My second installment on Trump's presidency highlighted Trumps absolute failure to deliver on a number of key items. In addition his habit of tweeting about how he was going to deal with online censorship but never quite got around to putting together an actual piece of legislation. Republicans and sane Democrats failed on that front as well.
There was a lot of talk about repealing 230. I thought that was a bad idea and a lot of smart people did as well. It wasn't that 230 was a bad piece of legislation it was that it was not enforced. The exceptions carved out by 230 were only for platforms. Platforms are in the clear so long as they don't publish. Once a platform starts removing content for reasons other than legality it veers into publication territory. When it editorializes a post, it is publishing. When it adds disclaimers to videos, it is publishing. When it "de-v erifies" a person because it doesn't like what they say under the guise of "hate speech" which legally doesn't exist, then it is publishing. And the deverification process really exposes the so-called platform because by enabling the power to "de-verify" and remove "objectionable" people, it is ALSO saying that those left on the so-called platform meet with their approval. By "approving" of speech, it is no longer a platform anymore than the NYT is. After all, the NYT publishes speech which approves of publishing.
So the issue is that Twitter, FaceBook and Google (by way of YouTube) became publishers and then in the run up to the 2020 election, used it's platforms to favour voices from a particular political background. That's election interference at worst and perhaps an in-kind contribution at best.
I believe that when Facebook and Twitter removed accounts for "inciting or organizing violence" but left up Antifa and BLM pages and tweets they should have been sued by anyone and any business that was damaged. Only by consistently removing so called incitement regardless of who posted it would these entities be in the clear. So this bring us to DeSantis
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In a 45-minute speech, the governor identified Big Tech companies as the leading threat to American democracy and freedom of expression today, and pledged that Florida Republicans would take action.
I think DeSantis is learning from California (and perhaps Poland). You make a law there that trans-state businesses must observe and it becomes a hassle for them to enforce it in one location (set of IPs) and not in others. Thus the business is forced to enforce it everywhere. And if the companies want to sue? Fine. You got deep pockets, and we have deep pockets. Let's go.
Other states should follow suit (looking at you Texas).
The substance of this proposal:
The new regulations announced by DeSantis include:
- Mandatory opt-outs from big tech’s content filters, a solution to tech censorship first proposed by Breitbart News in 2018.
- A private right of action for Floridian citizens against tech companies that violate this condition.
- Fines of $100,000 per day levied on tech companies that suspend candidates for elected office in Florida from their platforms.
- Daily fines for any tech company “that uses their content and user-related algorithms to suppress or prioritize the access of any content related to a political candidate or cause on the ballot.”
- Greater transparency requirements.
- Disclosure requirements enforced by Florida’s election authorities for tech companies that favor one candidate over another.
- Power for the Florida attorney general to bring cases against tech companies that violate these conditions under the state’s Unfair and Deceptive Practices Act.
Most of this covers political candidates. Laura Loomer of Florida was deplatformed by just about every, if not every mainstream platform while she was running for office. Maybe even before. That made fund raising and e-mailing people extremely difficult. The FEC should have dropped a huge sledgehammer on every institution that blocked her ability to run a campaign on equal footing to her opponents.
This is what should have come out of the Trump admin a long time ago.
Big dog. Loud bark. No teeth.
On a side note, DeSantis, Noem and Gabbard are looking like very good candidates for president in 2024. Gabbard would be blocked by Harris-Biden but she's young enough to get to 2028.