Trump implicates Scarborough in murder.

[Mountain Man]

You don't seem to understand that there is a special law protecting social media from any lawsuit. None of the other media has this special protection. Should the New York Times publish an article from Mr. X defaming you, you can launch a lawsuit against Mr. X and the New York Times. If Mr. X does on Twitter, you can't. See the problem.

The "special law" protects them from being sued for content submitted by the public. It does NOT protect them from their own acts of censorship or flagging content with a phony "fact check".

[rogue06]

I would love to see stringent regulations as no one should have the power to defame with impunity.

So you must be plenty pissed off at the MSM since they regularly carry out horrible attacks which smear people in the nastiest ways imaginable and then become overfilled with self-righteous indignation the moment when it gets turned around on them since they feel that they're beyond reproach.

And btw, Trump didn't defame Scarborough. He never claimed that Scarborough was responsible for the intern's death but rather merely said the equivalent of did you hear about this? Something social media was abuzz about when it happened. And if Scarborough was so upset about the tweet and didn't want it brought up then why in the world did he go on the Howard Stern show to talk about it as well as make jokes about it?

[rogue06]

There is nobody like Trump in the Dems camp...

Nancy Pelosi

Adam Schiff

Maxine Waters

Chuck Schumer

Ilhan Omar

Hillary Clinton...



You know what? You're right. There is nobody like Trump in the Dem's camp. Who they've got is much, much worse.

[Cow Poke]

The "special law" protects them from being sued for content submitted by the public. It does NOT protect them from their own acts of censorship or flagging content with a phony "fact check".

That's what I thought, but he seemed to paint it in other terms.

[little_monkey]

It IS a great country, and I'm blessed to live here. But, if you're just looking for a fight, I'll bow out.

It is a great country, and I didn't mean any mockery - just expressing my frustrations with so much ignorance of people going on websites, and spreading their ignorance as if that ignorance is some kind of virtue. Yes that law, passed in 1996 by both parties, is a disgrace as both parties bear responsibility. And Trump is complicit as he never had any intentions to abolish it as he is a great beneficiary of that law. His latest bout to punish Twitter is only smoke and mirror as: 1) it's a law passed by Congress and only Congress can abolish or amend it; 2) it's a scare tactics hoping that Twitter will blink first and leave his tweets untouched... will see in the near future how this will pan out...

[DivineOb]

Wow, so Mr. X goes on Twitter, defames in in every horrible way, and you can't sue him because a special law protects Twitter, and you're okay with that special law!? I hope it never happens to you, but you are now aware of what's going on in the US of A. Great country, isn't it...

I think a great many posters on here are absolutely thrilled that it is hard to sue for libel when one is defamed on an online platform. Just ask "Sparko"

[little_monkey]

The "special law" protects them from being sued for content submitted by the public.

You're missing the point: If a Mr. X defames you on the New York times, you can sue both Mr. X and the NY times. If Mr X defames you on Twitter, you are helpless.

[little_monkey]

I think a great many posters on here are absolutely thrilled that it is hard to sue for libel when one is defamed on an online platform. Just ask "Sparko"

It explains all the nonsense, isn't it...

[Sparko]

Apparently, Trump is said to put on an executive order that would essentially remove some of the protections granted to social media companies by a law known as Section 230, which currently stipulates that tech companies not be held liable for content posted by users. Hmm, I agree with that in the sense that all social media platforms should be on the same footing as any other media, and should face lawsuits when users are victims of false allegations. However, Trump is shooting himself in the foot as Twitter is his biggest platform. All of his tweets would then be double- or triple-checked. Go figure.

Basically section 230 was written to prevent platforms from being iable for what the users publish, while still allowing them to moderate and edit the content for things such as profanity, sexual abuse, harassment, etc.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

What Trump wants to do is revise it so that if a platform decides to interfere with content in such a way as to editorialize it with "fact-checking" then they become publishers and lose the protection of section 230, across the board. It also covers deleting content that provides a political view the platform disagrees with (That could be a problem, as it would prevent them from not only deleting Trump's posts, but posts from Terrorists)

If they don't editorialize content, then they retain the full protection from lawsuits based on user content.

So the result will be if sites like Twitter decide to interfere with posts with fact checking like stuff, then their entire platform is open to law suits based an any user content. If they don't editorialize content, or just moderate things like listed in (2)(A) above then they will retain the protection from lawsuit.

I was reading the Executive order closely this morning because I was worried it could impact Theologyweb. But since we don't edit posts to "fact-check" or delete posts with contrary points of view from ours, we are still protected.

Here is the Executive Order:

Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorshiphttps://www.whitehouse.gov/president...ne-censorship/

[Sparko]

It's not a question of having both ways, but if someone is defaming you, don't you want the ability to bring a lawsuit and stop that defamation? That's how it is with the printing press. Why should it be different with social media like Twitter or Facebook??? Their platform IS the printing press and should be in the same category. No special privileges...

Because if platforms could be sued for what someone else posts on their site, they would all have to shut down.

You can sue someone if they libel you on an online platform, no problem. You just can't sue the platform itself. For example, if your best friend starts spreading lies about you on facefook or twitter, you can sue your best friend for defamation, but you can't sue facebook or twitter. They can't be expected to monitor every post made by every person and be responsible for the content. How would they even know if your best friend was telling the truth or spreading lies?

[Sparko]

You don't seem to understand that there is a special law protecting social media from any lawsuit. None of the other media has this special protection. Should the New York Times publish an article from Mr. X defaming you, you can launch a lawsuit against Mr. X and the New York Times. If Mr. X does on Twitter, you can't. See the problem.

It's only against civil lawsuits for other user's content. Other than that, you can sue platforms if you wish.

[Sparko]

Wow, so Mr. X goes on Twitter, defames in in every horrible way, and you can't sue him because a special law protects Twitter, and you're okay with that special law!? I hope it never happens to you, but you are now aware of what's going on in the US of A. Great country, isn't it...

again, you can sue Mr. X for defamation, but you can't sue twitter for what Mr. X said.

[Mountain Man]

You're missing the point: If a Mr. X defames you on the New York times, you can sue both Mr. X and the NY times. If Mr X defames you on Twitter, you are helpless.

I don't think the latter is correct. If someone defames you on a site like Twitter, you can't sue Twitter, but you can sue the person who defamed you. If the defamation is published in the New York Times, then the Times is liable because they made a choice to publish the defamation. Now if Twitter alters content that you posted, either with a phony "fact check" or outright censorship, then they may be in violation of the law.

[Sparko]

I don't think the latter is correct. If someone defames you on a site like Twitter, you can't sue Twitter, but you can sue the person who defamed you. If the defamation is published in the New York Times, then the Times is liable because they made a choice to publish the defamation. Now if Twitter alters content that you posted, either with a phony "fact check" or outright censorship, then they may be in violation of the law.

Yep. The NYT would be the creator and publisher of the content. They paid a reporter to write it. They have editors who approved it.

[Cow Poke]

I don't think the latter is correct. If someone defames you on a site like Twitter, you can't sue Twitter, but you can sue the person who defamed you. If the defamation is published in the New York Times, then the Times is liable because they made a choice to publish the defamation. Now if Twitter alters content that you posted, either with a phony "fact check" or outright censorship, then they may be in violation of the law.

And that's what I was talking about --- a platform that allows posting of content not their own vs a content provider who publishes selected news stories and opinion.