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Politico reports (Connor O’Brien) that Congress is
moving on the NDAA issue this week and that Trump is setting up a confrontation
with sponsor Jim Inhofe (R-OK) over Inhofe’s refusal to add a provision
regarding repealing Section 230. It’s
noteworthy that Inhofe says he opposes 230 (at least as written) but it has
nothing to do with a defense bill.
CNN said this morning that the House might vote
Tuesday, on a bill that makes no mention of 230. It sounds like it would pass by an override
majority (2/3). It might go to the Senate quickly, where it is less clear that
there is an override majority. McConnell is known to be averse to introducing
bills which
If it is not passed in this session, it has to be
reintroduced in January.
There seem to be two problems among conservative Republicans;
(1) social media platform of “conservative” speech, which the platforms deny
(2) insults to the commander in chief (which authoritarian leaders see as an
invitation for enemies to attack; Democrats
are more worried about “hate speech” or even “hurtful” (Angela Merkel saying
your broadcasting your opinion on your own does not come with ‘zero consequences’),
even well-intended reporting of matters (like militia groups) that less intact
people will not be able to grasp in the right context without feeling
radicalized. The two hearings (Oct 28 and Nov 10) were quite contentious.
Greg Steube may have a point in his compromise bill,
toward the end of the Newsmax video.
It seems almost unthinkable how the tech industry
would react to Section 230 being yanked right out from under them as a
political stunt. They could cancel a lot of accounts that are not “commercially
viable” (able to earn revenue) and for speech only, and greatly reduce the size
of their business, as a hardship sacrifice similar to that of other industries
during the pandemic. But there is nothing that really makes a lot of sense if
thought through.
It’s unclear how webhosts would be affected, because
they don’t moderate content and might get by on a couple of decisions in the
90s (Prodigy and Compuserve). A service like Blogger is similar to a hosted
site in that Google does not moderate or modify blog content (very different
from social media like twitter or Facebook). You could also look at a YouTube
channel that way. Youtube does mess with
monetization arbitrarily, and faces separate new problems in the EU over the
copyright directive. It might remove smaller accounts (like mine) with no
commercial future, or give creators a certain amount of time to establish a
legitimate commercial presence. On the
other hand, it could look at accounts that have no history of “strikes” or complaints
more favorably.
I’m not sure how Google makes money with Blogger, the platform
this post is on. It stopped Google+ rather
abruptly in April 2019. But it has
recently revamped and replaced the editor (with a Guttenberg-style look), which
would sound like a good sign it intends to keep it. Back ten years ago, after various blogs were
removed as “spam” somewhat arbitrarily, I wondered if it would be stable, but
it has been. At one time, it required
captcha’s to update posts but stopped that with me around 2008.
Update: Dec. 8: The House passed the NDAA today 335-78-1 by a veto-proof majority, ABC News story.
Note: Electronic Frontier Foundation warns that Case Act is attached to stimulus bill.
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