Trump dumps Executive Order on Twitter, Facebook, Google, and the Internet

The president of the United States did a thing with a pen that is probably against the law. Tune in tomorrow to see how much worse things can get!

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We have a bigger problem now, Shacknews. Today, President Trump signed an Executive Order "to protect and uphold the free speech and rights of the American people." This Executive Order applies to social media companies who are not held responsible for most posts of their users. The White House tweeted about it, check it out. Pretty meta.

The liability protection granted to tech companies in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is under attack by the president's Executive Order today. Under the current law, social media companies can't be taken to court over most of the content posted by their users. The president described this as a liability shield, and he is attempting to pierce that shield following Twitter's decision to put a Fact Check designation on misinformation about voting via mail posted by user @realDonaldTrump.  That guy is a total Jaboofer...

Twitter labeled Trump's fear campaign with links that said
Twitter labeled Trump's fear campaign with links that said "Get the facts about mail-in ballots!"

You really should watch even more video of Trump rambling like a permabanned Shacker on Reddit. Here's some hot C-SPAN footage.

"The choices that Twitter makes when it chooses to supress, edit, blacklist, shadowban, are editorial decisions," said the president. "In those moments, Twitter ceases to be a neutral public platform, and they become an editor with a viewpoint, and I think we can say that about other's also. Whether you're looking at Google, looking at Facebook... Perhaps others."

He's talking about us, Shacknews. Trump's anger is bigly with rage as he is very upset at Twitter for fact-checking him. Good news for Trump is that his pal Mark Zuckerberg came out repeatedly in the last day to firmly state that Facebook is not "an arbiter of the truth." Out of this entire dumpster fire, the most unlikely potential hero is Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who may actually be doing something right for the very first time in Twitter history as this story continues to develop. 

Trump is claiming Twitter's policies are political activism. This is totally not how a dictator of a Banana Republic would behave... Nope.

This is fine...
This is fine...

Attorney General William Barr said that the Justice Department will likely sue social media companies claiming that the law "has been stretched way beyond its original intention.”

This is probably bad. It will probably get worse. Tune in tomorrow to find out if Trump has shut down our Shacknews Chatty forum because he didn't get enough LOLs.

CEO/EIC/EIEIO

Asif Khan is the CEO, EIC, and majority shareholder of Shacknews. He began his career in video game journalism as a freelancer in 2001 for Tendobox.com. Asif is a CPA and was formerly an investment adviser representative. After much success in his own personal investments, he retired from his day job in financial services and is currently focused on new private investments. His favorite PC game of all time is Duke Nukem 3D, and he is an unapologetic fan of most things Nintendo. Asif first frequented the Shack when it was sCary's Shugashack to find all things Quake. When he is not immersed in investments or gaming he is a purveyor of fine electronic music. Asif also has an irrational love of Cleveland sports.

From The Chatty
    • reply
      May 28, 2020 5:40 PM

      He may not even have legal authority to make this EO. We'll have to see what happens after the dust settles...

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      May 28, 2020 6:12 PM

      You really should watch even more video of Trump rambling like a permabanned Shacker on Reddit.

      Hahahah, great article btw!

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 6:18 PM

      Twitter should just put his account in time-out next time he acts up. Treat him like anyone fucking else using their service instead of letting him get away with the bullshit he gets away with.

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 6:21 PM

        I have been banned twice. One of those times it even made sense!

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        May 28, 2020 6:56 PM

        they finally fact checked his account once and now he's trying to enact some dictatorial regulation which is exactly why they'd avoided doing anything substantive to him before. Suspending his account only makes things worse for them which is exactly why they'll never do it.

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          May 28, 2020 7:32 PM

          Yeah, his account won't be removed till after he's out of office, if ever.

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 6:46 PM

      I posted this idea in the other thread, but Twitter, and when Facebook and all social media should just shut down, for a day or two, claiming that they now have to review all content for material that could subject them to liability.

      Just being shut down should be enough to drive him crazy, they don't have to do any actual reviewing

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 6:47 PM

        And if they really want to stick it, after coming back online, they require every post to be subject to review before it is posted. Of course this would be impossible due to volume, but the impossibility of it would be the message and the message would be unmistakable

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 6:56 PM

      On first glance I was against this EO. But then I realized maybe we could kill off all comments pages on the internet. Maybe we could even kill Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. Now I wholeheartedly support the EO.

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 7:00 PM

        And most importantly, the Fox News comment cesspool

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 7:20 PM

        If you kill off yahoo comments they will just go back to public bathroom stall walls

        • reply
          May 28, 2020 7:21 PM

          At least then I might learn whom to call for a good time.

          • reply
            May 28, 2020 7:24 PM

            Once I called one of those numbers and my ex answered the phone :/

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 7:25 PM

        you'd lose basically all user generated content

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          May 28, 2020 7:43 PM

          Yep, and on balance, I think that's a net win

          • reply
            May 28, 2020 7:58 PM

            You may lose your job.

          • reply
            May 28, 2020 8:11 PM

            Pretty strange for someone who works on a web browser to think every blog post, forum, chat room, home video, etc is a net negative.

            You’re also in one of the demographics that benefits most from the existing set of white male gatekeepers. How do other groups feel about losing these networks? Look what’s happening in Minnesota now and the broader conversation of racial injustice and the need for criminal justice reform. That’s not happening because ABC, NBC, etc finally started covering the situation accurately. It’s because user generated content made people see the problem they refused to acknowledge before.

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              May 29, 2020 1:28 AM

              I'm known on the team as a guy who hates the web. I used to just hate it because it was a shittastically implemented piece of crap, now I hate it because it is a tool that lets humans spread more evil to more people more effectively.

              And yeah, it's also resulted in an enormous number of tremendous positives. Not disagreeing with that, and citing them isn't going to change my opinion that it's a net negative.

          • reply
            May 28, 2020 9:47 PM

            [deleted]

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            May 29, 2020 1:03 PM

            If it got rid of reaction videos on YouTube, I’m all in

        • reply
          May 29, 2020 6:02 AM

          And nothing of value was lost this day

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 8:01 PM

        wouldnt that also include the chatty?

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        May 28, 2020 9:37 PM

        it would kill the internet dude. we'd be back to the dark ages of livejournals and geocities.

        • reply
          May 28, 2020 10:13 PM

          and with only google search left behind to aggregate the content. how convenient!

        • reply
          May 28, 2020 10:15 PM

          Albinoblacksheep!

        • reply
          May 29, 2020 1:30 AM

          I would prefer to be in the dark ages of libraries.

          • reply
            May 29, 2020 1:50 AM

            That... does seem nice.

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            May 29, 2020 5:10 AM

            I think you are idolizing a time when humans were ignorant, but people of privilege didn't have to think about it.

            I agree it sucks that there are a lot of dumb people on the internet, but those people are dumb in real life and solution to that is not hiding the visibility of it. People shitpost about Facebook spreading propaganda, but those people are just as willing to spread that disinfo in private email chains as they are facebook.

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              May 29, 2020 7:06 AM

              You're projecting what I object to. "Dumbness" is not the problem.

          • reply
            May 29, 2020 6:38 AM

            You think misinformation isn't found in books? You sweet summer child.

            • reply
              May 29, 2020 7:05 AM

              I certainly don't think that. This isn't about "information" in the slightest; it's about the construction of human relationships and influence.

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 9:42 PM

        [deleted]

      • reply
        May 29, 2020 2:47 AM

        won't somebody please think of the Russian troll accounts?!

      • reply
        May 29, 2020 5:01 AM

        Well, I suppose Google already did their part, killing off comments in Google plus

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 6:57 PM

      [deleted]

      • reply
        May 28, 2020 7:36 PM

        Then all the conservatives would have to finger him to get updates.

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 7:04 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 8:41 PM

      "rambling like a permabanned Shacker on Reddit"

      Holy fucking lol!

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 10:05 PM

      Hahahaha. I love the chatty plug. The title of the article (“trump dump(s)....”). The jaboofer. All of it. My name is commander shepherd and this is my favorite article on shacknews.

    • reply
      May 28, 2020 11:48 PM

      Doesn't making social media sites responsible for content posted make it more likely they would have to censor Trump?

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        May 29, 2020 12:17 AM

        Yes. But the point isn’t to make them have to ban content. It’s just to make them afraid of doing anything basic like fact checking conservatives who knowingly spread disinformation.

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        May 29, 2020 12:26 AM

        After doing a bit more working on the WP article for S230, here's the issue.

        S230 has two main parts. (c)(1) is the "26 words that created the Internet" that basically says for all purposes, no internet provider is considered the creator of content that is put on their service by another. (c)(2) is the Good Samaritan clause that says that a internet provider is protected from civil liability in the course of removing or blocking access to any content that is obscene or offensive as long as they are doing that in good faith. (Taking what Twitter did with Trump's tweets, this is what it fell into)

        Or 1) You cannot be liable for what other people put there and 2) you cannot be liable for reasonable moderation of that content. They are two separate actions, the law does not link them, case law does not link them.

        What this EO does is attempt to link them. The language basically goes that if do any type of editing of content under the pretense of (c)(2) that is not for dealing withclearly obscene stuff and that comes under this envelop of bias that they're going to define, you are now the creator of material for your site under (c)(1) and thus now liable for all content on that site. Which is going against the full intent of the law and case law, which most legal scholars means this will not survive in court.

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          May 29, 2020 12:28 AM

          Oh and so the point is not so much to make them ban content but not to moderate any content. They can still ban content that is clearly offensive but they have to do it in an unbiased manner.

          There will sites that don't want to do this, and they'll just shut down instead should this hold up.

    • reply
      May 29, 2020 1:15 AM

      Nice work.

      Trump sucks.

      Chatty will prevail.

    • reply
      May 29, 2020 2:53 AM

      Excellent/depressing article on Trump by the author of Art of the Deal https://gen.medium.com/the-psychopath-in-chief-aa10ab2165d9

    • reply
      May 29, 2020 4:40 AM

      Glorious read! I cackled. You should update to include the new way Twitter is handling his tweets with more tags. He’s going to flip his shit this AM.

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