Social Media, Censorship, and Overreach

Posted on 1 June, 2021 by wjjhoge

Susan Crabtree has an article over at RCP titled Group of Tech Execs Takes On Social Media Censorship. It takes a look at what may be going on behind the scenes in Silicon Valley related to Facebook’s recent uncensoring of discussion about the possibility of a lab leak being the source of the recent pandemic from the point of view of Mike Matthys, a venture capital executive. She also cites Matthys’ criticism of Facebook’s censorship relating to a Wall Street Journal review of a book on climate change, YouTube’s suppression of a video about the efficacy of masks and lockdowns by Gov. DeSantis and physicians from Stanford and Harvard, and an attempt by Reps. Eshoo (D-CA) and McNerney (D-CA) to pressure media companies.

[P]olitically biased censorship only further fuels widespread mistrust in the media writ large – especially when they suddenly reverse course and lift bans on certain narratives that subsequent evidence shows weren’t crackpot ideas at all.

Many of the Titans of Tech have become intoxicated with their success to date. They’ve become legends in their own minds, and that has led them to overreach. Hubris invariably attracts Nemesis.

Hogewash! is very tiny slice of the overall media pie, but it has been the a victim of social media censorship. In 2015, my blog and I were banned from Twitter because truthful reporting was deemed to be targeted harassment. That was very early in Twitter’s campaign to control The Narrative, and the company wound up restoring one of my accounts. However, Twitter has applied some of the lessoned learned dealing with accounts like mine to refine their censorship methods and try to keep them within the Section 230 safe harbor.

About a year ago, I began receiving emails and comments saying that Facebook was not permitting users to post links to Hogewash! because this site violated Facebook’s “community standards.” Given Facebook’s behavior with regard to free speech, I took that as a badge of honor, and late in 2020, I closed my own Facebook account. Last month, I received an email from one of the Gentle Readers with a copy of a notice he received when he tried to link to a post at Hogewash!. This notice gave a more specific reason for banning links to Hogewash!—it claimed this site is a source of spam.

I have asked Facebook to provide me with any evidence they have connecting this site with spam by close of business today.

Twitter, Section 230, and Being a Speaker

Posted on 16 October, 2020 by wjjhoge

Twitter’s ham-fisted attempt at censoring the New York Post has blown up in their face. @Jack tweeted this—I’ve been sued for defamation because of posts here at Hogewash!, and I’ve won all of those suits because the plaintiff was never able to show that anything I wrote was false. The truth or a reasonable opinion based on evidence can’t be the basis for a defamation claim. The plaintiff also tried to claim that I was responsible for the content of remarks made by commenters here at Hogewash!, but Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act provides immunity for website publishers from third-party content. Neither this site nor Twitter is responsible for what a third party posts.

However, if Twitter adds “context” to a tweet or comments on it, Twitter will be responsible for what it posts—and could be held responsible for the its statements providing such context or commentary. By making its own comments, by speaking for itself, Twitter should become a speaker unprotected by Section 230 with respect to its own speech. Saying that an article contains hacked information when there is evidence that the information was obtained legally might be the sort of false statement that would trigger a defamation suit.

Twitter needs to keep its users satisfied. It makes money by selling ads, and driving users away with unfair censorship policies isn’t good for business. OTOH, keeping its users happy may make it difficult to operate as a progressive echo chamber, so we may have reached a market-based solution to Twitter’s unfair treatment of a large group of its users, many of whom have been leaving for Gab and Parler. Section 230 may need some legislative tweaking based on lessons learned since it was enacted in 1996, but the market may apply more pressure more quickly to drive Twitter toward better behavior.

Of course, Twitter may think that it is a monopoly that is too big to fail. That’s what ~~America Online~~ AOL thought.

Things are about to get interesting.

Stay tuned.

“Good Faith”

Posted on 28 May, 2020 by wjjhoge

Ron Coleman has a white paper posted over at Likelihood of Confusion which suggests using a state-based consumer protection process to reign in censorship abuse by social media companies.

Political or ideologically-based corporate censorship of social media content and users is a discernable social, economic and political problem. As private conduct, it is not a violation of the First Amendment’s speech clause. The problem appears intractable because of a combination of broad statutory protections for online service providers, one-sided terms of service and a lack of federal regulatory acknowledgment fo the problem. This paper suggests, however, that a state-base consumer protection initiative requiring “good faith” application of social media platforms’ terms of service to user bans could overcome these obstacles and would be consistent with a wide range of consumer-oriented remedial regimes that have survived constitutional and other attacks.

That’s the paper’s abstract. Read the whole thing.

I’ve been on the receiving in of Twitter’s bad faith. My business and personal accounts were permanently suspended as the result of a false claim of harassment. When the legal case against me collapsed for lack of evidence and it became obvious that the complaint had been based on false testimony, Twitter told me I could have one of my accounts back. One. Not both. I elected to have my business account reinstated.

None of the accounts related to my false accuser were sanctioned in any way.

The sort of regulation Ron Coleman proposes is overdue.

UPDATE—I received an email this morning from a friend who tells me that Facebook won’t allow her to share content from Hogewash! because it violates their “community standards.” I’ll take that as a badge of honor.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

Posted on 28 February, 2020 by wjjhoge

An important reason for the failure of all of the legal actions filled by Team Kimberlin during their campaign of lawfare was their gross misunderstanding of the law—as this Prevarication Du Jour from four years ago today reveals.

* * * * *

The Cabin Boy™ has tweeted this—The Gentle Reader who has been following Schmalfeldt’s career of cyberfoolishness will not be surprised to find that the Cabin Boy™ is wrong. Here’s the EFF’s take on the Communications Decency Act—

Section 230 says that “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” (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other words, online intermediaries that host or republish speech are protected against a range of laws that might otherwise be used to hold them legally responsible for what others say and do. The protected intermediaries include not only regular Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also a range of “interactive computer service providers,” including basically any online service that publishes third-party content.

—CDA 230: The Most Important Law Protecting Internet Speech

Here’s what the General Counsel of Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.Com has to say about the value of 47 U.S.C. § 230’s protection afforded to publishers of third-party speech on the Internet—

I think to the extent that it protects speech, you can’t get much more expansive. I think the concept of no third-party liability is good.

You can find that and more concerning WordPress and the Communications Decency act here.

Here’s what the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals thinks—

What §230(c)(1) says is that an online information system must not “be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by” someone else.

—Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law v. Craigslist, 519 F.3d 666, 671 (7th Cir. 2008).

No, the EFF and WordPress.com agree with me. So do lots of federal courts, including the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (Wisconsin is in the Seventh Circuit). Of course, the Cabin Boy’s™ misunderstanding of the Communications Decency Act has been pointed out to him before, but he continues to insist that his interpretation overrides the case law. It’s that sort of pigheadedness that will make his loss in LOLsuit VI: The Undiscovered Krendler so expensive.

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BTW, I originally considered titling that post as a Legal LULZ Du Jour, but on second thought it seemed that after so many losses that even Schmalfeldt would understand the protection § 230 offers and that he was now simply lying.

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

Posted on 21 May, 2015 by wjjhoge

The Cabin Boy™ has another ultimatum published. In it, he threatens to file criminal charges against me under Md. Crim. Law §§ 3-803 and 3-805 and to seek a peace order against me if I do not police the comment section of this blog to his satisfaction. Here’s my understanding of the law as it applies to the situation.

Under the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230), I may not be held responsible for the content of comments submitted by other persons to this blog. Also, under § 230(e)(3), I cannot be subjected to any state prosecution or civil liability for those comments either. Thus, under federal law, someone who believes that comments on this blog are defamatory or harassing or otherwise offensive must take it up with the commenter(s) directly and not with me. If the Cabin Boy™ has a problem with my avatar, he can try to hold me accountable. If his problem is with someone else, he must take it up with him or her. He may not trouble me about it. I’m not obliged to deal with his dispute with a third party.

BTW, The Dreadful Pro-Se Schmalfeldt acknowledged that this is his understanding of the Communications Decency Act in a previous court filing. See Schmalfeldt v. Johnson, et al., Case No. 15-CV-00315-RDB, ECF No. 1 (D.Md. 2015), ¶ 35. Given that Schmalfeldt has admitted that he must take up his complaints against commenters with them and not with me, attempting to hold me responsible for the contents of comments could be construed as an act of bad faith.

Schmalfeldt’s ultimatum threatens criminal charges if I don’t do as he pleases, and he’s demanding that I give him something of value (partial control of this website) that I have no legal obligation to give up. Ironically, he may have violated Md. Crim. Law § 3-704 and § 3-706 .

I do my blogging from Carroll County. If the Cabin Boy™ is stupid enough to want to carry out his threats, he knows how to find the District Court Commissioners Office in Westminster.

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Tag Archives: Section 230

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day

Team Kimberlin Post of the Day