President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that targets social media platforms and the content on their sites.

The executive order aims to remove the protections of Section 230 in the Communications Decency Act. By repealing Section 230, social networks would be legally responsible for what people post on their platforms.

The law that protects speech over the internet has been around for more than 20 years, but has been targeted by politicians of both major parties, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

Here’s what you need to know about Section 230, including how it’s shaped the modern internet.

What is Section 230?

The Communications Decency Act was established as Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, right as the internet was growing and expanding amid the first big tech boom of the 1990s. It was initially created to regulate pornographic material on the internet.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA) created Section 230 within the Communications Decency Act to protect speech on the internet.

Long before social networking, Section 230 was meant to cover sites like news outlets with comment sections, online forums, and other websites where people could contribute their thoughts. Without Section 230, most of the sites we use today — including Google and Facebook — would not exist as we know them.

“It was very relevant 20 years ago for certain websites to happen,” said Zohar Levkovitz, CEO of anti online toxicity company L1ght.

What protections does it provide?

Section 230 says: “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.”

https://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/what-is-section-230-the-legislation-protecting-social-media/

Help unmask these antifa cowards https://mobile.twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/1267091647042473985

https://worldtrendall.blogspot.com/2020/05/after-more-than-108-years-3-rescue.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-trump/trump-to-sign-executive-order-on-social-media-on-thursday-white-house-idUSKBN2331NK

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on social media companies on Thursday, White House officials said after Trump threatened to shut down the platform he accused of stifling conservative voices.

The officials, who spoke to reporters traveling with Trump to Washington from Florida aboard Air Force One on Wednesday, gave no further details.

Before leaving for Florida earlier in the day to observe a space launch that was postponed because of bad weather, Trump again accused Twitter Inc and other social media of bias without offering evidence.

It was unclear how Trump could follow through on the threat of shutting down social media companies.The American Civil Liberties Union said the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution limits any action Trump could take to regulate such platforms.

Twitter declined comment on news of Trump’s plans. Facebook and Google did not immediately comment.

Separately, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington on Wednesday upheld the dismissal of a suit brought by a conservative group and right-wing YouTube personality against Google, Facebook, Twitter and Apple alleging they conspired to suppress conservative political views.

Trump’s latest dispute with social media emerged after Twitter on Tuesday for the first time attached a warning to some of his tweets prompting readers to fact check the president’s claims.

In the tweets tagged by Twitter, Trump made unsubstantiated claims about mail-in voting. Trump falsely claims that mail-in ballots lead to vote fraud and ineligible voters getting ballots.

The US Senate yesterday voted – by a single vote – to allow government agencies like the FBI and CIA to access your browsing history without a warrant. (no you fucks not your webbrowser. history noted in the system of your int provider)

This means they would not need to show probable cause for believing you have committed a crime before requiring your ISP to hand over its records on your web browsing and search histories …

The Senate is being asked to reauthorize the Patriot Act, which gives government agencies powers to carry out mass electronic surveillance of US citizens. Three amendments were put forward, one of which would have prevented accessing web browsing history without a warrant.

Use of a VPN provides protection against this kind of surveillance, as it means your ISP would have no way to know which websites you visited.

There was some good news: a second amendment did pass, which allows judges ruling on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests to seek input from independent experts.
A third amendment, requiring warrants to carry out FISA searches on US citizens, is due to be voted on today.

https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/14/access-your-browsing-history/

http://www.thecut.com/amp/2020/05/amy-cooper-central-park-dog-video.html

On Monday morning — Memorial Day — Christian Cooper was bird-watching in the wooded area of Central Park known as the Ramble when he saw a dog off leash. Cooper, a black man, asked the dog’s owner, a white woman, to leash her dog (while there are many off leash areas for dogs in Central Park, the Ramble is not one of them) and the next thing he knew, the woman was calling the cops, telling Cooper, “I’m going to tell them there’s an African-American man threatening my life.”

Video of the incident, which Cooper filmed on his phone, went viral on Monday evening, after his sister, Melody Cooper, posted it to Twitter. It has since been retweeted over 100,000 times.