I'm all for giving people their chance with a good faith interpretation of their positions. But I am having trouble squaring his writings about having free and competitive ISP markets, with is his positions about reigning in tech companies.
He also complains that the FCC is a heavy-handed New Deal era agency ... but he also supports the agency nannying television and removing Section 230.
Ah yes, progressives love that. Example: banning words in public use (master, blacklist) but annoyed they can curse in Hollywood movies but not on broadcast.
Just the other day was told I shouldn’t use “execute this command” or “kill -9” in screenshots because it promotes violence. Same people will go home and pay Netflix to film and stream them Squid games on Netflix
Huge sections of the internet and entire companies would likely die off if Section 230 was removed. It would be pretty crazy if this happened. reddit for example.
If they do anything to Section 230, I assume it will be some kind of revision to handle the case of news feeds and page ranking algorithms, and potential fake users. If social media sites stopped manipulating content feeds and let things happen organically so far as provided by the First Amendment and relevant laws, no change would actually be needed. But if they want to assume a role analogous to Editor in Chief then they get to share the blame for what they push. That seems OK to me.
So many false assertions in one stupid paragraph, it’s hard to know what to address. Do we talk about how the first amendment doesn’t apply to private businesses, which is upheld by the bigots who won’t make cakes for homosexuals? Do we talk about the unproven theory that The Libs are gaming social media to suppress the false claims of conspiracy theorists? Or do we just keep downvoting idiots, so you disappear from the threads?
There are no principles here. They are just going to do nice things to people that were/are nice to Trump and bad things to people that weren't/aren't nice to Trump.
Section 230 is an indemnification. Removing it is removing a regulation. Section 230 not permission for the FCC to go after the web, it prevents the web from being shielded.
Modern "platforms" sponsor content and push what they want, much like magazines and TV outlets. So social media as we know it is kind of a new development in technology that needs to be addressed properly.
Section 230 is safe harbor. If websites are responsible/liable for everything posted on them, there is a huge new legal burden for websites to regulate & filter every single bit of user submitted content.
It's wild how such a simple premise is totally willfully misconstrued (or maybe you happen to just be way off base, but there's huge ranks of people inventing all sorts of wild delusional fictions about Safe Harbor).
If they overreach, which most parties do when given the opportunity, there are elections in 2 years and then 4 where they can be reprimanded and power can be reallocated. If it’s truly bad policy it can be changed.
With republicans in power and the gerrymandering that will be allowed by the SCOTUS, and with a president who will never admit defeat and order his VP to not certify an election that doesn't go his way - in what world do you see democrats ever having power in America again? It's 100% over. We've become Russia. EDIT: a word
The opposition party gained power after his previous reign and the electorate decided to give it back to him. It will be ok. The Constitution is quite strong.
I mean Trump is pretty old so even if he’s somehow a dictator (he’s not, he’s just a demagogue that’s very disagreeable - 2 traits that often lead to success if used well) he won’t around that long, lol.
I believe it’s the opposite. His personality cult makes him singular, irreplaceable. When he’s gone, it’s over. The movement will just be left with its policies, which were an afterthought for most voters and might not even give favourable results.
With vast swathes of people who DGAF about freedom of speech and just want to punish the other side - midterm elections aren't likely to produce any sort of a counterbalance.
Hopefully this regime is doing a fantastic job and the electorate votes to give them more power. But that’s doubtful. They will likely make mistakes that will be easily critiqued and balance will be sought. Always this way.
Yeah, while it's sort of far afield from FCC regulation discussion, the previous Trump administration pushed "norm breaking" about as far as it can conceivably be pushed without actually destroying the system. And he "got away with it". There will be no hesitation this time around. The question is only in what direction the whims and attention will turn, not what can be done to constrain it.
The chair does not have unlimited power, of course. Congress can expand or reduce the FCC's authority by passing new laws or eliminating existing ones. FCC decisions are routinely challenged in court, and a recent Supreme Court ruling limited the regulatory authority of federal agencies.
This is one of those moments where I'm disappointed that HN doesn't have support for GIFs, as I think the Jennifer Lawrence "OK" meme would be perfect in response to this.
Until suits are settled, it's uncommon for courts to intervene on an undecided issue in government control. This is immediately obvious. Anyone being able to subvert the power of an appointment or elected position by filing a court case, would lead to increased and rampant dysfunction. The official FCC chair's statements have a chilling effect, on their own.
There should be no surprise how any of this plays out - they were abundantly clear what their goals were. But these two parts next to each other are pretty funny:
> "The FCC is a New Deal–era agency. Its history of regulation tends to reflect the view that the federal government should impose heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition and market forces to produce optimal outcomes"
..
> The FCC should have four primary goals, Carr wrote. Those goals are "reining in Big Tech, promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance."
> On Big Tech, Carr wants to implement Trump's 2020 plan to crack down on social media websites for alleged anti-conservative bias. At the time, Trump formally petitioned the FCC to reinterpret Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a way that would limit social media platforms' legal protections for hosting third-party content when the platforms take down content they consider objectionable.
Given the proven and documented government-involved censorship campaigns these social media sites have been involved in, this should be neither surprising nor unwarranted.
For some reason people cheer rights violations and authoritarianism as long as it's aimed at their "rivals"
It’s more apt to say that people don’t want their online hangouts to be infested with the other team’s brainworms. This is a fair want! And it’s the basis of the free market, the reason we have many commercial options for online speech, not just one.
Somehow I don't think the Trump admin is gonna crack down on his own collusion with Twitter nor the crackdown on free speech on college campuses in response to antiwar protests
I know right - can you believe that the billionaire owner one of the social media companies was actively campaigning for one of the candidates and making sure every user saw every post they made in support of that candidate. Including several outright lies that ended up with community notes, but only hours after posting and being seen by millions of people?
Right, I'm sure the new FCC will crack down hard on Twitter and the owner's legally dubious election interference. This is a party of principles after all! At least that's what I keep hearing from them.
The reason for this is very simple. Section 230 means you can't target a corporation that hosts content by other people, for content you dislike.
For example: currently if someone doesn't want to see someone posting "objectionable" content - you have to identify them, then sue them. That's a problem if there's messages you don't like but you can't make illegal. But if instead you can sue the host, you can just keep suing the host, and the host eventually starts disallowing that content on its services, even if it is legal. Like they already do for adult content.
But the incoming administration has stated that content they believe should be illegal is anything that says LGBT people have the right to exist. You see this with their consistent bans on library books, their attempts to reclassify books as fiction if they can't block them on "harmful" content, etc.
We can see that this is nothing about ensuring an ability for people to hold corporations accountable to people, but specifically to enable censorship: because the proposed removals of protection from prosecution for content they host is the only place that proposed changes increase corporate liability. Every other proposed change removes the ability hold corporations accountable, removing worker protection, removing or hamstringing the agencies responsible for regulating safety, and removing or limiting the liability for any accidents, disasters, or dumping.
>The reason for this is very simple. Section 230 means you can't target a corporation that hosts content by other people, for content you dislike.
No. Section 230 means you can't target the proprietor of a website/online property (whether it's a corporation, some other sort of organization or an individual) for content posted on those properties by third parties.
Revoking/removing Section 230 would allow the biggest corporations to continue hosting third-party speech, but would stop pretty much everyone else from doing so, as they likely can't afford to be sued by every crackpot who doesn't like what other folks say.
But wait, I thought Project 2025 wasn't Trump's plan!
More generally and with less snark, get ready for high scale clientelism with Musk and Petroleum in general and generally policy based on people who were "nice to Trump" based on any sort of measure of its importance to rank and file citizens.
Ha! That's pretty good. Just like Santa was my Christmas list's plan. I always added things I knew were a stretch; always in the thought that Santa might surprise me.
Don't stay glued to your computer forecasting his future office picks. There were several candidates last time with Trump who seemed certain to hold offices that got permanently dumped closer to January. Chris Christie was the most notable example but there were others.
True, but it's not like any of the alternatives to this guy are going to be a crusader for consumer rights and a free open internet. The party has been pretty clear about how they feel about these kinds of issues, and that vengence and cronyism are topline goals.
There have been a dozen stories about "Trump's likely X" and "Trump eyeing Y for Z" with absolutely no interesting information or evidence other than their own personal fantasies.
This one is entirely based on an accusation that Carr made publicly about NBC violating the Equal Time rule which was absolutely true, and resulted in an immediate offer of time to Harris and Kaine's opponents, likely because Lorne Michaels had said explicitly in an interview a few months ago that he wouldn't be having any of the candidates on because of that rule.
> Carr was wrong about the Equal Time rule, media advocacy group Free Press said on November 3. The group pointed to an FCC fact sheet that says the rule "does not require a station to provide opposing candidates with programs identical to the initiating candidate."
Carr didn't say that a station was required to provide opposing candidates with programs identical to the initiating candidate.
> "Despite Carr's claim, there is no evidence that the network was trying to avoid the rules," Free Press said. "Broadcasters have no legal obligation to set aside broadcast time for opposing candidates, unless the candidates request it. Equal-opportunity requests are commonplace in the final days of a national election, and broadcasters typically honor them."
There's a "7 day rule" within the regulation, and the only reason for it is to thwart giving a favored candidate time immediately before the election so that the opposing candidates don't have time to react. This rule, repeatedly mentioned by Carr, goes completely unmentioned in this article.
> NBC did honor a request for equal time from the Trump campaign, giving him two free 60-second messages during NASCAR and NFL coverage.
NBC almost immediately reached out after Carr posted, and offered Trump and Cao time. This is how things are supposed to work. The "7 day rule" was still violated, but at least the NASCAR audience was an comparable audience. But the fact that Harris (and Kaine) got a completely produced and scripted segment on a comedy show meant to humanize them, and Trump (and underdog candidate Cao who had started to poll within a few points of Kaine in the last days of the campaign) had to whip together a pretaped ad a day before their respective elections is exactly what that rule was meant to avoid.
I'm sure Carr is shit, all Republicans who have been on the FCC have been shit, and most of the Democrats. But this is garbage, mostly recycled from some outfit called "Free Press" who I'm supposed to trust for no particular reason, and is not even meant to be read. It's meant to be a headline in social media feeds.
edit: please don't be suckered by the stream of garbage that's going to target you over the next few months. When Trump inevitably starts doing awful things, they're going to be completely obscured by the fact that people will have been shrieking for months about things they pretended he did.
"Just before the election, Carr alleged that NBC putting Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live was "a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC's Equal Time rule," and that the FCC should consider issuing penalties. Despite Carr's claim, NBC did provide equal time to the Trump campaign."
Didn't NBC provide the NFL and NASCAR commercials under duress ?
Honest question: it seems like the left and right might really agree here on limiting the legal protections for social media companies. Don't we want companies like Meta to be responsible for misinformation?
I see those as slightly related, but not really in agreement. Right side is more "control what the media can say". Left is more "control what effects media has". The second involves more responsibility, but not necessarily less protection. There's nuance in that.
Meta being responsible for lack of moderation is not the same as Meta being responsible for the specific content people post.
I saw a Techdirt comment related to this (specifically on Section 230) which I thought was rather insightful [0].
To summarize with my own Don Quixote analogy: The politicians are tilting at windmills to create the appearance of Doing Something. Their followers perceive them as successful because the illusory opposition (Dragons) seem to be gone, and they're merely confused when you tell them about the "unrelated" vandalism of local windmills.
Both parties are in the pockets of billionaires. The only astounding part is how Trump, whose personal business history includes illegal labor rights violations and has always had a vitriol for unions, is sometimes preferred over Biden, who's been the best president for labor in over 100 years
"It's the economy, stupid" is an old and tired cliché. Really its "the vibe of the economy"
The thing that I still haven't grasped—and this isn't snark, I truly haven't wrapped my head around it—is why people think "things cost more" (1) is the direct result of government rather than a coordinated effort from retailers raising prices, and (2) why the GOP is the party to fix this when they're the ones historically opposed to both business regulation and minimum wage increases.
Right, I'm not disputing that. What I'm questioning is whether people understand why that happened, or how to actually fix it. Because they should care how, and it won't get fixed unless we have actual solutions.
Yeah, I'll definitely grant that both parties are in the pockets of billionaires, although one seems to more than the other. There's a reason so many of them flock to one side.
The only explanation I can think of for the constituency is that people like a confident but far-fetched proposal more than an undramatic but feasible one. Slowly chipping away economic inequality and strengthening labor protections and introducing social benefits actually works, it just doesn't sound as impressive as "I will quickly and singlehandedly fix the cost of living (source: trust me)."
My point was, both parties supposedly agreed on the TikTok ban. Yet the candidate for one of them suddenly did a 180 after it passed, and will in all likelihood prevent it from having any effect.
So I wouldn't really assume they have similar desires for protections (or lack thereof) for social media companies just because similar words come out of their mouths at some point in time.
If I had precise control over what feeds I see, I'd agree with you.
But they insert ads and content I've never subscribed to, with no way to prevent either. They also selectively suppress content that I have subscribed to. That doesn't sound like a neutral conveyance of information. In fact, it sounds like they're already exercising the power you'd prefer they not have, according to private algorithms and policies that offer none of transparency or accountability that comes with public regulation.
Whatever you'd prefer, it's already disappearing from the rear view mirror. Facebook 2024 is not Facebook 2008, nor are any of its peers.
I respectfully disagree... They already exercise some censorship that is mostly biased towards the interests of the company (e.g. instances of war crimes being censored on Meta platforms).
Holding them accountable would make them beholden to the truth (and, partially to us)... Not to whomever they sell our private data to.
I think this is crucial distinction which may help reduce politization.
> "Don't we want companies like Meta to be responsible for misinformation?"
No. This is one of those questions that sounds easy but is hard in practice.
Sure, it's bad for society if a lot of people promote an obviously false idea such as flat earth.
But do we want companies like Meta to suppress that information? That creates kind of its own set of problems. For example, it creates a sense of persecution, which generates more followers. ("Big tech is censoring me!")
And you can't really automate that, because then you could inadvertently block e.g. people discussing history about ancient cultures and their views of the earth.
So humans have to be involved.
Now throw politics and money into the mix and it gets murkier still. Was it misinformation when people said the state of Georgia elected President Trump even before all the votes were counted? (And the inverse: was it misinformation that CNN refused to call Georgia for President Trump even when it became mathematically impossible for Senator Harris to win it?)
It was not long ago when the COVID accidental lab leak theory was considered misinformation. Do you want Facebook censoring posts about that? Now that theory enjoys status as a real possibility. What was once considered misinformation is now considered a possible, even plausible theory.
Too often tech folks try to think in binary here: either misinformation or factual information. But reality isn't always so clear cut. I don't want social media companies being the arbiter of what's true.
>But do we want companies like Meta to suppress that information? That creates kind of its own set of problems. For example, it creates a sense of persecution, which generates more followers. ("Big tech is censoring me!")
I don't think that's the question. Companies like Meta are already allowed to "suppress" that information by moderating content. But that isn't an enforcement of universal "truth," since a platform can only moderate itself.
I think the question is whether the government should be allowed to determine what is and isn't truth and force all platforms to either suppress or publish based on that determination alone. That's what repealing Section 230 would lead to.
>It was not long ago when the COVID accidental lab leak theory was considered misinformation. Do you want Facebook censoring posts about that? Now that theory enjoys status as a real possibility. What was once considered misinformation is now considered a possible, even plausible theory.
OK? And were people sent to the gulags because Facebook banned discussion of it? Did it even hinder popular discussion of the lab leak theory in any significant way? From what I recall, it didn't.
>I don't want social media companies being the arbiter of what's true.
They aren't, and never have been. But you do seem to want government to be the arbiter of what's true, and that seems worse to me. Yes, mistakes can be made where attempts to adjudicate truth and misinformation are concerned, but between being banned from Facebook or having men with guns knock down my door for publishing illegal facts, I'd rather have the former.
> it seems like the left and right might really agree
What difference would that make if they do? The last time around the public hated Ajit Pai's running of the FCC. If that didn't change anything back then, what makes you think what the public thinks will impact a Trump led FCC this time around?
If you forgo the rule of law, and suspend the 14th amendment. But not a democratic society, under a dictatorship it's a given... I guess you get what your society votes for though.
Even better, there can be no law at all and the government (Office of the President) and law enforcement (FBI) can covertly apply pressure directly to the C-suite to have the “wrong” information suppressed on each platform.
I'm not sure we have to. If you just make a company responsible for what they've posted, then the civil court system will probably figure that out, won't it?
You want to make the civil court system responsible for litigating the truth or falsehood of every comment, post and claim made on the internet?
Why not just make a separate court system instead of tying up the existing one? We couldn't call it the Ministry of Truth because it's the US, but maybe Bureau of Truth?
You seem to be under the impression that this generation of courts holds itself to a set of principles, rather than just motivated reasoning to do whatever they want. There will be no consistency. The Chevron decision will matter when they want it to and it won't when they don't.
Respectfully disagree. I would argue that the court has been fairly consistent - in nearly every case they have sided against federal organizations in favor of states, with a couple of exceptions where they held constitutional questions.
It is easily arguable that this court is more consistent than previous courts. Like them or not, decisions like Sebelius and Obergefell were based on much, much more wild interpretations of constitutionality ("legalistic argle-bargle") and were much more driven by a court using the ends to justify the means.
SCOTUS has been ignoring or re-interpreting precident when convinent for advancing conservative agenda items. If it advances the cause, the lawsuits will go the way they prefer, not with any consistency for established precident.
Respectfully,
This doesnt track with what we are seeing in very-recent history.
SCOTUS is broadly drawing criticism for picking and choosing winners and losers.
We cannot expect there to be any consistency anymore when the only means of determining legal success looks to be whoever is favored by the most powerful judge in the room.
They get four years of clicks and eyeballs - just mention one of the "forbidden" words and you're guaranteed success!
The world isn't ending folks. People of differing opinion had it their way for the last four years - now it's the other folks turn. Let's be adults and quit inhaling so much bullshit, fearmongered propaganda.
What human rights people are allowed to have is a difference of opinion?? Who gets thrown in jail for being "the enemy within" is a difference of opinion? Which media outlets get closed down for airing Pumpkin Spice Palpatine's dirty laundry is a difference of opinion?
Kindly quit turning down the lights and telling us it's our imagination.
>On Big Tech, Carr wants to implement Trump's 2020 plan to crack down on social media websites for alleged anti-conservative bias. At the time, Trump formally petitioned the FCC to reinterpret Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a way that would limit social media platforms' legal protections for hosting third-party content when the platforms take down content they consider objectionable.
I don't like the other parts, but reading this section, it's wild to me that this isn't already the case and that it's not wildly bipartisan!
Why? This reads like a blatant First Amendment violation.
The platforms are not required to carry any content and moderation is a form of speech. Eg Fox News has no obligation to report on good news for liberals and vice versa for CNN. There’s nothing the government can do there unless they can pass strict scrutiny (they almost certainly wont).
Trying to remove Section 230 protections for exercising First Amendment rights isn’t going to fly. Revoking 230 entirely is fine, but doing targeted removal of 230 protections based on speech isn’t going to go anywhere.
Conservatives are more than welcome to make their own social networks with opposing moderation, and they have. They just don’t get to try to force other platforms to moderate differently because no one wants to use Truth Social or whatever.
I'm all for giving people their chance with a good faith interpretation of their positions. But I am having trouble squaring his writings about having free and competitive ISP markets, with is his positions about reigning in tech companies.
He also complains that the FCC is a heavy-handed New Deal era agency ... but he also supports the agency nannying television and removing Section 230.
You can't really have it both ways.
> You can't really have it both ways.
Oh you totally can, you just have to give up consistency
Or change the goal to the securing consistent control and power.
Ah yes, progressives love that. Example: banning words in public use (master, blacklist) but annoyed they can curse in Hollywood movies but not on broadcast.
Just the other day was told I shouldn’t use “execute this command” or “kill -9” in screenshots because it promotes violence. Same people will go home and pay Netflix to film and stream them Squid games on Netflix
If there's anything we've learned over the last decade, it's "look at what they do, not what they say." People's stated principles mean nothing.
"last decade" or "all of history"?
Huge sections of the internet and entire companies would likely die off if Section 230 was removed. It would be pretty crazy if this happened. reddit for example.
Also truth social and twitter.
Likely hacker news as well
If they do anything to Section 230, I assume it will be some kind of revision to handle the case of news feeds and page ranking algorithms, and potential fake users. If social media sites stopped manipulating content feeds and let things happen organically so far as provided by the First Amendment and relevant laws, no change would actually be needed. But if they want to assume a role analogous to Editor in Chief then they get to share the blame for what they push. That seems OK to me.
So many false assertions in one stupid paragraph, it’s hard to know what to address. Do we talk about how the first amendment doesn’t apply to private businesses, which is upheld by the bigots who won’t make cakes for homosexuals? Do we talk about the unproven theory that The Libs are gaming social media to suppress the false claims of conspiracy theorists? Or do we just keep downvoting idiots, so you disappear from the threads?
I’m not sure either.
consistency has never been of importance to people who align with Trump in any fashion (thus this includes Elon)
There are no principles here. They are just going to do nice things to people that were/are nice to Trump and bad things to people that weren't/aren't nice to Trump.
[flagged]
Section 230 is an indemnification. Removing it is removing a regulation. Section 230 not permission for the FCC to go after the web, it prevents the web from being shielded.
Section 230 doesn't indemnify anything.
It recognizes that a platform is just an intermediary, not the originator.
Similar provisions are in place in most of the civilized world.
Modern "platforms" sponsor content and push what they want, much like magazines and TV outlets. So social media as we know it is kind of a new development in technology that needs to be addressed properly.
Section 230 is safe harbor. If websites are responsible/liable for everything posted on them, there is a huge new legal burden for websites to regulate & filter every single bit of user submitted content.
It's wild how such a simple premise is totally willfully misconstrued (or maybe you happen to just be way off base, but there's huge ranks of people inventing all sorts of wild delusional fictions about Safe Harbor).
This will be a disaster. But I'm sure he will enjoy broad support for it, so what do I know.
broad support doesn't make it not a disaster.
Hey as long as billionaires get richer, it’s all good.
> a Carr-led FCC would likely drop the agency's legal defense of its net neutrality rules
Up to no good.
Predictably a lobbyist in the same vien as Ajit Pai.
I guess all these things will test how far they can go to push things their way.
It’s difficult to imagine that there will be any meaningful limit. Who will there be with any power to apply the brakes?
If they overreach, which most parties do when given the opportunity, there are elections in 2 years and then 4 where they can be reprimanded and power can be reallocated. If it’s truly bad policy it can be changed.
With republicans in power and the gerrymandering that will be allowed by the SCOTUS, and with a president who will never admit defeat and order his VP to not certify an election that doesn't go his way - in what world do you see democrats ever having power in America again? It's 100% over. We've become Russia. EDIT: a word
The opposition party gained power after his previous reign and the electorate decided to give it back to him. It will be ok. The Constitution is quite strong.
Russia has elections too.
I mean Trump is pretty old so even if he’s somehow a dictator (he’s not, he’s just a demagogue that’s very disagreeable - 2 traits that often lead to success if used well) he won’t around that long, lol.
I think he's the forerunner not the culmination. This movement coalesced around him but he didn't create it and it won't go away when he dies.
I believe it’s the opposite. His personality cult makes him singular, irreplaceable. When he’s gone, it’s over. The movement will just be left with its policies, which were an afterthought for most voters and might not even give favourable results.
With vast swathes of people who DGAF about freedom of speech and just want to punish the other side - midterm elections aren't likely to produce any sort of a counterbalance.
Hopefully this regime is doing a fantastic job and the electorate votes to give them more power. But that’s doubtful. They will likely make mistakes that will be easily critiqued and balance will be sought. Always this way.
Yeah, while it's sort of far afield from FCC regulation discussion, the previous Trump administration pushed "norm breaking" about as far as it can conceivably be pushed without actually destroying the system. And he "got away with it". There will be no hesitation this time around. The question is only in what direction the whims and attention will turn, not what can be done to constrain it.
The chair does not have unlimited power, of course. Congress can expand or reduce the FCC's authority by passing new laws or eliminating existing ones. FCC decisions are routinely challenged in court, and a recent Supreme Court ruling limited the regulatory authority of federal agencies.
This is one of those moments where I'm disappointed that HN doesn't have support for GIFs, as I think the Jennifer Lawrence "OK" meme would be perfect in response to this.
Until suits are settled, it's uncommon for courts to intervene on an undecided issue in government control. This is immediately obvious. Anyone being able to subvert the power of an appointment or elected position by filing a court case, would lead to increased and rampant dysfunction. The official FCC chair's statements have a chilling effect, on their own.
There should be no surprise how any of this plays out - they were abundantly clear what their goals were. But these two parts next to each other are pretty funny:
> "The FCC is a New Deal–era agency. Its history of regulation tends to reflect the view that the federal government should impose heavy-handed regulation rather than relying on competition and market forces to produce optimal outcomes"
..
> The FCC should have four primary goals, Carr wrote. Those goals are "reining in Big Tech, promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance."
> On Big Tech, Carr wants to implement Trump's 2020 plan to crack down on social media websites for alleged anti-conservative bias. At the time, Trump formally petitioned the FCC to reinterpret Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a way that would limit social media platforms' legal protections for hosting third-party content when the platforms take down content they consider objectionable.
The only "North Star" is grievance.
Given the proven and documented government-involved censorship campaigns these social media sites have been involved in, this should be neither surprising nor unwarranted. For some reason people cheer rights violations and authoritarianism as long as it's aimed at their "rivals"
It’s more apt to say that people don’t want their online hangouts to be infested with the other team’s brainworms. This is a fair want! And it’s the basis of the free market, the reason we have many commercial options for online speech, not just one.
> For some reason people cheer rights violations and authoritarianism as long as it's aimed at their "rivals"
Are you talking about the time when Twitter censored the laptop story[1], or about the time when X censored the JD Vance story[2]?
1. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/08/politics/twitter-hearing-hous...
2. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/12/x-twitter-jd...
Somehow I don't think the Trump admin is gonna crack down on his own collusion with Twitter nor the crackdown on free speech on college campuses in response to antiwar protests
I know right - can you believe that the billionaire owner one of the social media companies was actively campaigning for one of the candidates and making sure every user saw every post they made in support of that candidate. Including several outright lies that ended up with community notes, but only hours after posting and being seen by millions of people?
Right, I'm sure the new FCC will crack down hard on Twitter and the owner's legally dubious election interference. This is a party of principles after all! At least that's what I keep hearing from them.
The reason for this is very simple. Section 230 means you can't target a corporation that hosts content by other people, for content you dislike.
For example: currently if someone doesn't want to see someone posting "objectionable" content - you have to identify them, then sue them. That's a problem if there's messages you don't like but you can't make illegal. But if instead you can sue the host, you can just keep suing the host, and the host eventually starts disallowing that content on its services, even if it is legal. Like they already do for adult content.
But the incoming administration has stated that content they believe should be illegal is anything that says LGBT people have the right to exist. You see this with their consistent bans on library books, their attempts to reclassify books as fiction if they can't block them on "harmful" content, etc.
We can see that this is nothing about ensuring an ability for people to hold corporations accountable to people, but specifically to enable censorship: because the proposed removals of protection from prosecution for content they host is the only place that proposed changes increase corporate liability. Every other proposed change removes the ability hold corporations accountable, removing worker protection, removing or hamstringing the agencies responsible for regulating safety, and removing or limiting the liability for any accidents, disasters, or dumping.
>The reason for this is very simple. Section 230 means you can't target a corporation that hosts content by other people, for content you dislike.
No. Section 230 means you can't target the proprietor of a website/online property (whether it's a corporation, some other sort of organization or an individual) for content posted on those properties by third parties.
Revoking/removing Section 230 would allow the biggest corporations to continue hosting third-party speech, but would stop pretty much everyone else from doing so, as they likely can't afford to be sued by every crackpot who doesn't like what other folks say.
But wait, I thought Project 2025 wasn't Trump's plan!
More generally and with less snark, get ready for high scale clientelism with Musk and Petroleum in general and generally policy based on people who were "nice to Trump" based on any sort of measure of its importance to rank and file citizens.
Project 2025 is not Trump's plan, but Trump is Project 2025's plan.
Ha! That's pretty good. Just like Santa was my Christmas list's plan. I always added things I knew were a stretch; always in the thought that Santa might surprise me.
Don't stay glued to your computer forecasting his future office picks. There were several candidates last time with Trump who seemed certain to hold offices that got permanently dumped closer to January. Chris Christie was the most notable example but there were others.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/11/chris-christ...
True, but it's not like any of the alternatives to this guy are going to be a crusader for consumer rights and a free open internet. The party has been pretty clear about how they feel about these kinds of issues, and that vengence and cronyism are topline goals.
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There have been a dozen stories about "Trump's likely X" and "Trump eyeing Y for Z" with absolutely no interesting information or evidence other than their own personal fantasies.
This one is entirely based on an accusation that Carr made publicly about NBC violating the Equal Time rule which was absolutely true, and resulted in an immediate offer of time to Harris and Kaine's opponents, likely because Lorne Michaels had said explicitly in an interview a few months ago that he wouldn't be having any of the candidates on because of that rule.
> Carr was wrong about the Equal Time rule, media advocacy group Free Press said on November 3. The group pointed to an FCC fact sheet that says the rule "does not require a station to provide opposing candidates with programs identical to the initiating candidate."
Carr didn't say that a station was required to provide opposing candidates with programs identical to the initiating candidate.
> "Despite Carr's claim, there is no evidence that the network was trying to avoid the rules," Free Press said. "Broadcasters have no legal obligation to set aside broadcast time for opposing candidates, unless the candidates request it. Equal-opportunity requests are commonplace in the final days of a national election, and broadcasters typically honor them."
There's a "7 day rule" within the regulation, and the only reason for it is to thwart giving a favored candidate time immediately before the election so that the opposing candidates don't have time to react. This rule, repeatedly mentioned by Carr, goes completely unmentioned in this article.
> NBC did honor a request for equal time from the Trump campaign, giving him two free 60-second messages during NASCAR and NFL coverage.
NBC almost immediately reached out after Carr posted, and offered Trump and Cao time. This is how things are supposed to work. The "7 day rule" was still violated, but at least the NASCAR audience was an comparable audience. But the fact that Harris (and Kaine) got a completely produced and scripted segment on a comedy show meant to humanize them, and Trump (and underdog candidate Cao who had started to poll within a few points of Kaine in the last days of the campaign) had to whip together a pretaped ad a day before their respective elections is exactly what that rule was meant to avoid.
I'm sure Carr is shit, all Republicans who have been on the FCC have been shit, and most of the Democrats. But this is garbage, mostly recycled from some outfit called "Free Press" who I'm supposed to trust for no particular reason, and is not even meant to be read. It's meant to be a headline in social media feeds.
edit: please don't be suckered by the stream of garbage that's going to target you over the next few months. When Trump inevitably starts doing awful things, they're going to be completely obscured by the fact that people will have been shrieking for months about things they pretended he did.
"Just before the election, Carr alleged that NBC putting Kamala Harris on Saturday Night Live was "a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC's Equal Time rule," and that the FCC should consider issuing penalties. Despite Carr's claim, NBC did provide equal time to the Trump campaign."
Didn't NBC provide the NFL and NASCAR commercials under duress ?
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/nbc-donald-trum...
I really don't want to have to dig into any more biased reporting in the attached article. It gets exhausting
Honest question: it seems like the left and right might really agree here on limiting the legal protections for social media companies. Don't we want companies like Meta to be responsible for misinformation?
I see those as slightly related, but not really in agreement. Right side is more "control what the media can say". Left is more "control what effects media has". The second involves more responsibility, but not necessarily less protection. There's nuance in that.
Meta being responsible for lack of moderation is not the same as Meta being responsible for the specific content people post.
I saw a Techdirt comment related to this (specifically on Section 230) which I thought was rather insightful [0].
To summarize with my own Don Quixote analogy: The politicians are tilting at windmills to create the appearance of Doing Something. Their followers perceive them as successful because the illusory opposition (Dragons) seem to be gone, and they're merely confused when you tell them about the "unrelated" vandalism of local windmills.
[0] https://www.techdirt.com/2024/11/05/no-section-230-doesnt-ci...
"being wrong about 230 is bipartisan"
https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
We do, but the ultra-wealthy owners of Meta et al don't, and they're the ones with large wallets and direct lines to coming administration.
How a party can bill itself as a champion of the working class while also being in the pocket of dozens of billionaires is beyond me.
Both parties are in the pockets of billionaires. The only astounding part is how Trump, whose personal business history includes illegal labor rights violations and has always had a vitriol for unions, is sometimes preferred over Biden, who's been the best president for labor in over 100 years
"It's the economy, stupid" is an old and tired cliché. Really its "the vibe of the economy"
It's always a vibe. But the Democratic Party really hasn't had a good vibe in the last few years, so we lost. :(
I think the vibe is "no point being the best president for labour if things cost far more".
The thing that I still haven't grasped—and this isn't snark, I truly haven't wrapped my head around it—is why people think "things cost more" (1) is the direct result of government rather than a coordinated effort from retailers raising prices, and (2) why the GOP is the party to fix this when they're the ones historically opposed to both business regulation and minimum wage increases.
> (1) is the direct result of government rather than a coordinated effort from retailers raising prices
Why would they think this? Has price fixing been shown to a) exist and b) be the dominant effect over some obvious and enormous effects?
People don’t “think” things cost more, things actually cost more.
I don’t think they care why it happened, they care about it being fixed.
Right, I'm not disputing that. What I'm questioning is whether people understand why that happened, or how to actually fix it. Because they should care how, and it won't get fixed unless we have actual solutions.
Or when you break a railroad strike.
Yeah, I'll definitely grant that both parties are in the pockets of billionaires, although one seems to more than the other. There's a reason so many of them flock to one side.
The only explanation I can think of for the constituency is that people like a confident but far-fetched proposal more than an undramatic but feasible one. Slowly chipping away economic inequality and strengthening labor protections and introducing social benefits actually works, it just doesn't sound as impressive as "I will quickly and singlehandedly fix the cost of living (source: trust me)."
> Honest question: it seems like the left and right might really agree here on limiting the legal protections for social media companies.
How do you imagine the "TikTok ban" playing out under a left vs. right administration?
But that wasn't what he talked about, was it? It's about getting rid of section 230.
Sorry, I was too indirect.
My point was, both parties supposedly agreed on the TikTok ban. Yet the candidate for one of them suddenly did a 180 after it passed, and will in all likelihood prevent it from having any effect.
So I wouldn't really assume they have similar desires for protections (or lack thereof) for social media companies just because similar words come out of their mouths at some point in time.
> Don't we want companies like Meta to be responsible for misinformation?
I don't particularly. I don't think it's their job to have that power.
If I had precise control over what feeds I see, I'd agree with you.
But they insert ads and content I've never subscribed to, with no way to prevent either. They also selectively suppress content that I have subscribed to. That doesn't sound like a neutral conveyance of information. In fact, it sounds like they're already exercising the power you'd prefer they not have, according to private algorithms and policies that offer none of transparency or accountability that comes with public regulation.
Whatever you'd prefer, it's already disappearing from the rear view mirror. Facebook 2024 is not Facebook 2008, nor are any of its peers.
> they're already exercising the power you'd prefer they not have
Maybe you would prefer they wouldn't have it, but I prefer that private companies run their moderation as they see fit for the market.
Can they classify gore so that I can ask them not show it, or is that overstepping their role?
If they can do that, how do you draw other lines?
And then if your answer is no, why do you think you should be able to dictate a rule that is so harmful to their business?
I respectfully disagree... They already exercise some censorship that is mostly biased towards the interests of the company (e.g. instances of war crimes being censored on Meta platforms).
Holding them accountable would make them beholden to the truth (and, partially to us)... Not to whomever they sell our private data to.
I think this is crucial distinction which may help reduce politization.
> Holding them accountable would make them beholden to the truth
I don't understand how this would work. Who determines what's true?
> "Don't we want companies like Meta to be responsible for misinformation?"
No. This is one of those questions that sounds easy but is hard in practice.
Sure, it's bad for society if a lot of people promote an obviously false idea such as flat earth.
But do we want companies like Meta to suppress that information? That creates kind of its own set of problems. For example, it creates a sense of persecution, which generates more followers. ("Big tech is censoring me!")
And you can't really automate that, because then you could inadvertently block e.g. people discussing history about ancient cultures and their views of the earth.
So humans have to be involved.
Now throw politics and money into the mix and it gets murkier still. Was it misinformation when people said the state of Georgia elected President Trump even before all the votes were counted? (And the inverse: was it misinformation that CNN refused to call Georgia for President Trump even when it became mathematically impossible for Senator Harris to win it?)
It was not long ago when the COVID accidental lab leak theory was considered misinformation. Do you want Facebook censoring posts about that? Now that theory enjoys status as a real possibility. What was once considered misinformation is now considered a possible, even plausible theory.
Too often tech folks try to think in binary here: either misinformation or factual information. But reality isn't always so clear cut. I don't want social media companies being the arbiter of what's true.
>But do we want companies like Meta to suppress that information? That creates kind of its own set of problems. For example, it creates a sense of persecution, which generates more followers. ("Big tech is censoring me!")
I don't think that's the question. Companies like Meta are already allowed to "suppress" that information by moderating content. But that isn't an enforcement of universal "truth," since a platform can only moderate itself.
I think the question is whether the government should be allowed to determine what is and isn't truth and force all platforms to either suppress or publish based on that determination alone. That's what repealing Section 230 would lead to.
>It was not long ago when the COVID accidental lab leak theory was considered misinformation. Do you want Facebook censoring posts about that? Now that theory enjoys status as a real possibility. What was once considered misinformation is now considered a possible, even plausible theory.
OK? And were people sent to the gulags because Facebook banned discussion of it? Did it even hinder popular discussion of the lab leak theory in any significant way? From what I recall, it didn't.
>I don't want social media companies being the arbiter of what's true.
They aren't, and never have been. But you do seem to want government to be the arbiter of what's true, and that seems worse to me. Yes, mistakes can be made where attempts to adjudicate truth and misinformation are concerned, but between being banned from Facebook or having men with guns knock down my door for publishing illegal facts, I'd rather have the former.
> it seems like the left and right might really agree
What difference would that make if they do? The last time around the public hated Ajit Pai's running of the FCC. If that didn't change anything back then, what makes you think what the public thinks will impact a Trump led FCC this time around?
Do you think the American right wants Twitter/X or Truth Social to be responsible for misinformation?
The law can be applied selectively.
If you forgo the rule of law, and suspend the 14th amendment. But not a democratic society, under a dictatorship it's a given... I guess you get what your society votes for though.
So dictatorship. This would mean that whoever controls power, controls how the law is applied.
Not what I call sustainable governance.
Even better, there can be no law at all and the government (Office of the President) and law enforcement (FBI) can covertly apply pressure directly to the C-suite to have the “wrong” information suppressed on each platform.
Yes. Now define "misinformation." (Good luck.) And how do you feel about the government getting to decide what that definition is?
I'm not sure we have to. If you just make a company responsible for what they've posted, then the civil court system will probably figure that out, won't it?
Companies are already responsible for what they post.(see Dominion lawsuit)
Companies aren't, and should not be, responsible for what other people post on their websites.(See Section 230 prehistory)
Should they be responsible for what they algorithimcally show to users?
Who is going to bring them to court?
Who is going to pay for these court cases?
Who has the money to draw them our indefinitely?
You want to make the civil court system responsible for litigating the truth or falsehood of every comment, post and claim made on the internet?
Why not just make a separate court system instead of tying up the existing one? We couldn't call it the Ministry of Truth because it's the US, but maybe Bureau of Truth?
Any FCC rule-making will be caught up in post-Chevron decision lawsuits. Folks should relax.
You seem to be under the impression that this generation of courts holds itself to a set of principles, rather than just motivated reasoning to do whatever they want. There will be no consistency. The Chevron decision will matter when they want it to and it won't when they don't.
Respectfully disagree. I would argue that the court has been fairly consistent - in nearly every case they have sided against federal organizations in favor of states, with a couple of exceptions where they held constitutional questions.
It is easily arguable that this court is more consistent than previous courts. Like them or not, decisions like Sebelius and Obergefell were based on much, much more wild interpretations of constitutionality ("legalistic argle-bargle") and were much more driven by a court using the ends to justify the means.
Have you been paying attention?
SCOTUS has been ignoring or re-interpreting precident when convinent for advancing conservative agenda items. If it advances the cause, the lawsuits will go the way they prefer, not with any consistency for established precident.
Post-Chevron won't make a difference if they can sign and pass this into law with all chambers of congress in control.
Respectfully, This doesnt track with what we are seeing in very-recent history.
SCOTUS is broadly drawing criticism for picking and choosing winners and losers. We cannot expect there to be any consistency anymore when the only means of determining legal success looks to be whoever is favored by the most powerful judge in the room.
The biggest winners of the election - the media.
They get four years of clicks and eyeballs - just mention one of the "forbidden" words and you're guaranteed success!
The world isn't ending folks. People of differing opinion had it their way for the last four years - now it's the other folks turn. Let's be adults and quit inhaling so much bullshit, fearmongered propaganda.
A difference of opinion?
What human rights people are allowed to have is a difference of opinion?? Who gets thrown in jail for being "the enemy within" is a difference of opinion? Which media outlets get closed down for airing Pumpkin Spice Palpatine's dirty laundry is a difference of opinion?
Kindly quit turning down the lights and telling us it's our imagination.
Oh my, someone drank all of the kool-aid.
Have you ever asked yourself why you sound so ridiculous saying these things?
>On Big Tech, Carr wants to implement Trump's 2020 plan to crack down on social media websites for alleged anti-conservative bias. At the time, Trump formally petitioned the FCC to reinterpret Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in a way that would limit social media platforms' legal protections for hosting third-party content when the platforms take down content they consider objectionable.
I don't like the other parts, but reading this section, it's wild to me that this isn't already the case and that it's not wildly bipartisan!
If HN became legally responsible for everything posted on its site, there would be no more HN.
Copy + paste across the internet. The internet would only be legally usable for corporate entities.
Why? This reads like a blatant First Amendment violation.
The platforms are not required to carry any content and moderation is a form of speech. Eg Fox News has no obligation to report on good news for liberals and vice versa for CNN. There’s nothing the government can do there unless they can pass strict scrutiny (they almost certainly wont).
Trying to remove Section 230 protections for exercising First Amendment rights isn’t going to fly. Revoking 230 entirely is fine, but doing targeted removal of 230 protections based on speech isn’t going to go anywhere.
Conservatives are more than welcome to make their own social networks with opposing moderation, and they have. They just don’t get to try to force other platforms to moderate differently because no one wants to use Truth Social or whatever.
>They just don’t get to try to force other platforms to moderate differently because no one wants to use Truth Social or whatever.
They're going to control the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court. Yes they do get to do exactly that.