Secret Lawmaker memo that ‘would burn down the internet’ revealed - lawmakers seek to modify Section 230 to rein in big technology firms

Secret Republican memo that ‘would burn down the internet’ revealed

Republican lawmakers seek to modify Section 230 to rein in big technology firms

www.independent.co.uk

Republican lawmakers are ready with a proposal to reform a key section of US communications law aimed at reining in technology giants, a move which critics have said is tantamount to “burning down the internet”.

The law in question and facing scrutiny from both Republicans and Democrats, albeit for different reasons, is Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act that protects internet companies from liability for the material that the users post on their networks.

The proposal to reform Section 230 was unveiled by the Republican members of the US House Energy and Commerce Committee last week.

Eric Goldman, a professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law, said: “To me it’s a chilling memo, because it shows that both the Democrats and Republicans are ready to burn down the internet.

“They can find plenty of reason to agree on that. Whoever drafted that memo, does not care about making good policy,” he told Yahoo Finance.

Section 230 was consistently under attack from former president Donald Trump, who like many of his followers claimed that it allows conservative voices to be censored.

Democrats, meanwhile, believe that technology giants like Google, Twitter and Facebook have abused that protection and they should either lose their immunity or earn it by satisfying requirements set by the government.

Republicans are reportedly now seeking a modification of Section 230 to take away protections from internet companies in cases where their moderation practices discriminate against political affiliations or viewpoints.

But legal experts such as India McKinney, director of federal affairs at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said that there’s a “First Amendment problem here with some of this stuff, and that’s sort of the big issue looking at a lot of these concepts.”

Another part of the proposal looks at treating the big technology firms as state actors which would mean that limiting the liability protections forcing them to publish all other user-generated speech.

Mr Goldman said that type of requirement by the government for a private entity to speak amounts to censorship.

“The only way you get there is if you ignore editorial privileges that internet services have. There’s an entire First Amendment provision about the freedom of the press,” he said.

The Republican committee members propose to scale back the big technology firms’ First Amendment protections by categorising their services as places of public accommodation, which means that these companies could be offered only liability protection for content moderation processes that can be challenged by the users in court.

“The entire notion of saying, ‘We’re going to treat a publisher like a restaurant’ is so incoherent. It doesn’t make any sense. They’re not serving customers, they’re not kicking people out,” Mr Goldman pointed out.

 

[whatever I feel like]

Well, its a lot less retarded than Trump's ideas. But then again, what isn't?

 

[potato fan]

mayhaps in the hindsight big tech companies should have stayed out of politics. WTF google was thinking, admitting that they skew their search results against republicans and thought this repub politicians will let it slide? most of them are ubercucks but they do not like having their nice paying jobs taken away from them because of google fuckery

 

[Rei is shit]

Mr Goldman said that type of requirement by the government for a private entity to speak amounts to censorship.

“The only way you get there is if you ignore editorial privileges that internet services have. There’s an entire First Amendment provision about the freedom of the press,” he said.

If they enjoy editorial privileges then doesn't that make them a publisher and thus liable for anything posted on their sites?

 

[Disheveled Human]

Its been happening already for 3 years.

 

[Spoonge]

Just let it happen. Burn it all down. The good old days of the internet are already gone.
All that's left is twitter and normies.

 

[Kill a Troon for Pikamee]

Internet burning down to the ground would be an incredible act of divine mercy and probably one of the few things that could still save mankind. But no lawyer shit is enough, the entire internet infrastructure would have to literally burn down. Then all the nerds who know how to code would need to be polpot'ed to stop them from building internet again. At this point kikes are basically a race of cyborgs using computers to ruin God's beautiful planet, they plan to merge () with the AI anyway so I approve of anything that will stop them. LET IT ALL BURN

 

[soy_king]

Did this bitch legitimately call big tech platforms "the press?" No wonder I hate them so much!

 

[Titos]

The internet and big tech burning down? Don't threaten me with a good time.

 

[murdered meat bag]

Did this bitch legitimately call big tech platforms "the press?" No wonder I hate them so much!

Isnt there a difference between internet publisher and editor? An editor loses 230 protection?

 

[Syaoran Li]

Internet burning down to the ground would be an incredible act of divine mercy and probably one of the few things that could still save mankind. But no lawyer shit is enough, the entire internet infrastructure would have to literally burn down. Then all the nerds who know how to code would need to be polpot'ed to stop them from building internet again. At this point kikes are basically a race of cyborgs using computers to ruin God's beautiful planet, they plan to merge () with the AI anyway so I approve of anything that will stop them. LET IT ALL BURN

We get it, your mother's your sister.

 

[Absolutego]

Isnt there a difference between internet publisher and editor? An editor loses 230 protection?

The difference is, in theory, between publishers and platforms. Publishers have editors because they don't pretend to be neutral, and don't get 230 protections from what's published on their site as a result. Platforms have to be a neutral ground for speech and don't claim to own the material hosted on it, hence the 230 protections. The whole problem at the root of the Big Tech censorship debacle is that all these social media sites claim to be platforms, but have expanded the amount of material they remove or ban users for in such a fashion that it's arguable they are editing speech by proxy, and therefore acting as publishers.

 

[Immortal Technique]

I see the memo is so secret they can't show it, but everyone in the article has seen/read it and can talk about it. What a worthless article.

 

[CatParty]

I’m gonna miss you guys

 

[whogoesthere]

But censoring conservatives and claiming anything they do not like as an act of hyper genocide is freedom, that's what it looks like. You cannot bitch because the freedom you wanted ended up being shit, that's basically always been the case.

I hope they ban all the people for wrong think on twitter and facebook, because only a fucking idiot would use those info harvesting shit holes anyway. Let the net go back to its better state, when it was more diverse and fragmented, it was great.

 

[soy_king]

Isnt there a difference between internet publisher and editor? An editor loses 230 protection?

There's a difference between publishers and platforms, but there's no clear definition of either term. The Big Tech companies are claiming they're platforms, so they get protection, yet at the same time they're acting like publishers.

I don't agree that they should be treated as if they were state actors, but you can easily use Congress's enumerated Commerce Clause powers to treat them according to the same standard as a state actor.

 

[Jimjamflimflam]

I’m gonna miss you guys

Just make a weekly e-newsletter with a rundown of all the crazy articles you find.

<3

 

[Random Internet Person]

Just let it happen. Burn it all down. The good old days of the internet are already gone.
All that's left is twitter and normies.

The internet and big tech burning down? Don't threaten me with a good time.

But are you cool with the Farms going away in the fire?

 

[Absolutego]

Just make a weekly e-newsletter with a rundown of all the crazy articles you find.

<3

CatParty's Almanac of the Weird Wide Web

 

[Socrates]

I don't want things to change. I want more normal people to fall victim to the deranged twitter activist witch hunt. Every day they push the overton window further left and create a bigger divide between themselves and the average person. I want enough people to be declared non human that they begin to outnumber the double-plus-goodniks. This is the only way real change will happen, relying on the law to help you is a fools errand.