Is the 6th floor museum losing its touch?

[Richard Smith]

There is no confirmation that the NY Times was ever given Trump's actual tax returns.  That is another falsehood.  They claimed to have "data" from the tax returns but have never confirmed the source of such data.  Nor did they make the "data" available to anyone else for confirmation.  The story was reported by every liberal media outlet without any independent verification of the accuracy of its content because they had no access to the underlying source material or even know the source. They just reported the information as fact without verification.   In direct contrast to how they handled the Hunter Biden story which we now know is the source of a federal investigation.

[Richard Smith]

The ignorance of the contrarians is astounding.  We are told that Twitter is a "not a public forum" and therefore can do as they please.  Of course that has nothing to do with the issue.  Social media platforms are protected by federal law (section 230) from being legally responsible for what others say because they are intended to operate as platform providers for users.  Like your telephone service. They are given this protection to promote free speech because they are not supposed to act as publishers that control the content.  They can certainly decide to do so but then they should surrender the protections of the federal law that have been afforded to them.  But they want to have it both ways.  Determining content like a publisher and being free from any legal liability for the content.   If Twitter or Facebook want to be arbiters of content instead of platform providers, then they can do that.  But then they should forfeit the protections of the law.

[Andrew Mason]

The ignorance of the contrarians is astounding.  We are told that Twitter is a "not a public forum" and therefore can do as they please.  Of course that has nothing to do with the issue.  Social media platforms are protected by federal law (section 230) from being legally responsible for what others say because they are intended to operate as platform providers for users.  Like your telephone service. They are given this protection to promote free speech because they are not supposed to act as publishers that control the content.  They can certainly decide to do so but then they should surrender the protections of the federal law that have been afforded to them.  But they want to have it both ways.  Determining content like a publisher and being free from any legal liability for the content.   If Twitter or Facebook want to be arbiters of content instead of platform providers, then they can do that.  But then they should forfeit the protections of the law.

Why can't they have it both ways?  In fact Chapter 47 US Code, the Communications Decency Act, s. 230(c) does just that. It says:

230(c)Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
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.
(2) Civil liability
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

One could argue that the "safe harbour" privilege was granted (in subsection 230(c)(1)) on the understanding that providers will (under (2)) control harmful content by placing good-faith restrictions on content.   A political bias is not a "good faith" reason for restricting content.  But preventing users from spreading allegations created by Russian trolls (in order to get a political result and undermine U.S. democracy) is. 

[Andrew Mason]

There is no confirmation that the NY Times was ever given Trump's actual tax returns.  That is another falsehood.  They claimed to have "data" from the tax returns but have never confirmed the source of such data.  Nor did they make the "data" available to anyone else for confirmation.  The story was reported by every liberal media outlet without any independent verification of the accuracy of its content because they had no access to the underlying source material or even know the source. They just reported the information as fact without verification.   In direct contrast to how they handled the Hunter Biden story which we now know is the source of a federal investigation.

The NYTimes had to use pieces of his tax returns that were made public disclosed by anonymous sources:

"What we’re left with are scraps from Mr. Trump’s voluminous tax filings that have been leaked to the news media by anonymous sources: his federal Form 1040 from 2005, disclosed last week by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, and a few pages of his 1995 state tax returns, which include some data from that year’s 1040, revealed by The New York Times last fall.

The documents themselves showed that they were actual pages from his returns. All Trump had to do to challenge them if they were not actual pages from his tax returns is to do what every President in the past 50 years has done: release his tax returns.

[Richard Smith]

The NYTimes had to use pieces of his tax returns that were made public disclosed by anonymous sources:
The documents themselves showed that they were actual pages from his returns. All Trump had to do to challenge them if they were not actual pages from his tax returns is to do what every President in the past 50 years has done: release his tax returns.

LOL.  Anonymous sources!  So that makes them authentic?  But Hunter's situation is somehow entirely different?  Wow.  I'm all for the NY Times publishing information about Trump's taxes.  Everyone in a free society can come to their own conclusions about them.  I can't understand why Dems are so enthusiastic that these social media platforms censoring information on their behalf.  A very disturbing trend for any fair minded person.  It is mind boggling that the liberals are now the ones promoting censorship and endless foreign wars.  The one thing that they historically got correct was opposition to such matters.

[Martin Weidmann]

You didn't have these same concerns when there were reports from the NY Times about Trump's taxes.  They never made the tax returns available to anyone for inspection of their accuracy.  If they were obtained, then it was done illegally because Trump never authorized disclosure as required by federal law.  But that story was widely reported and social media had no apparent issue with anyone reporting it there despite the lack of any verification.  They certainly did not suspend the NY Times' account as a result like they did with the NY Post.  That is clear censorship based upon political bias.

No it isn't. The details of some tax returns being made public were not designed to influence an election. The Hunter Biden lies had influencing the election as it's only real purpose. That is one hell of a difference.

And you are wildly confused about the issue under discussion.  Of course no one wants false information reported about them on social media.  That is why individuals have recourse to libel actions.  Individuals can be sued for writing false information. 

Sure, they can sue, but that takes time and lots of it. In the meantime the fake story would have influenced the election in just the same way as the alleged e-mail scandal influenced the 2016 election. And, what's more, who are those individuals you can sue when they write a newspaper report based upon information provided to them by a third party?

Social media platforms, however, are protected by federal law from such lawsuits because they are supposed to be platforms for the exchange of information (like a telephone company) and not publishers. 

And Trump, with all the lies he has told, has benefited greatly from this.

Imagine if your telephone carrier broke into your conversation to tell you that you couldn't discuss certain topics because they didn't like your opinion or that your telephone access would be suspended if you discussed the Hunter Biden story. 

That's a BS comparison. A telephone conversation is private between two people. You don't have phone calls where all the world can hear what's being said.

Social media platforms are acting like arbiters of the truth instead of platform providers.  If they decide to do so, then they should be subject to suit like anyone else.

They only take action in the rarest of cases. If, as you suggest, they act like arbiters of the truth, Trump's twitter account would look significantly different from how it looks today.

[Andrew Mason]

LOL.  Anonymous sources!  So that makes them authentic?  But Hunter's situation is somehow entirely different?  Wow.  I'm all for the NY Times publishing information about Trump's taxes.  Everyone in a free society can come to their own conclusions about them.  I can't understand why Dems are so enthusiastic that these social media platforms censoring information on their behalf.  A very disturbing trend for any fair minded person.  It is mind boggling that the liberals are now the ones promoting censorship and endless foreign wars.  The one thing that they historically got correct was opposition to such matters.

What endless foreign wars are you speaking about?  The Gulf war/Iraq invasion/ISIS war that was started and ramped up under the Republicans?   Or war in Afghanistan to remove the terrorist Taliban that was started under Republicans? 

[Andrew Mason]

If, as you suggest, they act like arbiters of the truth, Trump's twitter account would look significantly different from how it looks today.

Well said.  But if I was in charge of Twitter, I would ban Trump right now.  He is showing serious signs that he is losing his mind and is liable to use his twitter feed to call for the mobilization of U.S. troops against Biden's inauguration.  I would have the legal and moral right to not facilitate that call to arms.