IANAL but I have worked in tech for three decades. Doesn't this move have unintended consequences? Secure the power of Big Tech, as they can afford boat loads of lawyers while... ... locking out...
IANAL but I have worked in tech for three decades. Doesn't this move have unintended consequences?
Secure the power of Big Tech, as they can afford boat loads of lawyers while...
... locking out smaller platforms (like Bluesky), especially grassroots ones (like Mastodon) not controlled by Big Tech due to their inability to respond to every lawsuit due to violating content on their platform?
Most every internet service, save for those owned by Big Tech, run "in the cloud": on someone else's hardware. Is the provider to the violating internet service also legally at risk for hosting violating social media services? If so, this would further centralize Big Tech's hold on the internet.
While the repeal of Section 230 may seem helpful, as it seems as though it would allow lawsuits about misinformation, would it not also jeopardize all social media not controlled by the most moneyed interests?
I've written similar to my congressman, Jamie Raskin. Eager for a response as he is a lawyer (though the response will most certainly come from an intern or some aid on his staff who is not a lawyer)
I highly suspect that these are not even unintended consequences -- they're just relying on the average person not understanding enough about it to realize these are the inevitable consequences.
I highly suspect that these are not even unintended consequences -- they're just relying on the average person not understanding enough about it to realize these are the inevitable consequences.
Section 230 and 'The 26 words that created the internet' are critical to the existence of the internet as we know it. Removing 230 will, among other things, make online censorship trivial and be a...
Section 230 and 'The 26 words that created the internet' are critical to the existence of the internet as we know it.
Removing 230 will, among other things, make online censorship trivial and be a death-blow to free speech. As mentioned by u/elight, it will functionally lock-out any new company or actor that would enable users to speak on their platforms in any manner behind a paywall effectively controlled by existing tech giants which they would wield to crush any potential competition. Monopolistic consolidation would functionally be both encouraged and heavily rewarded.
I would describe this as catastrophic, and it is / would be, but so much evil is being perpetrated right now on so many different fronts that I just don't have a sense of scale anymore.
One example of what this would allow to happen: we, here on Tildes, would be silenced. How? The giant platforms on which people talk with each other (Facebook / Reddit / Twitter/x...) would be heavily incentivised to bring a constant wave of cost-inducing lawsuits against every smaller platform on which people communicate with each other with the objective of running them into bankruptsy (upon which they could either choose to buy them out for pennies on the dollar or let them cease to exist). They would do this to entrench their monopoly positions as the only locations for online community discourse (and associated ad and market-research revenues). The only remaining communities would likely be those either so obscure as to remain unnoticed, or so walled-off behind offshore hosting, closed-gate style platforms (can't read anything without membership), and encryption as to be small floating-island style communities that are forced to pull up their ladders behind them lest Big Tech worm their way in to find some example to point at as a flimsy excuse to launch their legal assaults.
I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think tildes would be affected. It is hosted in Canada, with no affiliation to the USA. The tech companies can sue all they want in any USA court. Tildes can just...
I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think tildes would be affected. It is hosted in Canada, with no affiliation to the USA. The tech companies can sue all they want in any USA court. Tildes can just not show up. Those courts don’t have jurisdiction over tildes.
Here's a horrific counterpoint hypothetical: "The trump administration, in a shocking move, threatened Canada with increased Tariffs and possibly Sanctions if the sovereign country did not comply...
Here's a horrific counterpoint hypothetical:
"The trump administration, in a shocking move, threatened Canada with increased Tariffs and possibly Sanctions if the sovereign country did not comply with the court rulings of the United States."
"In unrelated news, the CEOs of Meta, X, and Reddit have announced they will each donate $50 million USD to trumps 3rd term election campaign."
In any remotely sane world, the above statements would be absurd. Increasingly, we have left world sanity behind us.
In a pragmatic view: would this expenditure of money be likely for the purpose of crushing just Tildes? No. But then I think about trump simply... throwing a tantrum that Canada won't bow down and obey.
I don't think this is how it works. Laws don't cease to apply to social media websites because the company itself isn't located in that country. A huge portion of Tildes users reside in the US,...
I don't think this is how it works. Laws don't cease to apply to social media websites because the company itself isn't located in that country. A huge portion of Tildes users reside in the US, and my layman's understanding is that this makes it pretty easy to establish US jurisdiction over Tildes, at least as far as US courts are concerned. Afaik Tildes would need to abide by US law unless it restricts traffic from the US, and my understanding is that the types of suits that would be permissible after removing Section 230 would only be harmless to Tildes if Canada does not enforce judgments from US courts. While I'm definitely not knowledgeable enough about Canadian law to say more, my limited searches indicate that it is at least sometimes possible to enforce US monetary judgments in Canada, so I don't think this issue is necessarily harmless to Tildes. Relatively recently there was a topic about several small sites cutting off UK access because of a particular UK law coming into effect that would be unduly onerous for small websites to implement, and it doesn't seem that these websites not being based in the UK was much protection in that circumstance.
Obviously an actual lawyer would know more, but I don't think it's as simple as Tildes being safe because it's a Canadian company.
I have always found it odd that people who will dive into the craziest conspiracies seem to be unwilling to entertain the idea that the very very rich people who throw money at politics will...
I have always found it odd that people who will dive into the craziest conspiracies seem to be unwilling to entertain the idea that the very very rich people who throw money at politics will gladly pay for both sides of the aisle.
The democrats have been championing the cry of "We're not evil, just stupid!" for decades.
It's not a question of if this is being paid for in shady ways, the only question is who is paying for it. As the article covers pretty well, the stated goals are a smokescreen, this would not...
It's not a question of if this is being paid for in shady ways, the only question is who is paying for it.
As the article covers pretty well, the stated goals are a smokescreen, this would not punish big tech (much). It would help to entrench them, protecting them not only from current competition but from the ability for future competition to exist in the first place.
It would also give the government a bigger stick when they want to compel platforms to do what they want, which is of course particularly concerning right now.
I hope the public outcry is comparable to what happened in response to previous attempts to go after section 230.
So, how long until US lefties decide to make a third party to replace the Dems? Because let's be honest here: they're demonstrating they're part of the problem. Edit: I just realized that...
So, how long until US lefties decide to make a third party to replace the Dems? Because let's be honest here: they're demonstrating they're part of the problem.
Edit: I just realized that "they're" is not at all clear whether it means "US lefties" or "dems". So to clarify: by "they" I mean the one you were thinking of. Yep, you guessed it right. the dems.
It'd fuck the left over further until the two party system reasserted itself (whether by replacing the Dems or the third party collapsing as has pretty much been consistent). You can't even get on...
It'd fuck the left over further until the two party system reasserted itself (whether by replacing the Dems or the third party collapsing as has pretty much been consistent).
You can't even get on the ballot, much less get votes.
The point is that the Left gets a vote on whether the DNC management gets a clean-out. Basically, "reform or we'll reform for you". It'll only fuck the left over if the fight drags on - there are...
The point is that the Left gets a vote on whether the DNC management gets a clean-out. Basically, "reform or we'll reform for you".
It'll only fuck the left over if the fight drags on - there are 2 years until the next (senate?) election and 4 years til the next presidential election, so right now is the best possible time to pick the fight.
And yes, of course the two-party system would re-assert itself. That's the point of creating the third party: to replace the Dems. Obviously FPTP hasn't magically vanished.
One third of the Senate and all of the house is elected every two years. And I don't agree that forming a political party that can actually challenge the Dems in that time is doable - several...
One third of the Senate and all of the house is elected every two years.
And I don't agree that forming a political party that can actually challenge the Dems in that time is doable - several exist already and they're not capable of that. We can all join the DSA but that doesn't get anyone on a ballot. You don't need a new party to pressure the Dems from the left, you need to run and primary candidates in local elections on up.
To actually fully replace them in 4 years in our current system is unrealistic.
I suspect I will beat this drum until the day I die, but the US desperately needs to abolish FPtP, winner-take-all elections, and we needed to do it 40 years ago. We need proportional...
I suspect I will beat this drum until the day I die, but the US desperately needs to abolish FPtP, winner-take-all elections, and we needed to do it 40 years ago. We need proportional representation without single-race seats, and ranked-choice voting of some description. Anything else will at best preserve the ludicrous bipolarization of our politics, and at worst complete the shift to authoritarianism we're currently watching unfold.
The problem is how to go about doing that. At present, there's zero chance of the Dems willingly pushing for the diminution of their power at anything like the scale it would require to even get the idea widely discussed, let alone shift the needle enough to give it a shot of happening. There have been a few rumblings from individuals in the Democratic Party and a handful of old-guard Republican-leaning politicos, but to no one's surprise, every proposal thus far has immediately died on the vine.
The only thing I can think of that might work would be state-by-state reform of elections, taking guidance from the movements that led to the 18th, 19th and 21st Amendments, and the now nearly complete legalization of cannabis. Many states allow for state constitutional amendments via referendum, and the Federal Constitution explicitly reserves the power to determine state electoral processes to the states themselves, so if such reforms were enacted, no supreme court, no matter how partisan, should be empowered to block them. Once enough states are moderated in their governance by the opening up of representation that electoral reforms should produce, they can then exercise the power that the Constitution grants the individual state legislatures to pressure Congress to see reforms enacted for federal elections.
This seems to me to be at least a barebones framework of a tenable plan to save the Union, but even if the electorate all miraculously comes to its senses all at once, I can't see all this playing out in anything under a decade, and it would take longer than that for the moderating effect of the reforms to be fully operative. A whole lot can happen in ten years, especially if entrenched powers scent the winds changing against them.
Proportional representation systems do not seem meaningfully less polarized than the American system and, in fact, our current level of polarization is actually quite unusual historically. The...
Proportional representation systems do not seem meaningfully less polarized than the American system and, in fact, our current level of polarization is actually quite unusual historically. The last time we were this polarized had a similar problem to the present, where one party had a total lock on certain regions of the country where races were uncompetitive. We couldn’t really fix that until Reconstruction, which was itself incomplete.
The media is what causes the polarization, the party polarization is downstream of that.
I disagree, though I do acknowledge that proportional representation alone isn't enough to break the cycle. That's why I specifically call out FPtP and single-seat, winner-take-all elections. No...
I disagree, though I do acknowledge that proportional representation alone isn't enough to break the cycle. That's why I specifically call out FPtP and single-seat, winner-take-all elections. No one element alone will be enough, and you're absolutely correct to call out propaganda as an important contributing factor.
See, you're arguing as though our recent polarization is an aberration, when to my thinking, the relatively amicable cooperation between parties over most of the last 250 years seems to be the fluke. 250 years isn't much in the scale of history, and by your own admission, we've had a few decades in that time when shit didn't go so smoothly. It's all well to point out that it's seemed to work alright in the past–though we could certainly debate for days about how well it actually worked and for whom–but the issue is it's not working now, and I've seen no other viable means to address it that doesn't virtually guarantee violence on a massive scale.
That can't be allowed to happen. Violence and consent are absolutely mutually exclusive, and the only just basis for rule is consent of the governed. Anything else is ipso facto authoritarianism, even if power is wielded by the "good guys." Despite the failures of Reconstruction and the imperfect reintegration of the Confederate States, this was the rationale behind allowing them back without massive reprisals, and it was the right decision.
So my proposal is that we utilize what resources are allowed to us by the provisions of our Constitution to mediate and moderate the extremities threatening to tear us apart, until such time as the contract is broken and those paths are closed to us. Blindly walking the same path off a cliff because the trail seemed pretty stable before is, I think, a plan doomed to bloody failure.
Incorrect. "Consent of the governed" is not an all-or-nothing thing - suppose you have a 2/3 majority support, it went to an election and the 2/3 won, then the remaining 1/3 violently rebelled in...
Violence and consent are absolutely mutually exclusive, and the only just basis for rule is consent of the governed.
Incorrect. "Consent of the governed" is not an all-or-nothing thing - suppose you have a 2/3 majority support, it went to an election and the 2/3 won, then the remaining 1/3 violently rebelled in an attempt to stop it - the 2/3 sending an army to forcibly quash the 1/3 would not only be legitimate, it is literally the 1860s US civil war. Slavery in the US was ended specifically by violence against the slave states.
Now, suppose you have a "democracy" that constantly enables minority rule - is it okay for the majority to forcibly change the system to majority rule? YES. That minority can get fucked if they don't like it. This is how democracy works - a "tyranny of the majority".
Note that I am describing what is permissible, not necessarily what is the optimal strategy - working within the system might be the better option, but ultimately we won't know for sure without hindsight or possibly ever.
You're making the same mistake the sovcit geniuses do and confusing agreement for consent. You can disagree with a proposition and still consent to it. That's a basic premise of democracy, in...
You're making the same mistake the sovcit geniuses do and confusing agreement for consent. You can disagree with a proposition and still consent to it. That's a basic premise of democracy, in fact.
My argument isn't that the use of violence in defense of the principle of self-governance in the liberal democratic sense is wrong, it's that jumping to violence when there are liberal means to resolve disagreement still remaining is a tacit rejection of the principles of democracy itself.
"Agree or I'll kill you" is incompatible with democracy. The fascists understand that, which is why they'd like to eliminate democracy. So why would a sensible person rush to accept their terms?
I agree the system needs changed, I'm just saying a third party isn't enough, as you outline yourself. I'm hoping others have the energy for that fight, my skills and energy lie elsewhere
I agree the system needs changed, I'm just saying a third party isn't enough, as you outline yourself.
I'm hoping others have the energy for that fight, my skills and energy lie elsewhere
I agree with you, but only in the context of our current electoral system. As it stands, no third party has an opportunity to build a viable coalition to contend because any support they do get...
I agree with you, but only in the context of our current electoral system. As it stands, no third party has an opportunity to build a viable coalition to contend because any support they do get necessarily comes at the cost of support for one of the established parties. That's fine for stronghold states where seats are virtually guaranteed to one or the other established party; they can afford to concede a percentage point or two to someone on the fringes in those races. But by virtue of our winner-take-all system, voting for third parties in hotly contended races is a vote against a citizen's interest. That's why only cranks seem to get nominated to third party candidacies.
That's what I think needs to change to swing the pendulum back from this absurd polarization. In contrast to @NaraVara, I'm convinced that the polarization stems from the electoral system itself, and that media influence is merely an adjunct to the entrenchment of power facilitated by a dumb system of conferring power.
Propaganda is a huge and highly visible influence of course, but it seems to me to be a much thornier problem to untangle by itself. The Watchmen Paradox is a real concern, and we all mostly hold the firm belief that speaking truth to power is a right that is vital to uphold. It would take a rethinking of our fundamental tenets as a society to make meaningful changes there, whereas addressing the systemic electoral processes that encourage the use of media to mislead does not. We would still have representation of the People, by the People and for the People–the only "right" that we'd risk infringing is that of the two parties to share control, and I don't think anyone can argue in good faith that's a right guaranteed by the Constitution, nor should it be.
It's theoretically possible (if somehow most of the apathetic woke up, they may almost win by themselves). But not practical with the current divide and apathy. But at this point, maybe we need to...
I don't agree that forming a political party that can actually challenge the Dems in that time is doable -
It's theoretically possible (if somehow most of the apathetic woke up, they may almost win by themselves).
But not practical with the current divide and apathy. But at this point, maybe we need to suffer an extra 4-8 years and spend that time properly fostering a true Progressives party. The "left" as we know it has shifte to a neoliberal stance, and that's not what the country needs at the moment.
I'm just wondering if that third party split would be harder or easier than putting in ranked choice. Unlike a third party, ranked choice would require an action with bipartisan disapproval.
I understand that. But at the same time the suffering part may not be optional to begin with. So it's a matter of hoping the "safe" option works to buy enough time, or if we need to do it the...
I understand that. But at the same time the suffering part may not be optional to begin with. So it's a matter of hoping the "safe" option works to buy enough time, or if we need to do it the "proper way".
Oh we might fail. But I won't plan for "we need a longer period of fascism" I've seen too many "well this is what we need" as arguments from people who are not nearly as existentially threatened -...
Oh we might fail. But I won't plan for "we need a longer period of fascism" I've seen too many "well this is what we need" as arguments from people who are not nearly as existentially threatened - or think they are not - while I'm hoarding every month of medical supplies we get right now because we could lose them.
If the Left had the mass constituency big enough to do this, then the Left would be able to just win enough primaries to where they wouldn’t have to. The problem is there is not a mass...
The point is that the Left gets a vote on whether the DNC management gets a clean-out. Basically, "reform or we'll reform for you".
If the Left had the mass constituency big enough to do this, then the Left would be able to just win enough primaries to where they wouldn’t have to. The problem is there is not a mass constituency for it as evidenced by the fact that Justice Dems have very weak showings in Democratic primaries outside of extremely unrepresentative districts, and they tend to underperform the Dem baseline even in those districts at the general election. It’s not like third parties haven’t been tried, it’s just that they lose and barely crack 5% of the vote even in many local races. And if they are at all successful enough to get mainstream attention they don’t expand through attracting people with interest in organizing and building power to achieve attainable political goals. Instead they rapidly get overrun with unserious cranks.
One of the striking things to me about the Trump era is that a lot of the old neocon type Republicans are almost entirely Never Trumpers, but it turns out they don’t actually comprise a meaningful enough proportion of the electorate anywhere to be significant. They get their clocks cleaned in GOP primaries and can barely turn out any voters to vote for a Dem. The Left is the same way, big impact through influence groups for intra-party policy discussions, but basically irrelevant electorally.
This is the problem when every election “must be won!” We’re now at the point where that’s true and instead of real fighters we’ve got a pile of ancient, useless, and corrupt representation after...
This is the problem when every election “must be won!”
We’re now at the point where that’s true and instead of real fighters we’ve got a pile of ancient, useless, and corrupt representation after letting some of them sit there and rot their way through the system year after year.
Most of these people have had their seats for decades. They didn’t just sell out. It’s just a lot of people finally noticing they’ve been going to bat for people who don’t give a damn about them.
Luckily, there are other parties! And for down ticket seats like city council members, county reps, or state/federal senators voting for your actual party representative can be a viable and great...
Luckily, there are other parties! And for down ticket seats like city council members, county reps, or state/federal senators voting for your actual party representative can be a viable and great option! Unfortunately, until we get ranked choice voting - or a conservative block that doesn't move in lock step - it isn't a viable option at the top echelons of power in our country. But representatives like AOC, Bowman, and Casar do give us hope!
My political wet dream is one where the GOP splits, either between the religious right and secularists or potential traditionalists vs MAGA, allowing for a progressive secession as well. But every year that seems less and less likely. Oh well, a boy can dream.
I think this is a horrible idea (and it's also been something Republicans have been chomping at the bit to do for a while, so I'm honestly not sure why the Dems are even going for this?) Section...
I think this is a horrible idea (and it's also been something Republicans have been chomping at the bit to do for a while, so I'm honestly not sure why the Dems are even going for this?) Section 230 definitely is not flawless, and I'd welcome some changes to prevent, for instance, abuse of DMCA takedowns to suppress speech you don't like, but repealing it does the opposite of solve those problems.
Luckily, the article itself does a great job summing up the reasons this is a bad idea:
But Durbin’s fundamental mischaracterization of Section 230 as mere “legal immunity for big tech” betrays either willful ignorance or calculated misdirection. Section 230 is, at its core, a shield for speech – your speech, my speech, everyone’s speech. It protects individuals and small websites far more than it protects Silicon Valley giants. It’s what keeps you safe when you forward an email or share a post. It’s what enables sites for people to review doctors or mechanics or employers. It’s what makes it possible for Wikipedia to exist. It’s what enables the very digital discourse we need to maintain democracy.
The dumbest part: removing Section 230 would actually entrench Big Tech’s power, not diminish it. The giants would survive just fine — most cases against them would still fail on First Amendment grounds. But defending speech under the First Amendment is far more complex and expensive than Section 230’s straightforward protections. Meta, Google, and their ilk have armies of lawyers to handle this. Everyone else? Not so much.
Being as how the internet has devolved into little more than a disinformation puke funnel I’m actually not opposed to just getting rid of a lot of services that rely on deriving value from user...
Being as how the internet has devolved into little more than a disinformation puke funnel I’m actually not opposed to just getting rid of a lot of services that rely on deriving value from user generated content.
The idea of Section 230 was that these services are dumb pipes and aren’t exercising editorial control over the content posted to them. But as soon as you introduce an algorithmic feed that prioritizes and deprioritizes content you are exercising editorial control. It’s wired to promote controversy, discontent, and a whole host of social harms that they are completely exempted from. Speech worth protecting remains protected on free speech grounds, what wouldn’t be protected is serving up content to prime compulsive behavior from probable gambling addicts in order to prime them to click on a DraftKings ad further down the scroll.
Trying to imagine a world where this impacts racist/white nationalist misinformation and not, I don't know, opposition to US or US-backed military operations around the world.
Trying to imagine a world where this impacts racist/white nationalist misinformation and not, I don't know, opposition to US or US-backed military operations around the world.
IANAL but I have worked in tech for three decades. Doesn't this move have unintended consequences?
While the repeal of Section 230 may seem helpful, as it seems as though it would allow lawsuits about misinformation, would it not also jeopardize all social media not controlled by the most moneyed interests?
I've written similar to my congressman, Jamie Raskin. Eager for a response as he is a lawyer (though the response will most certainly come from an intern or some aid on his staff who is not a lawyer)
I highly suspect that these are not even unintended consequences -- they're just relying on the average person not understanding enough about it to realize these are the inevitable consequences.
Section 230 and 'The 26 words that created the internet' are critical to the existence of the internet as we know it.
Removing 230 will, among other things, make online censorship trivial and be a death-blow to free speech. As mentioned by u/elight, it will functionally lock-out any new company or actor that would enable users to speak on their platforms in any manner behind a paywall effectively controlled by existing tech giants which they would wield to crush any potential competition. Monopolistic consolidation would functionally be both encouraged and heavily rewarded.
I would describe this as catastrophic, and it is / would be, but so much evil is being perpetrated right now on so many different fronts that I just don't have a sense of scale anymore.
One example of what this would allow to happen: we, here on Tildes, would be silenced. How? The giant platforms on which people talk with each other (Facebook / Reddit / Twitter/x...) would be heavily incentivised to bring a constant wave of cost-inducing lawsuits against every smaller platform on which people communicate with each other with the objective of running them into bankruptsy (upon which they could either choose to buy them out for pennies on the dollar or let them cease to exist). They would do this to entrench their monopoly positions as the only locations for online community discourse (and associated ad and market-research revenues). The only remaining communities would likely be those either so obscure as to remain unnoticed, or so walled-off behind offshore hosting, closed-gate style platforms (can't read anything without membership), and encryption as to be small floating-island style communities that are forced to pull up their ladders behind them lest Big Tech worm their way in to find some example to point at as a flimsy excuse to launch their legal assaults.
I am not a lawyer, but I don’t think tildes would be affected. It is hosted in Canada, with no affiliation to the USA. The tech companies can sue all they want in any USA court. Tildes can just not show up. Those courts don’t have jurisdiction over tildes.
Here's a horrific counterpoint hypothetical:
"The trump administration, in a shocking move, threatened Canada with increased Tariffs and possibly Sanctions if the sovereign country did not comply with the court rulings of the United States."
"In unrelated news, the CEOs of Meta, X, and Reddit have announced they will each donate $50 million USD to trumps 3rd term election campaign."
In any remotely sane world, the above statements would be absurd. Increasingly, we have left world sanity behind us.
In a pragmatic view: would this expenditure of money be likely for the purpose of crushing just Tildes? No. But then I think about trump simply... throwing a tantrum that Canada won't bow down and obey.
I don't think this is how it works. Laws don't cease to apply to social media websites because the company itself isn't located in that country. A huge portion of Tildes users reside in the US, and my layman's understanding is that this makes it pretty easy to establish US jurisdiction over Tildes, at least as far as US courts are concerned. Afaik Tildes would need to abide by US law unless it restricts traffic from the US, and my understanding is that the types of suits that would be permissible after removing Section 230 would only be harmless to Tildes if Canada does not enforce judgments from US courts. While I'm definitely not knowledgeable enough about Canadian law to say more, my limited searches indicate that it is at least sometimes possible to enforce US monetary judgments in Canada, so I don't think this issue is necessarily harmless to Tildes. Relatively recently there was a topic about several small sites cutting off UK access because of a particular UK law coming into effect that would be unduly onerous for small websites to implement, and it doesn't seem that these websites not being based in the UK was much protection in that circumstance.
Obviously an actual lawyer would know more, but I don't think it's as simple as Tildes being safe because it's a Canadian company.
I have always found it odd that people who will dive into the craziest conspiracies seem to be unwilling to entertain the idea that the very very rich people who throw money at politics will gladly pay for both sides of the aisle.
The democrats have been championing the cry of "We're not evil, just stupid!" for decades.
It's not a question of if this is being paid for in shady ways, the only question is who is paying for it.
As the article covers pretty well, the stated goals are a smokescreen, this would not punish big tech (much). It would help to entrench them, protecting them not only from current competition but from the ability for future competition to exist in the first place.
It would also give the government a bigger stick when they want to compel platforms to do what they want, which is of course particularly concerning right now.
I hope the public outcry is comparable to what happened in response to previous attempts to go after section 230.
So, how long until US lefties decide to make a third party to replace the Dems? Because let's be honest here: they're demonstrating they're part of the problem.
Edit: I just realized that "they're" is not at all clear whether it means "US lefties" or "dems". So to clarify: by "they" I mean
the one you were thinking of. Yep, you guessed it right.the dems.It'd fuck the left over further until the two party system reasserted itself (whether by replacing the Dems or the third party collapsing as has pretty much been consistent).
You can't even get on the ballot, much less get votes.
The point is that the Left gets a vote on whether the DNC management gets a clean-out. Basically, "reform or we'll reform for you".
It'll only fuck the left over if the fight drags on - there are 2 years until the next (senate?) election and 4 years til the next presidential election, so right now is the best possible time to pick the fight.
And yes, of course the two-party system would re-assert itself. That's the point of creating the third party: to replace the Dems. Obviously FPTP hasn't magically vanished.
One third of the Senate and all of the house is elected every two years.
And I don't agree that forming a political party that can actually challenge the Dems in that time is doable - several exist already and they're not capable of that. We can all join the DSA but that doesn't get anyone on a ballot. You don't need a new party to pressure the Dems from the left, you need to run and primary candidates in local elections on up.
To actually fully replace them in 4 years in our current system is unrealistic.
I suspect I will beat this drum until the day I die, but the US desperately needs to abolish FPtP, winner-take-all elections, and we needed to do it 40 years ago. We need proportional representation without single-race seats, and ranked-choice voting of some description. Anything else will at best preserve the ludicrous bipolarization of our politics, and at worst complete the shift to authoritarianism we're currently watching unfold.
The problem is how to go about doing that. At present, there's zero chance of the Dems willingly pushing for the diminution of their power at anything like the scale it would require to even get the idea widely discussed, let alone shift the needle enough to give it a shot of happening. There have been a few rumblings from individuals in the Democratic Party and a handful of old-guard Republican-leaning politicos, but to no one's surprise, every proposal thus far has immediately died on the vine.
The only thing I can think of that might work would be state-by-state reform of elections, taking guidance from the movements that led to the 18th, 19th and 21st Amendments, and the now nearly complete legalization of cannabis. Many states allow for state constitutional amendments via referendum, and the Federal Constitution explicitly reserves the power to determine state electoral processes to the states themselves, so if such reforms were enacted, no supreme court, no matter how partisan, should be empowered to block them. Once enough states are moderated in their governance by the opening up of representation that electoral reforms should produce, they can then exercise the power that the Constitution grants the individual state legislatures to pressure Congress to see reforms enacted for federal elections.
This seems to me to be at least a barebones framework of a tenable plan to save the Union, but even if the electorate all miraculously comes to its senses all at once, I can't see all this playing out in anything under a decade, and it would take longer than that for the moderating effect of the reforms to be fully operative. A whole lot can happen in ten years, especially if entrenched powers scent the winds changing against them.
Proportional representation systems do not seem meaningfully less polarized than the American system and, in fact, our current level of polarization is actually quite unusual historically. The last time we were this polarized had a similar problem to the present, where one party had a total lock on certain regions of the country where races were uncompetitive. We couldn’t really fix that until Reconstruction, which was itself incomplete.
The media is what causes the polarization, the party polarization is downstream of that.
I disagree, though I do acknowledge that proportional representation alone isn't enough to break the cycle. That's why I specifically call out FPtP and single-seat, winner-take-all elections. No one element alone will be enough, and you're absolutely correct to call out propaganda as an important contributing factor.
See, you're arguing as though our recent polarization is an aberration, when to my thinking, the relatively amicable cooperation between parties over most of the last 250 years seems to be the fluke. 250 years isn't much in the scale of history, and by your own admission, we've had a few decades in that time when shit didn't go so smoothly. It's all well to point out that it's seemed to work alright in the past–though we could certainly debate for days about how well it actually worked and for whom–but the issue is it's not working now, and I've seen no other viable means to address it that doesn't virtually guarantee violence on a massive scale.
That can't be allowed to happen. Violence and consent are absolutely mutually exclusive, and the only just basis for rule is consent of the governed. Anything else is ipso facto authoritarianism, even if power is wielded by the "good guys." Despite the failures of Reconstruction and the imperfect reintegration of the Confederate States, this was the rationale behind allowing them back without massive reprisals, and it was the right decision.
So my proposal is that we utilize what resources are allowed to us by the provisions of our Constitution to mediate and moderate the extremities threatening to tear us apart, until such time as the contract is broken and those paths are closed to us. Blindly walking the same path off a cliff because the trail seemed pretty stable before is, I think, a plan doomed to bloody failure.
Incorrect. "Consent of the governed" is not an all-or-nothing thing - suppose you have a 2/3 majority support, it went to an election and the 2/3 won, then the remaining 1/3 violently rebelled in an attempt to stop it - the 2/3 sending an army to forcibly quash the 1/3 would not only be legitimate, it is literally the 1860s US civil war. Slavery in the US was ended specifically by violence against the slave states.
Now, suppose you have a "democracy" that constantly enables minority rule - is it okay for the majority to forcibly change the system to majority rule? YES. That minority can get fucked if they don't like it. This is how democracy works - a "tyranny of the majority".
Note that I am describing what is permissible, not necessarily what is the optimal strategy - working within the system might be the better option, but ultimately we won't know for sure without hindsight or possibly ever.
You're making the same mistake the sovcit geniuses do and confusing agreement for consent. You can disagree with a proposition and still consent to it. That's a basic premise of democracy, in fact.
My argument isn't that the use of violence in defense of the principle of self-governance in the liberal democratic sense is wrong, it's that jumping to violence when there are liberal means to resolve disagreement still remaining is a tacit rejection of the principles of democracy itself.
"Agree or I'll kill you" is incompatible with democracy. The fascists understand that, which is why they'd like to eliminate democracy. So why would a sensible person rush to accept their terms?
I agree the system needs changed, I'm just saying a third party isn't enough, as you outline yourself.
I'm hoping others have the energy for that fight, my skills and energy lie elsewhere
I agree with you, but only in the context of our current electoral system. As it stands, no third party has an opportunity to build a viable coalition to contend because any support they do get necessarily comes at the cost of support for one of the established parties. That's fine for stronghold states where seats are virtually guaranteed to one or the other established party; they can afford to concede a percentage point or two to someone on the fringes in those races. But by virtue of our winner-take-all system, voting for third parties in hotly contended races is a vote against a citizen's interest. That's why only cranks seem to get nominated to third party candidacies.
That's what I think needs to change to swing the pendulum back from this absurd polarization. In contrast to @NaraVara, I'm convinced that the polarization stems from the electoral system itself, and that media influence is merely an adjunct to the entrenchment of power facilitated by a dumb system of conferring power.
Propaganda is a huge and highly visible influence of course, but it seems to me to be a much thornier problem to untangle by itself. The Watchmen Paradox is a real concern, and we all mostly hold the firm belief that speaking truth to power is a right that is vital to uphold. It would take a rethinking of our fundamental tenets as a society to make meaningful changes there, whereas addressing the systemic electoral processes that encourage the use of media to mislead does not. We would still have representation of the People, by the People and for the People–the only "right" that we'd risk infringing is that of the two parties to share control, and I don't think anyone can argue in good faith that's a right guaranteed by the Constitution, nor should it be.
It's theoretically possible (if somehow most of the apathetic woke up, they may almost win by themselves).
But not practical with the current divide and apathy. But at this point, maybe we need to suffer an extra 4-8 years and spend that time properly fostering a true Progressives party. The "left" as we know it has shifte to a neoliberal stance, and that's not what the country needs at the moment.
I'm just wondering if that third party split would be harder or easier than putting in ranked choice. Unlike a third party, ranked choice would require an action with bipartisan disapproval.
My partner might not survive suffering another 4-8 years if Medicaid is cut sufficiently. I cannot get onboard with "we just need to suffer" rhetoric.
I understand that. But at the same time the suffering part may not be optional to begin with. So it's a matter of hoping the "safe" option works to buy enough time, or if we need to do it the "proper way".
Oh we might fail. But I won't plan for "we need a longer period of fascism" I've seen too many "well this is what we need" as arguments from people who are not nearly as existentially threatened - or think they are not - while I'm hoarding every month of medical supplies we get right now because we could lose them.
If the Left had the mass constituency big enough to do this, then the Left would be able to just win enough primaries to where they wouldn’t have to. The problem is there is not a mass constituency for it as evidenced by the fact that Justice Dems have very weak showings in Democratic primaries outside of extremely unrepresentative districts, and they tend to underperform the Dem baseline even in those districts at the general election. It’s not like third parties haven’t been tried, it’s just that they lose and barely crack 5% of the vote even in many local races. And if they are at all successful enough to get mainstream attention they don’t expand through attracting people with interest in organizing and building power to achieve attainable political goals. Instead they rapidly get overrun with unserious cranks.
One of the striking things to me about the Trump era is that a lot of the old neocon type Republicans are almost entirely Never Trumpers, but it turns out they don’t actually comprise a meaningful enough proportion of the electorate anywhere to be significant. They get their clocks cleaned in GOP primaries and can barely turn out any voters to vote for a Dem. The Left is the same way, big impact through influence groups for intra-party policy discussions, but basically irrelevant electorally.
This is the problem when every election “must be won!”
We’re now at the point where that’s true and instead of real fighters we’ve got a pile of ancient, useless, and corrupt representation after letting some of them sit there and rot their way through the system year after year.
Most of these people have had their seats for decades. They didn’t just sell out. It’s just a lot of people finally noticing they’ve been going to bat for people who don’t give a damn about them.
Luckily, there are other parties! And for down ticket seats like city council members, county reps, or state/federal senators voting for your actual party representative can be a viable and great option! Unfortunately, until we get ranked choice voting - or a conservative block that doesn't move in lock step - it isn't a viable option at the top echelons of power in our country. But representatives like AOC, Bowman, and Casar do give us hope!
My political wet dream is one where the GOP splits, either between the religious right and secularists or potential traditionalists vs MAGA, allowing for a progressive secession as well. But every year that seems less and less likely. Oh well, a boy can dream.
The trouble is that we have the neoliberal party and the fascist kleptocrat party. Unlike Europe, there is almost no progressive representation.
I think the move is to use the few genuine representatives of the people as leverage to change the system.
If you can't afford to walk away, you can't afford to negotiate.
It seems like the tricky bit would be the "replace the Dems" part. Starting another minor party wouldn't do that.
I think this is a horrible idea (and it's also been something Republicans have been chomping at the bit to do for a while, so I'm honestly not sure why the Dems are even going for this?) Section 230 definitely is not flawless, and I'd welcome some changes to prevent, for instance, abuse of DMCA takedowns to suppress speech you don't like, but repealing it does the opposite of solve those problems.
Luckily, the article itself does a great job summing up the reasons this is a bad idea:
Being as how the internet has devolved into little more than a disinformation puke funnel I’m actually not opposed to just getting rid of a lot of services that rely on deriving value from user generated content.
The idea of Section 230 was that these services are dumb pipes and aren’t exercising editorial control over the content posted to them. But as soon as you introduce an algorithmic feed that prioritizes and deprioritizes content you are exercising editorial control. It’s wired to promote controversy, discontent, and a whole host of social harms that they are completely exempted from. Speech worth protecting remains protected on free speech grounds, what wouldn’t be protected is serving up content to prime compulsive behavior from probable gambling addicts in order to prime them to click on a DraftKings ad further down the scroll.
Trying to imagine a world where this impacts racist/white nationalist misinformation and not, I don't know, opposition to US or US-backed military operations around the world.
Indeed. The latter is a huge concern of mine.