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Comment Re:There is no defense for S230 anymore here (Score 5, Informative) 603

Nope. You can pretend Trump just said something innocent, but the phrase "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." is a well-known racist statement that is literally about the approval of pro-police brutality against black people. It was said by the Miami Chief of police in 1967. Referring to police actions during the Civil Rights Movement, he also said, "We don't mind being accused of police brutality."

Comment Re:Can't be both (Score 2) 420

The Social Media companies, by censoring content, take themselves out from under the protection of this law.

Nope. Read Section 230(c) of the law which explicitly allows these actions.

(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker - No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liability - No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

Comment Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score 4, Insightful) 682

You're in favor of Twitter blocking what Trump says, but NOT in favor of Trump blocking Twitter?

Trump has never had anything blocked on Twitter, past or present. Not once.

The post you are replying to didn't mention Twitter blocking Trump or Trump blocking Twitter either.

Comment Endowments (Score 1) 238

Some of the suits draw attention to schools' large financial reserves, saying colleges are unfairly withholding refunds even while they rest on endowments that often surpass $1 billion.

Yes, this all sucks for students, and colleges are overpriced, but endowments are not "cash reserves" available to use for anything the university wants. They must be used for the reasons they were given/willed/donated for.

Comment Re:They censor, so they're liable (Score 2) 137

The law explicitly allows them to censor without any change to their publisher status. I would encourage you to read Section 230, part (c)(2)(A) of the Communications Decency Act.

(2) Civil liability - No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or

Comment Re:F Off (Score 1) 88

I don't know why any web site would want to block a legitimate browser from their site, but there are obvious reasons why a web site would block based on a user-agent string. There's malformed strings that are clearly bots or script kiddies. There's crawlers that disobey robots.txt. There's requests from "browsers" that haven't existed since the 90's that are performing vulnerability scans. The list goes on and on.

Blacklists are a never ending game of catch-up, but they stop the dumb and obvious bad actors.

Comment Re:Thanks for the House in 2020 (Score 1) 1183

You might want to refresh your knowledge on the Constitution.

Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.

There's about a 0% chance the Senate will convict though.

Comment Re:$1000 is a screaming deal; buying joy. (Score 1) 126

How much do you spend on a Latte or a vente every day?

I probably spend $0.10 on coffee per day because I brew it at home.

Maybe you also have $69/month internet connection?

What does that have to do with my phone? Even if I had no phone, I would still need internet access at home.

Any $100 smartphone with a recent OS can get all the same apps and do everything your $1000 phone can do. The $1000 phone probably has a better camera though. I had a flagship phone through work before and I was no more happy with it than a cheap smartphone.

Comment Re:Twitter has already been forced to admit (Score 1) 925

That's literally the opposite of the protections provided by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act says. That law explicitly allows self-regulation of content and editorial discretion and is one of the primary reasons that section exists.

(2) Civil liability - No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or...

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