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Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

(twitter.com)
1061 points danso | 4 comments | 29 May 20 07:24 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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ssorc3 ◴[29 May 20 18:13 UTC] No.23353512[source]▶
So I have a question about this. Does free speech apply to platforms like Facebook and Twitter? I would have thought that a website owner has a choice about the content of their website, even if that content is user generated. Surely they could remove any tweet they wanted and not be sued?
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buzzerbetrayed ◴[29 May 20 18:28 UTC] No.23353698[source]▶
It depends. And the problem that people have is that social media companies want to be both publishers and platforms.

For example, T-Mobile is a platform. They aren't responsible for anything you say when on the phone, using their network.

CNN is a publisher. They are responsible for anything that gets posted on their website, and can get sued accordingly.

Social media companies want to choose what is posted on their website, but also not be held responsible for anything that is posted on their website. They want the perks of being a publisher, and the perks of being a platform.

Obviously there are arguments made on both sides. But that is the general disagreement, if I understand correctly.

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1. tVoss42 ◴[29 May 20 18:35 UTC] No.23353794[source]▶
This is precisely what Trump's executive order targets. Section 230 of the CDA gave websites and social media networks a little wiggle room in the platform vs publisher stance. They could moderate as they see fit without being liable for the content on their sites. Now that's being weakening, or more precisely becoming more well defined by the FCC. There will be strict requirements to be considered a platform, one example of which is needing to have a well defined terms of service and strictly follow that all across the board.
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2. joshuamorton ◴[29 May 20 19:05 UTC] No.23354192[source]▶
This is incorrect. Section 230 does protect certain entities. It removes liability from certain types of content.

A website that contains both first party and third party content has section 230 protection on the third party content, but none on the first party content. There is no legal basis for the idea of "publisher" as different from "platform". If a website makes a modification to a specific piece of content, they may lose section 230 protections over that particular piece of content, but they retain it on all other 3rd party content.

The FCC cannot change the requirements to gain "platform protection" because there are none, because section 230 applies to content (like a tweet), not entities (like "Twitter").

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3. tunesmith ◴[29 May 20 19:19 UTC] No.23354357[source]▶
One thing I've always been curious about - if a site receives third party content, but also is assigned copyright to that submitted content as part of the T&C of submission, does that make it first party content? I would hope not, as I think the assignation of copyright does not imply the immediate ability for the site to review the content of that submission.
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4. joshuamorton ◴[29 May 20 19:22 UTC] No.23354388{3}[source]▶
I'm not a lawyer, but no. Section 230 has nothing to do with copyright. It only asks if the content was created by a third party. Licensure doesn't change the creator.