About what I've said, but this is better argued

We will print no news before (we decide) it’s time

Removing liability protections from social media is the wrong answer

… As much as we all like the idea of these unaccountable tyrants being brought up short by Congress, or by regulators now under our control, we should proceed with caution, especially when it comes to making Facebook, Twitter, or any of the other platforms liable for user content on their sites, which seems to be the direction the president and a few of his Republican congressional wingmen appear to be moving.

This would be a huge mistake. One more time…This would be a huge mistake. If we make the platforms responsible for user content, we will have just handed these Cyber CEO’s a more powerful weapon; a cudgel now backed up by an official regulation or statute handed down from Olympus/The Federal government.

We will have given them the best excuse possible to block whatever content they wish…Out of an abundance of caution and in willing compliance with what we believe is the government’s intent, we have blocked this content/account. Of course, once you’ve jumped through whatever hoops to get your content or account restored, no easy task for someone without the public notoriety of the president, its timeliness is long expired. Just what they want. We are 14 days from Election Day. A review process, especially if there is a backlog, can easily take 14 days. Like justice, truth delayed is truth denied.

Instead of abridging the Section 230 protections of the CDA, we should reaffirm them, however with an addition. We should say that because these platforms are indeed platforms, they are not responsible for the content their users post. However, the flip side of that is, because they have no liability for the content, they are forbidden from restricting content based on their assessment of its accuracy. It’s not their job to be fact-checkers. They need to get out of that business. This simple change would accomplish that.

They have another option. If they don’t like the one I proposed, we can break them up, just like we did with The Phone Company. President Trump and his regulators in the FCC need to keep this simple. We don’t need to make the problem worse. Leave the Cyber CEO protections in place, but get them out of  the fact-checking business.

Done.

UPDATE: Example 4,367. Twitter censors White House COVID expert because it disagrees with Dr. Scott Atlas’s face mask policy.

The Federalist reports that Atlas’s tweet offended the sensibilities of Twitter executives and “not only had his tweets removed, he was banned from tweeting until he deleted the tweets that Twitter for unclear reasons objects to.”

Here’s what he said on Twitter in two tweets. Behold the “treachery.”

Masks work? NO. LA, Miami, Hawaii, Alabama, France, Philippnes [sic], UK, Spain, Israel. WHO: “widesprd use use not supported.” + many harms; Henegen, Oxf, CEBM,” despite decades consider…

That means the real policy is @realdonaldtrump guideline: use masks for their intended purpose – when close to others, especially hi risk. Otherwise social distance. No widespread mandates. #CommonSense

So we’ve got 22-year-old liberal arts majors determining what’s “scientific” enough to release to the public.