Hat tip Bill Still on today's vid of key POTUS-Barr remarks
Here's what the Top Lawman Barr had to say:
Well, as you've mentioned, Mr. President, one of the things that I found has the broadest bipartisan support these days is the feeling that this provision, Section 230, has been stretched way beyond its original intention. And people feel that on both sides of the aisle.
This was adopted 25 years ago to protect a fledgling industry, and its purpose was to allow websites that were serving as, essentially, bulletin boards for diverse third-party content coming on, to say that you're not responsible for the content of that third-party information. And it also tried to encourage these companies to take down things like child pornography or human trafficking advertising and things by saying, if you act to remove this kind of objectionable material, you won't be liable for taking it down. Now it's been completely stretched to allow what have become really behemoths who control a lot of the flow of information in our society to engage in censorship of that information and to act as editors and publishers of the material.
So when they put on their own content – like "fact check" content – onto other people's content, and when they curate their collection, and when they start censoring particular content including, in many cases,* at the direction of foreign governments like Communist China, they become publishers and they shouldn't be entitled to the same kind of shield that was set up earlier.
Now, this executive order is a very strong step toward addressing this problem. It sets up a rulemaking procedure that will eventually be under the FCC to try to get back to the original interpretation and understanding of Section 230. It also empowers the Attorney General to work with state attorneys general to come up with model legislation that addresses this at the state level. And we're preparing federal legislation, which we will be sending over shortly for review at the Office of Management and Budget. So this is an important step to get back to the original understanding.
You know, there's a bit of a bait-and-switch that's occurred in our society. These companies grew because they held themselves out as public forums, as free public forums where a variety of voices and diverse voices could come on and be heard. That's how they grew. That's how they attracted the eyeballs. That's why people joined them.
*But now that they have become these very powerful networks of eyeballs, now that they've grown by holding themselves out as free public forums, they've now switched. And they are using that market power to force particular viewpoints, and that's wrong. And it has to be addressed not only through this executive order, but I think litigation going forward and by further action on Capitol Hill.
Thank you, Mr. President.
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http://invidio.us/watch?v=ZOf5UD9kHoI :
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