T he much-misunderstood Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act is in the spotlight again. Twitter and, to a lesser extent, Facebook, suppressed reporting that Joe Biden abetted his son Hunter’s cashing in on the then-vice president’s political influence. Since there are plenty of alternatives to these social-media platforms, their actions merely drew more attention to the story while calling into question their qualification for Section 230 immunity from lawsuits.
The Biden news was broken by the New York Post, the nation’s fourth-largest daily by circulation, whose Twitter account (with 1.8 million followers) remains suspended as of this writing — irrationally so, given that the social-media site is no longer blocking other users from sharing links to the reports that prompted the Post’s account to be locked. Twitter also locked the account of Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, as well as that of the Trump reelection campaign.
Twitter’s bogus rationale for the suspensions was the claim that the Biden information had been “hacked” from a laptop computer that appears to have belonged to Hunter. In fact, there is no evidence that the emails, photographs, videos, and other materials on the laptop were hacked or otherwise misappropriated. Hunter suffers from drug addiction and is notoriously erratic. The laptop was brought to a repair shop in Delaware and never reclaimed. The shop owner, in addition to being given consensual access to the data, reported it to the FBI. Plus, Fox News reports that the work order prepared when the computer was dropped off appears to bear Hunter Biden’s signature.
A hypothetical: Let’s say information that really had been hacked was damaging to the Trump campaign, Republicans generally, or conservatives. Is there any doubt that Twitter would readily permit the free exchange of that information? Of course not. Twitter and its allies on the left would insist that the hacked information was newsworthy political data, that any unilateral effort to suppress it would be futile, and that if it weren’t authentic then the victims would say so.
In my view, Twitter is playing games. It is not a place where everyone’s voice is equally welcome; it is a Democratic partisan that occasionally censors information and people it finds politically disagreeable. Because Twitter poses as a non-partisan medium of exchange that does not engage in political-viewpoint discrimination, it is struggling to camouflage its suppression of news harmful to Democrats as good-faith, ideologically neutral censorship: portraying its actions as discouragement of cyber-theft, or the purging of “Russian disinformation” (another kneejerk claim that lacks supporting evidence).
Immunity Is a Benefit, Lack of Immunity Is Not Punishment
As one would expect, Twitter’s poor judgment has calls to repeal or drastically amend Section 230 raining down from Washington. To be sure, the provision does need some tinkering, but the rancor against the statute is misplaced. Section 230 states a modest, salutary statutory immunity. The problem here is not the safe harbor; it is that Twitter should not be entitled to its protection unless it meets the qualifying conditions. more
Dang. Stupid National Review. I am apparently out of free articles. Can somebody here gimme the lowdown on how to stop Twitter’s bullshit?
What’s AOC gonna look like when she’s as old as palousy or feindstein?
The Crypt-keeper with lipstick and knee-shooters, Jethro.
🖕😠🖕 tweeter.
Pick out the “Seven Banned Words” and lock out on that basis.
Everything else is censorship.
I’m sure they still allow Globaloney Warming [Climate Change] Scam bullshit and Ancient Alien bullshit and the support of the Wuhan Flu Dempanic bullshit – none of which has any basis in fact. Thus, they clearly aren’t attempting to “protect” their members from errant nonsense.
They should be registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as well – seeing as they’re shilling for China and illegal alien invaders from South of the Border – which, failing that, is a felony.
izlamo delenda est …
Lies, omission, manipulation, propaganda, perverting language. If their cause is so just why do they use the same M.O. as a demon from Hell? They are evil and they know it.
the ‘money quotes’ from the article … he’s talking about what Section 230 does
“The issue here is not regulating behavior (i.e., the government telling Twitter how it must operate) or punishment (i.e., the government fining Twitter for its behavior). The issue is qualification for a legal benefit — viz., immunity from liability that publishers of arguably actionable content ordinarily face. That is a benefit that the government provides, but only to entities that comply with the terms on which the benefit is offered.
…
“Section 230 immunity is a legal privilege to be earned by compliance with the attendant conditions. If an entity fails to comply, that just means it does not get the privilege; it does not mean the entity is being denied a right or being punished.”
… they lose their privilege … they can be taken to court
Lookee, lookee, lookee….
Hunter’s underage “nookie” (i use the term to emphasize how disgusting it is) has finally taken off into the twitter/facebook/media sphere only because of twitty-lating it is (how disgusting) that people all want to stop and gawk for awhile.
Guess what Big Guy? Now it’s not going away despite how many times Mrs. NEA (your wife) visits the scrunts on the view,
@Thirdtwin – go to settings and empty your cookies and cache, they will no longer know you have been there.
Thank you, Different Tim for fixing future problems, and ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ for the fixing the immediate problem. People here are the best.
That’s just it, they do not meet the qualifications to receive litigation protection. There are tens of thousands of people who can personally testify to that fact. I am one of them.
Section 230 reform now!!!