatisfied with their platform that they would want to sue in the first place.

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@livinglava,

The lawsuits aren't going to begin.

Let me say this in a respectful way: The president is overstepping his bounds and this executive order will accomplish nothing. In a week, no one will even be talking about this.

Now let me say this truthfully: Trump is an idiot. He has picked another fight he can't win because someone hurt his feelings. He should be running the country (which is going through a few things and could use leadership). Instead he is lashing out like a because someone said something mean.

This is the ******* president of the United States acting like an hurt school girl.

Nothing will come of this stupid executive order. It will be soon forgotten and never used.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

The lawsuits aren't going to begin.

Let me say this in a respectful way: The president is overstepping his bounds and this executive order will accomplish nothing. In a week, no one will even be talking about this.

Now let me say this truthfully: Trump is an idiot. He has picked another fight he can't win because someone hurt his feelings. He should be running the country (which is going through a few things and could use leadership). Instead he is lashing out like a because someone said something mean.

This is the ******* president of the United States acting like an hurt school girl.

Nothing will come of this stupid executive order. It will be soon forgotten and never used.

Time will tell, but wouldn't it be a good thing to test out the architecture of free speech in this way?

Won't it be a waste if what you say comes true and no one actually explores who would get sued for what, why, and how it would come out in court?

edit: you know I just realized this is about stock markets. These companies' stocks are going to go down when they're getting sued, and that will cause their investors to put pressure on them to do what it takes to avoid lawsuits.

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@livinglava,

I don't think you understand what Free Speech means.

If Able2know decides to delete your post, or even to ban you based on the content of your posts, they are not violating your free speech rights.

Able2know is a private site. They can do whatever they want. There is no reason for the Federal Government to get involved at all. This has nothing at all to do with the First Amendment.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

I don't think you understand what Free Speech means.

If Able2know decides to delete your post, or even to ban you based on the content of your posts, they are not violating your free speech rights.

Able2know is a private site. They can do whatever they want. There is no reason for the Federal Government to get involved at all. This has nothing at all to do with the First Amendment.

The first amendment is very narrow and only specifically says, "congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech"

So that implies that people basically have the right to create their own publications and not have congress make laws abridging what they can say in their publications.

So by that logic, Able2know or any other web platform is a publication that is free to publish what it publishes and not what it doesn't publish.

The question is whether it or any other publisher or online user platform should be protected by the government from lawsuits, assuming that the right to sue is part of freedom of speech.

So I'm wondering what the purpose is of preventing congress making laws that abridge freedom of speech, and whether censoring lawsuits against publishers by protecting them from liability constitutes abridgement.

I think you have to address the issue and not just do your typical thing where you argue that the side of something you are against is ridiculous and should be dropped as a question at all, because that just denies the issue a hear, i.e. denies it its day in court.

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@livinglava,

Quote:

The question is whether it or any other publisher or online user platform should be protected by the government from lawsuits, assuming that the right to sue is part of freedom of speech.

The answer is yes. This answer was decided by Congress in the CDA.

Quote:

So I'm wondering what the purpose is of preventing congress making laws that abridge freedom of speech, and whether censoring lawsuits against publishers by protecting them from liability constitutes abridgement.

The answer is clearly "no".

You made up the phrase "censoring lawsuits.... ". It is kind of silly. The implication is that any law Congress passed that prevented someone from suing would be unconstitutional.

Unless you want to argue that the PLCAA (which protects gun manufacturers from lawsuits) is unconstitutional.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

You made up the phrase "censoring lawsuits.... ". It is kind of silly.

What you do is when I say something you don't like, you turn it into a concept and then argue against it as a concept.

'Censor' has a meaning, and 'lawsuit' has a meaning. So protecting media platforms against lawsuits can also be described as "censoring lawsuits.'

Now what you seem to be arguing is that lawsuits do not constitute speech and the government preventing them thus doesn't constitute censorship.

I don't know if I agree with that. If a company, media platform/publisher or otherwise is doing something that warrants legal action, you have the right to sue them in a court of law.

The only reason for protecting these companies from lawsuits is to prevent them from closing down in response to lawsuits, because if they close down, there won't be any public internet venues for free speech/communication.

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@livinglava,

It is silly because rather than reading about the actual legal principles... you are making up legal principles of your own.

There are real courts, real laws and real legal experts. You ignore all of these to invent your own ideas. Your analysis is completely detached from reality.

I think "silly" is the correct word.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

It is silly because rather than reading about the actual legal principles... you are making up legal principles of your own.

There are real courts, real laws and real legal experts. You ignore all of these to invent your own ideas. Your analysis is completely detached from reality.

I think "silly" is the correct word.

If you want to cite something and discuss it, you are free to do that here.

What you do instead, however, is to talk about there being something to discuss 'out there,' and then arguing against me for talking about a topic without do the research you're suggesting for you.

The reason you do it isn't because you actually want to have a discussion about the topic, but because you don't like my POV, which is actually considering the possibility of federal protection against lawsuits being removed from web platforms.

You started out by making the case that all websites exercise editorial control and therefore that they should all be protected in doing so; but you don't want to discuss the possibility that none of them should be protecting in doing so. Why not?

Let me ask you this: if liability protection was removed, which websites would shut down users to avoid lawsuits and would they become like more traditional publishers that just showcase the articles written by their staff writers and maybe include a few letters submitted by readers? Or would there still be discussion forums like this one where people can engage freely in discussion without waiting for editorial approval for every post?

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@livinglava,

I have already said this...

Every website that allows user content has moderation (i.e. they remove posts that don't adhere to their arbitrary guidelines). This is true whether the website is liberal, conservative, religious, atheist or apolitical. The challenge of this post was for you to give me an example where this isn't true (which you failed to do).

This includes Able2know.

So the answer to your silly question is... every website would be liable and would feel pressure to censor more posts so that don't get sued.[/b] There would be no website that wouldn't be affected.

It really is simple. If you make every website on the internet liable for what their users post, they are going to control and censor what their users post.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

So the answer to your silly question is... every website would be liable and would feel pressure to censor more posts so that don't get sued.[/b] There would be no website that wouldn't be affected.

It really is simple. If you make every website on the internet liable for what their users post, they are going to control and censor what their users post.

So which posts would still be allowed? Would every post have to go through editorial approval before posting?

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