Introducing the Section 230 Reform Legislative Tracker.
Blogging this because, y’all should pay very close attention to the laws on this topic, because there’s a disturbing amount of push to kill this law in ways the people doing it fundamentally do not understand the ramifications of, and we need to prepare to fight back.
Like, if Section 230 dies, we could end up looking at an internet that’s basically divided between Netflix and 4chan-type sites as your only options, with massive purges of content and speech (Especially on Youtube), and that’s only slightly hyperbole.
When Josh Hawley and Donald Trump Jr. invoke 1984, it’s clear they don’t know what they’re talking about.
All of these instances fit with something I’ve noticed in right-wing Twitter/bloggersphere since November: the invocation of Orwell. I’ve seen Orwellian or wrongthink or 1984 unironically floating around online as users decry this perceived persecution at the hands of big tech companies. The imagery and language of George Orwell’s novel 1984 has long been used as a rote stand-in descriptor for the right for the moments when they feel slighted, or as a way to point out a perceived overreach of power by the government (or, in these cases, private businesses).
And it’s equally clear that they don’t know what they’re talking about.
It’s easy to see why the idea of the novel itself (written by an avowed democratic socialist) holds particular appeal for American conservatives. The book is Orwell’s examination of totalitarian and dystopian societies, how they suppress and surveil free thought, people’s movements and opportunities, and ultimately create an alternate reality for their citizens.
Sympathetic political ideology is one connection, but there’s another, more ironic instance here: the use of language. 1984, critic Katharine M. Morsberger writes in her critical essay in Survey of Science Fiction Literature Volume 3, is concerned with how language works in society.
“Language and its significance is the dominant theme in Nineteen-Eighty Four. … In Newspeak, it is impossible to think certain thoughts because there are no longer words for them. History and literature are rewritten to conform to the Party’s view.”
Orwell’s works endure because of his focus on a central tenet of dystopian fiction: the control of language in shaping reality. Terms like Big Brother, doublethink, 2+2 = 5, or thoughtcrime are extremely effective, conveying their satirical definitions outside of the context of the book. They’re absurd terms, but that’s the point: They show how warped reality can become for them to be accepted on their face.
I spoke with a science fiction author and data scientist, Yudhanjaya Wijeratne, about this the other day, and he made an interesting observation about how language helps shape one’s worldview: In 1984, Orwell highlighted the efforts on the part of his fictional government to simplify languages down to very basic ideas to avoid free thought as a form of control reducing people’s abilities to express complicated thoughts and concepts.
Wijeratne noted that the right seems to be on a similar path: simplifying arguments and their associated language to effectively spread them to their followers. By contrast, he said, he’s seen the left go in the opposite direction: introducing more nuanced language or emphasizing a diversity of opinions or worldviews.
There’s an irony here: that the rhetoric invoking Orwell’s imagery is coming from a political movement that is essentially putting its head in the sand and denying actual reality. I’ve heard plenty of people talking about how it’s an established fact that climate change is a hoax, how the Democrats are secretly trafficking children, the left stole the election for Biden, or that the entirety of the political right is being silenced because of a cabal of tech companies conspiring against it.
And those beliefs are supported by a larger media ecosystem of TV networks, talk radio, alt-right blogs, and social media platforms, all of which have convinced a large segment of the population that reality isn’t really what it seems—and that it doesn’t matter. Remember: A prominent member of this party once championed the phrase “alternative facts” with a straight face.
Right-wing politicians and media are priming their constituents to think Big Tech rigged the 2020 election in Democrats’ favor.
Despite Joe Biden being the projected winner of the 2020 election, Donald Trump continues to press unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. Many of his initial election lawsuits focus on how mail-in votes are being processed, but he also claimed Thursday that he actually won despite “historical election interference” from Big Tech. That might seem like Trump searching for excuses, but there is reason to believe he and other conservative politicians are priming their constituents to think that Big Tech rigged the 2020 election in Democrats’ favor.
An overly broad anti-fake news law in Vietnam will help the government crack down on dissent.
“ ... Official state media outlets are heavily edited, and private social media platforms are routinely censored. There’s also a history of arresting dissidents for their posts on Facebook, such as prominent blogger prominent blogger Ho Van Hai’s 2016 arrest for “propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Many topics of discussion and ideas are forbidden, though some—such as anti-Chinese sentiment—are too widely popular for the government to censor entirely, as Vietnam and China officially remain allies, even in light of increased political and military tensions ...
... Anti-government Facebook posts, including a statement from the village leader’s widow, were censored, and several dissidents were arrested over posts they had made about the incident. The Vietnamese government’s social media brigade mass-reported Facebook profiles of dissidents to take them down and flooded the platform with pro-government sentiments.The Vietnamese government censorship apparatus works hand in hand with private companies, as we found out in April. Reuters reported that earlier this year, state-owned telecom companies throttled traffic to Facebook, rendering access to the platform impossible at times, until Facebook agreed to take down content the Vietnamese government deems anti-state. (In a statement emailed to Reuters, Facebook acknowledged the government’s request and said it complied in order to “to ensure our services remain available and usable for millions of people in Vietnam, who rely on them every day.”) ...”
The Trump administration is pursuing its own version of internet sovereignty. Trump recently announced a ban on Chinese-owned apps like TikTok and WeChat, and the State Department announced the expansion of its “clean” network program, which seeks to purge Chinese companies and technologies from U.S. networks. There are indeed valid security concerns about networking technology sold by the Chinese company Huawei. It is certainly true that, as Chinese-owned apps, TikTok and WeChat are subject to surveillance and censorship demands by their home government, extending Chinese government controls to users around the world. But eliminating Chinese tech from U.S. networks and platforms only protects people from Chinese government surveillance conducted directly via Chinese companies. It does nothing to protect users from hackers and spies—including Chinese state-sponsored attacks—who take advantage of companies’ security vulnerabilities and lax privacy standards.
If Trump obtains a second term, his policies will empower and legitimize efforts by governments around the world to fence off different parts of the internet in service of their own geopolitical and domestic objectives. Asserting internet sovereignty already helps incumbent leaders and their political parties tip the scales to manipulate elections and manufacture their own legitimacy, particularly in countries with weak or deteriorating rule of law—which is now on a steady global decline, including in the U.S. If the Trump administration helps to normalize the banning and blocking of entire apps and platforms, strongmen will be in an even stronger position.
The president and his surrogates are relying on convoluted arguments to claim that social media fact-checking is evidence of anti-conservative bias.
The reframing of a fact check as evidence of anti-conservative bias is deeply problematic, because right now we need to see more correcting of misinformation, not less. This has become abundantly clear in the context of COVID-19. In May, for example, a video called “Plandemic” went wildly viral among certain communities on Facebook. The video was a 25-minute daisy chain of misinformation and outlandish allegations. Some of the claims were standard government-conspiracy fare, but it also alleged that oceans were full of “healing microbes,” and it gave specific advice to avoid masks. That viral spread of that video, which my team at Stanford studied extensively, showed how broadly sensational misinformation can spread: “Plandemic” got an early foothold in anti-vaccine and natural health groups, rapidly hopped to thousands of QAnon and MAGA communities as well as dozens of left-leaning groups, and then continued on to be shared by ordinary people in hundreds of local chat and random individual interest groups. By the time the platforms took it down, it had millions of views, shares, and engagements. The takedown itself spawned a secondary wave of reposts of the video and anger over censorship.
