Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (746383)	5/28/2021 8:12:54 AM
From: skinowski	1 Recommendation Recommended By pak73 Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794206

Clarence Thomas has hinted that he’d welcome such a suit. The votes at the Supreme Court are presently there, but there is no guarantee that Biden will fail in packing the Court. Yes, but if the fear of packing prevents the SC from performing its duty - that’s not a solution either. The government has outsourced censorship to private companies - which are really monopolies that allow no alternatives (see Parler).

To: carranza2 who wrote (746383)	5/28/2021 9:20:00 AM
From: D. Long	1 Recommendation Recommended By pak73 Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 794206

Its an interesting idea, but I'm not sure it will fly. Private corporations could always "regulate" speech pretty much as they pleased, and Section 230 could be viewed as an ordinary tort immunity statute based on public policy of encouraging Internet commerce. I think the legal danger for the tech companies lies in the fact that they have crossed the line from being passive platforms policing conduct prohibited by law to being publishers, and should not have the benefit of Section 230.

To: carranza2 who wrote (746383)	5/28/2021 6:19:18 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Recommended By fred woodall Respond to of 794206

On the contrary C2. Section 230 is a great addition to free speech and defence of the constitutional right to say and write what we like. It prevents Cyberspace companies from being responsible for the looney, defamatory or threatening things people write or say. It's free speech writ large. Congress has defended free speech, they have not delegated censorship illegally to Zuckerberg et al. Whining about "monopoly" censorship is a market issue. Yes, the network effect gives the dominant companies an advantage, but monopolies are always ephemeral and always leak around the edges and competitors are always smashing them. Swarms of people are working at going around the "monopolies". Facebook and Twitter get nearly zero of my eyeball time. Google is Evil and in my bad books. It's a fatal mistake to abuse a "monopoly", because they aren't really monopolies. They are only monopolies if "the market" is defined tightly enough to ring-fence the desired monopolist. Qualcomm, absurdly was defined as a monopoly by, for God's sake, Apple!! Right now you are reading something that is not in Facebook, Twitter, Google etc. Qualcomm would be $10 trillion market cap if it was a mobile Cyberspace monopoly instead of $100 billion. Apple would not be over $2 trillion, more like $50 billion. Apple charges 30% for the Apple Store apps, but whined like a fleet of Koreans over Qualcomm's derisory 3% royalty. I find life is just fine without Facebook, or Twitter. Google gets loads of my eyeballs still because of YouTube and I'm using a Chromebook and Chrome and normally use Google search and mapping, Gmail, and all sorts. But I have zero loyalty to them and now feel antipathy so competitors have my attention available. Hooray for Section 230. It enables competitors. Without that free speech protection, competitors will have more trouble than the big companies to avoid defamation lawsuits and other problems. If I was advising a big company, I'd suggest asking Congress to eliminate Section 230 so that internet companies could be sued and prosecuted. The little companies trying to compete would be unable to handle the legal problems, software development to avoid problem users who lead to lawsuits and costs. Jordan Peterson and co are starting a company that will only remove items if required by a court of law. Protected by Section 230 they can do that. If not protected, they'd be snowed under with complaints of defamation, threats, breaches of court suppression orders, official secrets, and whatnot, and forced to censor like crazy, and unable to launch competition against the Evil Googleplex. Mqurice