Donald Trump wants to regulate social media, while Democrats want to regulate political spending.
The proposed executive order, CNN reports, would ask the FCC to "Find that social media sites do not qualify for the good-faith immunity if they remove or suppress content" and "The decision is proven to be evidence of anticompetitive, unfair or deceptive practices." The FTC would "Work with the FCC to develop a report investigating how tech companies curate their platforms and whether they do so in neutral ways."
Removing Section 230 protection from platforms that bureaucrats consider biased, a policy similar to one proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley, would be counterproductive, since it would encourage them to suppress a lot more content, as well as shortsighted.
As Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, observes, "Tomorrow's Speech Police are not going to think political neutrality or criteria for a certification of objectivity mean what Trump thinks they mean."
While Trump is using the language of free speech to support a policy that would undermine it, Senate Democrats are taking a more direct approach, unanimously backing a constitutional amendment that would authorize "Reasonable" limits on election-related spending.
The answer, Democrats think, is to amend the First Amendment.
While Trump's assault on the First Amendment is less blatant, it will lead either to a kind of compelled speech, forcing private companies to host content they would otherwise remove, or to a much less freewheeling internet where liability concerns stifle self-expression.
https://reason.com/2019/08/14/democrats-join-trump-in-seeking-balance-by-policing-speech/
The proposed executive order, CNN reports, would ask the FCC to "Find that social media sites do not qualify for the good-faith immunity if they remove or suppress content" and "The decision is proven to be evidence of anticompetitive, unfair or deceptive practices." The FTC would "Work with the FCC to develop a report investigating how tech companies curate their platforms and whether they do so in neutral ways."
Removing Section 230 protection from platforms that bureaucrats consider biased, a policy similar to one proposed by Sen. Josh Hawley, would be counterproductive, since it would encourage them to suppress a lot more content, as well as shortsighted.
As Wayne Crews, vice president for policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, observes, "Tomorrow's Speech Police are not going to think political neutrality or criteria for a certification of objectivity mean what Trump thinks they mean."
While Trump is using the language of free speech to support a policy that would undermine it, Senate Democrats are taking a more direct approach, unanimously backing a constitutional amendment that would authorize "Reasonable" limits on election-related spending.
The answer, Democrats think, is to amend the First Amendment.
While Trump's assault on the First Amendment is less blatant, it will lead either to a kind of compelled speech, forcing private companies to host content they would otherwise remove, or to a much less freewheeling internet where liability concerns stifle self-expression.
https://reason.com/2019/08/14/democrats-join-trump-in-seeking-balance-by-policing-speech/
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