The barely concealed subtext here seems to be that this is not at all about monopolies, and is really about forcing Google to return search results favorable to conservative politicians and ideologies.
The legislation asks them to take their finger off the scales, not put it on the other side.
> The current interpretations of Section 230 have enabled online platforms to hide behind the immunity to censor lawful speech in bad faith and is inconsistent with their own terms of service. To remedy this, the department’s legislative proposal revises and clarifies the existing language of Section 230 and replaces vague terms that may be used to shield arbitrary content moderation decisions with more concrete language that gives greater guidance to platforms, users, and courts.
>
> The legislative proposal also adds language to the definition of “information content provider” to clarify when platforms should be responsible for speech that they affirmatively and substantively contribute to or modify.
From the proposal:
> a. Replace Vague Terminology in (c)(2). First, the Department supports replacing the vague catch-all “otherwise objectionable” language in Section 230(c)(2) with “unlawful” and “promotes terrorism.” This reform would focus the broad blanket immunity for content moderation decisions on the core objective of Section 230—to reduce online content harmful to children—while limiting a platform's ability to remove content arbitrarily or in ways inconsistent with its terms or service simply by deeming it “objectionable.”
That cuts both ways, you know... like it's supposed to.
> The legislation asks them to take their finger off the scales, not put it on the other side.
This is fair. Though why conservatives would want this is a mystery. For example, Trump is allowed to post on Twitter and Facebook despite breaking their rules time and time again. Being consistent would mean removing a lot of conservatives voices, voices that have been protected by these big tech companies.
> The legislation asks them to take their finger off the scales, not put it on the other side.
Yes. But the notion that tech companies are putting a "finger on the scales" in favor of liberals is the conservatives' perspective. Another perspective is that they're banning categories of speech, such as misinformation and hate speech, which just happen to be more prevalent on the conservative side.
> The legislation asks them to take their finger off the scales
What do you mean? In what way is the DOJ's finger on the scale? Either facebook is free to manage itself as it sees fit, or it isn't. But if it isn't, then that's the finger being on the scale. That's the government controlling facebook. If you want the government controlling facebook's editorial powers, that's all well and good, but it's putting its finger on the scales.
That's a claim, yes. The government is [implicitly] claiming that tech companies are being inconsistent. To fix this, the government is stepping in and regulating speech. A perfect solution.
Of course it is. Conservatives have raced so quickly to the right that they've outrun the Overton Window. So rather than snap back, they're trying to push Big Tech to accelerate the movement of the window.
Big Tech tries to play for both teams by writing the legislation that regulates Big Tech, while making money from large government contracts and making public statements of support for more or less or certain kinds of regulations, depending on the company and the context.
The personal is political in life and in business. Regulation could make currently profitable companies less profitable, and would thus make compliance a foregone conclusion. If the public wills that business and data collection practices should change, and such changes mandated by law, Big Tech will change, and the status quo would change. Those that currently benefit from the status quo make noises about changing it in an effort to guide and forestall such change as long as it is profitable to do so, to ensure the possibility of increasing profits in the future.
> Conservatives have raced so quickly to the right ...
I'd like to suggest that we use care with the term "conservative". Is it possible that the parent post conflates "conservative" with "Republican"?
I'm no authority on the U.S. Republic party, but I know it's sometimes said that that party has shifted hard to "the right". I could believe that's true, which would line up with the parent post.
However, some of my own political views would be considered "conservative" in the traditional sense, and I don't think they've undergone a hard shift to the right.
Studies have shown that rank-and-file Democrats have moved leftward much more than rank-and-file Republicans have moved rightward[0], but at least one study shows that Republican representatives have tacked rightward much more dramatically[1].
I've seen [0] before and you can sort of explain [0] and [1] by adjusting the frame of reference. As [0] shows, Republicans have pretty much been unmoved for 30 years. At first view you might conclude it's democrats who are moving right, but if you consider the rest of the 1st world as some kind of "average", I think you would find Republicans are moving farther right. Issues like health care, social safety nets, and worker protections are pretty much close to "center" in Europe, but are "left" in the US.
One could argue Republicans moved much father rightward of the 1st world mean than democrats have, which reconciles with [1] - in order to stay mostly politically unchanged after 30 years you must be more and more steadfast.
Democrats have always outnumbered Republicans, but the gap was much wider mid-century. The gap has narrowed considerably, but mostly because of declining Democratic party affiliation. Independents now outnumber Democrats.
Where is this wealth of principled conservatives people keep pretending exist, but are no where to be seen in politics or political discussions? Like it or not, Republicans are the "conservative" party and around 95% of them support Trump and the vast majority of them consider themselves to be conservatives. Attempts from conservatives to distance themselves from the Republican party just reek of No true Scotsman.
> Like it or not, Republicans are the "conservative" party and around 95% of them support Trump and the vast majority of them consider themselves to be conservatives.
I apologize but I may be missing your point.
In the GP, I was suggesting that the term "conservative" is being used in competing ways by different groups, and we should be clear on that.
Are you saying that it's not worth making such a distinction, because the vast, vast majority of the public use the term "conservative" to mean "whatever the Republican party's platform is"?
If the vast majority of the public use the term conservative to mean Republican, that's pretty much what the words mean. That's how language works. Conservatives of today have the same hallmarks as the original conservatives. It's little to nothing to do with sound fiscal policy or responsible spending or size of government and everything to do with maintaining social hierarchies. From that perspective, Trump supporters are definitely conservative.
I agree. It sounds like we have disagreeing estimates regarding how popular each definition is. We may be at an impasse on this, unless you know of a good source of reliable data for it.
