"And the rantings of a lunatic seem as credible as the findings of a Nobel Prize winner.”
In the case of the environment they might come from the same person.
How any military/vets can still support this POS, I’ll never understand.
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That would be free speech. And Facebook can stifle any viewpoint that it wants, what with it not being a state actor and all. Cohen appears to be calling for the government to stifle speech based on viewpoint discrimination, and that would plainly be unconstitutional.
Government regulation of algorithms for the purpose of discriminating against certain types of speech is plainly and obviously prohibited by the First Amendment. That’s not even remotely a close question.
Possibly one argument to be made is that Facebook exists solely to gather and sell data. Thus, the speech on their site is really more like a natural resource which they harvest, process, and sell to buyers.
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Thus, the speech on their website is still speech. Simon & Schuster has also figured out a way to monetize speech. It’s still protected by the First Amendment.
Zuckerberg is a fucking prick. And a fucking ignoramus. He speaks just like his pal, the sociopath in the White House, defending neo-Nazis.
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Lt. Calley thinks you might be a little bit naive.
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fb google apple are not your friends
I fear them more than the NSA
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The second to last paragraph in Matt’s report:
Advocating for the websites to be held to standards similar to other large publishers, Cohen called for regulation and enforcement to stop extremist material from reaching millions of people.
I believe refers to this paragraph from Cohen’s posting at ADL:
It’s time to finally call these companies what they really are—the largest publishers in history. And here’s an idea for them: abide by basic standards and practices just like newspapers, magazines and TV news do every day. We have standards and practices in television and the movies; there are certain things we cannot say or do. In England, I was told that Ali G could not curse when he appeared before 9pm. Here in the U.S., the Motion Picture Association of America regulates and rates what we see. I’ve had scenes in my movies cut or reduced to abide by those standards. If there are standards and practices for what cinemas and television channels can show, then surely companies that publish material to billions of people should have to abide by basic standards and practices too.
Not clear who in England told him he couldn’t curse before 9pm, but the rest of his example is about MPAA rules, not government regulation. A bit further on Cohen wrote
In every other industry, you can be sued for the harm you cause. Publishers can be sued for libel, people can be sued for defamation. I’ve been sued many times! I’m being sued right now by someone whose name I won’t mention because he might sue me again! But social media companies are largely protected from liability for the content their users post—no matter how indecent it is—by Section 230 of, get ready for it, the Communications Decency Act. Absurd!
attacking the CDA.
The “regulation and legislation” Cohen calls for throughout the article doesn’t seem to me necessarily to impinge on the first amendment, but IANAL. Too, Cohen’s article is somewhat of a rant and not very well structured. Be great to have a gloss of the main points by someone with more legal expertise. Any takers?
That’s not government action, so it’s totally constitutional.
That might be government censorship, but it is not germane to the First (American) Amendment given that England is not America.
Hahahahahaha. Sacha Baron Cohen thinks the MPAA is the federal government. You should not make that same mistake.
Pro Tip: Anyone can be sued for anything.
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C’mon, that’s just silly. Could you touch on the main points in Cohen’s article, not just the ones I quoted?
I could, but I read it earlier and found basically nothing that was consistent with the First Amendment.
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Kay, thanks Tex.
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De nada, amigo.
Amen, Sacha!
It’s not an easy question because no matter how you answer it there can be unintended consequences.
I lean towards the “free speech” side because there have been uncountable instances in which truth-tellers have been in the silenced minority.
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I generally can’t stand Cohen. He always strikes me as a younger Bill Maher: someone whose comedy is more concerned with making himself feel good by tricking other people into looking stupid, than actually trying to be funny.
That said… I don’t disagree with his sentiment here… but @txlawyer is, alas, completely right. There’s no way for the government to regulate what people are allowed to say, or what fb is allowed to publish, without it infringing on the First Amendment.
That said… the government might be able to require ‘advisories’ like the ‘Parental Content Advisories’ Tipper Gore wanted (and got) on music. Of course, the advisories that are on RIAA products are completely voluntary… but it’s not clear that the government can’t require that publication of speech from people judged to be spreading ‘hate speech’ be accompanied by a prominent ‘This user has been reported a number of times for objectionable content in the form of hate speech. If you wish to continue to this content, please click below.’ or some such.
It doesn’t inhibit their ability to express themselves, or publish that expression, but it does reduce the chances that the unwary will be taken in by the more subtle stuff, and led down the brimstone path that way.
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TPM moderators here allowed holocaust “jokes” under the guise of “satire,” but removed a pure news story in the Hive yesterday about DNA tests proving Hunter Biden’s paternity of a baby in Arkansas, despite the fact that the Biden story was covered by major news services including CNN.
Holocaust jokes = Okay.
Hunter Biden story = Removed.
Uhhhh, the military brass doesn’t.
WaPo’s David Ignatius: “Pentagon leaders are fuming about Trump’s intervention to overrule military justice. A nation that loves its military should be outraged, too. Just as Trump subverted his diplomats in Ukraine, he’s now sabotaging his admirals and generals. This must stop.”
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