Every time this debate comes up, someone suggests that companies like Twitter are in violation of the first amendment when they remove a user's post. To me they often sound like the ignorant ones.
I've never seen this. I have seen people point out that Twitter isn't promoting freedom of speech and the somebody else conflating that with the first amendment of the U.S. constitution though.
The general sentiment is that if tech companies can censor arbitrarily their special section 230 liability protection should be removed. They are no longer acting as an internet service, but as a publisher that curates publications.
Maybe, we can see about that if it ever reaches the Supreme Court. Either way, it should be amended to fit that criteria, because the whole impetus behind the passing of section 230 in the first place was to protect freedom of speech. I'm sure little did they anticipate in 1996 that 2 or 3 companies would wind up completely dominating all of the content on the web. We don't allow AT&T to disconnect phone service just because they don't like someone's politics. We don't allow landlords to kick people out because they shared some disinformation with their second cousin in a phone call or because they supported the wrong candidate in a political campaign.
And they should focus on busting up these trillion dollar monopolies because the amount of propaganda power they wield is unbelievable and should be reeled in for that reason alone. But as long as they're in cahoots with the very regulators that are supposed to care about this, that will never happen.
More from The Intercept, here's a document from DHS on disinfo discussing using 3rd party non profits as a "clearing house for information to avoid the appearance of government propaganda." https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587257992449208320 in the same thread there's a Draft DHS quad review, which plans agency policy, leaked that shows growing focus on MDM (misinfo, disinfo, malinfo) to protect homeland against spread of "toxic narratives." How the agency defines false info and what narratives are prioritized isn’t clear.
I've never seen this. I have seen people point out that Twitter isn't promoting freedom of speech and the somebody else conflating that with the first amendment of the U.S. constitution though.