Trump: Partially right on social media for wrong reasons

President Trump's now-announced executive order saying that social media platforms should be treated like publishers under terms of the 1996 Communications Decency Act was reportedly in the works for months, waiting for an excuse. That Daily Bees story is also worth reading for the holier-than-thou hypocrisy of Hucksterman and his minions. If tRump had a Facebook account, Zuckster the Huckster would treat him with the same kid gloves as Jack.

The Bees, though, failed to note what Tech Dirt DID: Not only can tRump not rewrite law, not only can he not replace the federal court system and its jurisprudence, even in the areas where an executive order might carry weight, this one is nugatory and meaningless.

The reality, as an Australian state-level supreme court ruled recently with Google, is that these folks ARE publishers. But publishers have biases all the time. Let's stop pretending otherwise. But, if Jack Dorkey's going to be a hypocrite, you and I can jump off, whether permanently or selectly. (My current plan is to stay off Twitter for a couple of weeks, and then get on just enough to reactivate my primary account, then likely deactivate again and lather, rinse, repeat.)

As for federal law? MUCH of the 1996 Communications Decency Act is flawed and needs overhauling, not just Section 230. Some of it's bad in civil libertarian terms. Some of it's bad in neoliberal capitalism terms, like Section 230.

Specifically, subsection (c)(1) needs to be overhauled. But (c)(2), which is the target of Trump's ire, is OK in my book. Non-Internet publishers do this all the time, and not just with profanity. If wingnuts don't like Twitter, they can go to Gab. Unfortunately, left-liberals and beyond have failed to start any alternatives that I know of, and general social media alternatives? MeWe is OK and easy to use, but more tumbleweeded than Google+. Mastodon struck me as being as clunky as a mastodon. Ello became a British MySpace.

Since Al Franken et al struck out on Air America, a specifically left-liberal and beyond (or even "pergressuve") major effort in Gnu Media just hasn't happened.

Now, what would it mean legally to reject (1) but not (2)?

Per that Aussie case, first of all, it would mean hiring more humans, and paying them better, to clean their Augean stables.

Second, it would force more governments to establish a formal complaint process for notification of these companies, with civil liability if they fail to haul down material without establishing good cause otherwise. As of now, the Good Samaritan clause leaves them non-liable in the US even after such a notification. And that's the crux of the issue — inadvertent initial acceptance of uploaded material on social media sites, or inadvertent search returns on news aggregators, versus willful retention of such material after notification. In essence, because companies hire people to look for offensive material, they are using publication standards.

Third, while it wouldn't put the "old mugshots, old records" people out of business, they'd be living a more marginal live than robodial phone callers.

Fourth, in the case of Google and some search engines, it would likely increase civil liability in some narrow ways on paid search results, to a similar degree of conventional media and advertisers, per the last part of my "second" paragraph.

Fifth, it might lead Google and other search engines to proactively block more search results. That would increase the so-called "dark web," but again, print versions of that, and some pirate radio versions, existed before the Internet. I mean, the average American couldn't find snuff films (to the degree any actually existed and the whole idea wasn't just urban legend) 30 years ago.

In other words, the situation re Section 230 as a whole is more nuanced than the likes of EFF claim. The reality is that Congress could nuance both it and other areas of the CDA that need it without running afoul of either the original or later First Amendment worries.

Counter-commenters might cite, oh, the Seth Rich conspiracy theory. Yeah, but that appeared in traditional media, and Seth's relatives sued Fox and Washington Times. A district court tossed the case, but an appeals court — rightly, IMO — reinstated it.

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Update, June 11: Ars Technica has a long discussion of Section 230 and possible options. Ben Wittes' "reasonableness exceptions" at the bottom of the piece is exactly what I would support.