> Out of context this is quite reasonable and level headed. In context of the hyper partisan landscape US politics are today, doesn’t seem likely without a supermajority opposition to be able to bring charges against a president,
In context though, it's quite terrifying given how much the US has fallen into tribalism. Half the population wouldn't convict a certain candidate no matter what they did.
Actually it's not true of both sides. Hunter Biden was tried and convicted and nobody is up in arms about it, because he did the crimes and should do his time. If his father has done any crimes he should do the time as well.
Most people still think this. The only people who don't are those in thrall to one particular cult of personality.
It involved suppression of an article published by a New York newspaper, by social media companies with a large presence in New York. You could indict the social media companies as part of a conspiracy charge under New York law, even if other relevant events happened elsewhere.
Also, do other jurisdictions have obscure election interference laws they never use? Does Delaware? I bet they do.
Do you mean to argue that the social media websites were legally required to allow links to that article? I don't think that's how the First Amendment works.
A key part of the New York case against Trump was the “catch and kill” “scheme.” Of course tabloids aren’t required to publish stories, just like social media websites aren’t required to publish links. But in the Trump case that was deemed election fraud.
A key part of the NY case was also that Trump, the actual candidate, was a causal agent in the catch and kill scheme which, it was argued, violated election laws. What does the case against, say, Twitter look like? They weren't running for office or a part of any candidate's campaign.
No, Section 230(c)(1) [1] protects users and websites sharing user generated content against liability for relaying other users' generated content. Section 230(c)(1) protection is not conditional on whether such websites remove some legal content while keeping other legal content up.
> (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.
Section 230(c)(2)(A) separately disclaims the relayer (whether website or user) of liability arising from actions of "good faith" restrictions of access to online third-party content (such as removal thereof) that the relayer considers to be "otherwise objectionable". Content that violates terms of service falls under "otherwise objectionable", and so does content that the would-be relayer is biased against. Section 230(c)(2)(B) disclaims the relayer of liability for actions of granting someone the technical means to restrict access to online third-party content. Nowhere does Section 230(c)(2) act as a legal condition on which Section 230(c)(1) protections depend [1].
> (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).
The authors of Section 230 were Senators Ron Wyden and Chris Cox in 1996. Here's Ron Wyden in 2023 explaining the function of Section 230 [2]:
> I wanted to take a few minutes to share my thoughts on why Section 230 remains vital to a functioning internet - and how the Supreme Court oral arguments and briefs in Gonzalez v. Google helped make the case for 230.
> First of all, Section 230 is a law that Chris Cox and I wrote. It essentially says that the person who creates a piece of content online is the one responsible for it.
> As a result of 230 and the First Amendment, websites are able to take down posts they don’t want — stuff like hate speech and violent content and other muck — and elevate other posts.
> So much of the focus on Section 230 is on the big social media companies. But my goal with 230 is protecting two groups: First, users, who want to be able to speak online and to access interesting content. And second, the startups and small sites that want to compete with the incumbents — whether that’s going up against big cable or big tech. Everyone from Wikipedia to Reddit to a knitting message board.
> It’s what allows sites to host controversial content without fear of being deluged with lawsuits.
Later on regarding proposed changes to Section 230, Wyden says [2]:
> There may be ways to change Section 230 to make it clearer about what the law is supposed to protect, and what it isn’t. I’m constantly evaluating ways to make the internet a better place for users. But as the son of a journalist I can’t support any bill that narrows the First Amendment in the process, or that discourages moderation. So far, the proposals on offer violate one or both of those principals.
> 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
Yeah as other commenters have pointed out, I just don't know what your rebuttal to my original point is with all this. Do you really think my belief is that if any of this broke any laws, I don't want to see it be tried in court, just because I support Joe Biden?
That's just not how I think, and I don't believe it's how most people think. Most of us are really boring normies who don't like criminals and think people should follow the law and be tried in court when they don't.
I don't know anything about it, but if fraud - or some other crime - was committed by someone in a conspiracy to benefit a campaign, then it seems like that may well be a case that could be tried under New York's laws.
If a prosecutor brings that evidence to a grand jury, they indict one or more people, and then those people are tried and convicted by a jury of their peers, then I think justice will have been done.
Posting like this is not allowed here and will get your account banned, so please don't post like this—no matter how wrong or provocative someone else is being, or you feel they are.
Edit: we've had to warn you about this multiple times before, and you've been posting abusively in other places too (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40817954). If you don't want to be banned here, it would be good to fix this.
That story was painted as a Russian hoax by federal agents who knew better. It was systematically suppressed on corporate and social media, and the people who were telling it were smeared. All right before an election that was extremely close.
And here you are saying it wasn't a big deal.
Besides, Joe Biden is currently incredibly complicit in atrocities and war crimes up to and including genocide and ethnic cleansing. I don't hear many Democrats calling for him to be held accountable.
Posting like this is not allowed here and will get your account banned, so please don't post like this—no matter how wrong or provocative someone else is being, or you feel they are.
Posting like this is not allowed here and will get your account banned, so please don't post like this—no matter how wrong or provocative someone else is being, or you feel they are.
And the other half wholeheartedly endorses convicting a certain candidate of something, anything to keep him out of office.
I happen to agree that he should be kept out of office, but I'd rather that be done by putting him up against an electable opponent than by giving his base yet more fodder for their belief that they're being collectively persecuted.
> And the other half wholeheartedly endorses convicting a certain candidate of something, anything to keep him out of office.
There's a strong argument that the candidate in question shouldn't be in the position he was in is because he acted inappropriately. Not just in demeanor and professionalism, but he has several ongoing criminal trials going right now. There is a real possibility that he committed treason.
But even so, no one is really opposed to him gaining office if that's what truly people want. At that point, the concern is what the hell is wrong with the people that voted him in, and what the hell happened to get the population to that point. My guess is Reagan.
There is just a lot more power invested in republican elites than democrat elites than we realized.
There are organized efforts, decades long to skew courts, remove laws, increase dysfunction to prove the point that government fails.
Medicare was based on Romney’s model, and he was forced to disown it because the party would rather be partisan than give democrats a win.
Partisanship, divisive politics get you here. It gets you Fox News, and infowars. It gets you the idea that everything is a liberal conspiracy, like evolution.
Hell, people heard “build a wall” and were cool with it.
I believe the term that was coined by republicans for people whose feelings are hurt was snowflakes.
the
I don't understand how anyone can genuinely believe that.
Half the population has an absolutely astounding and embarrassing level of education, think things like climate change are hoaxes, don't care about the constitution and just want Jesus' word to be law, etc etc etc.
The problem is absolutely the voters. It's also why this model of democracy is actually kind of terrible unless you have an educated population. We're basically watching the fall of the American Empire here.
No, not enough. The lack of 'both sides' is what got us here.
You want to know what the hell is wrong with the people who voted him in? They have felt alone, disenfranchised, and cut off by the coastal elite (both sides!) for decades. One party took their vote for granted, the other wished that they didn't have a vote at all. They got sick of being ignored and condescended to, and a freaky sociopath named Donald Trump realized that they were the key to "winning" his perverted game and he finally successfully courted them.
They fell over themselves for Trump because no one else spared them a second thought.
So no, I'm not going to be done with 'both sides'. The Left thinks that if they just prosecute Trump and get him convicted these people will just go away and we can go back to business as usual, but this populist movement has found its voice and it's not going anywhere.
The only thing that's going to stop this from turning tragic is for the Left to figure out that these people exist and have a vote and find a way to speak to them. And the only way I have to help is to cry "both sides". Trump voters are normal people with very real needs, and our only hope to avert catastrophe is to see them and hear them.
> No, not enough. The lack of 'both sides' is what got us here.
lol, why are you going out of your way to reply to this? It's not in my comment, and it wasn't in the comment when you logged in to reply. Did you copy and paste it from your rss feed or whatever specifically to be able to reply to it? That's really weird. Anyway.
> They have felt alone, disenfranchised, and cut off by the coastal elite (both sides!) for decades.
The problem is they have no education and have no idea how to think critically. In society we have made it such a bad thing to be 'stupid', combine that with studies showing being wrong can be similar to being physically hurt [0], well, now we have a population that has no education, is religious and rejects science, doesn't want to be called stupid or be wrong, so they rally around 'alternative facts' and a charlatan who they see as one of them.
The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote, or hopefully waiting for the oldest and most stubborn conservatives to die out so alphas and gen-z can vote with a little more heart and brain.
> So no, I'm not going to be done with 'both sides'. The Left thinks that if they just prosecute Trump and get him convicted these people will just go away and we can go back to business as usual,
Trump's an especially bad candidate to be leader, the left just wants the Romney style republicans back. You know, not the science denying nazi wackos obsessed with guns and controlling women's bodies.
The left isn't the problem here, and never has been.
> The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote.
History tells us that the Narodnik[1] plan failed. The real change in minds came when the rural masses migrated to cities with dense habitation and the calculus of labor doing industrial jobs proved fertile for new ideas.
The only problem we have today is that large-scale rural->urban migration leaves huge swaths of the heartland emptied out which severely exacerbates our present problem because of the way senators are apportioned.
> The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote
Sounds very authoritarian and not democratic at all. What makes you think they won't try to do the same thing? I certainly don't want any government to have the power to re-educate adults and limit who can vote because they're voting wrong. That's Orwellian.
> Sounds very authoritarian and not democratic at all.
It's what we already have, just extended a little. We already limit voting to citizens, and we have mandatory education for age groups and as a prerequisite to do certain professions.
> I certainly don't want any government to have the power to re-educate adults and limit who can vote because they're voting wrong. That's Orwellian.
Look at the situation we are in now, though. We have an extremely ignorant, outright science denying, not insignificant subset of the population, who due to our system of government can elect in people who share their beliefs, who then go on to be in real positions of power.
What do you do when you have a slight majority of Trumps or MTGs as your representatives? More than likely, freedoms will erode and wars would likely increase.
So, how can you avoid that, or worse problems caused by an ignorant voting block? If you want to keep this form of government (which I would argue we should not), I'm not sure what other solutions there are other than to have some sort of test for voting. Maybe moving the definition of what constitutes a citizen like in Starship Troopers could work.
Regardless of what you may believe was "meant to be," we live in the reality of today.
Try and remove citizenship from an extremely well-armed populous and see what happens.
(Bring on the "you need F-16s, man!" Guess to which side the overwhelming majority of the military and private arms ownership leans? Hint: it's not yours.)
> Regardless of what you may believe was "meant to be," we live in the reality of today.
It's not a question of what I believe, the fats and argument are outlined in the link previously provided.
And if the last few years in US politics has shown us anything, it's that some people choose to reject reality for one of their own making.
> Try and remove citizenship from an extremely well-armed populous and see what happens.
The only insurrection attempt in recent history came from the right, and the only presidential candidate who threatened to be a dictator also came from the right.
Gun nuts are also on the right and allegedly compare very much about rising up against an authoritarian government. Except if such a government would agree with them, I guess. What traitorous hypocrites.
Those people with guns won't ever do anything because they are all preparing for an imaginary Red Dawn type situation. If legislation sneaks up on them, if it's a 'threat' they can't shoot, they will be helpless to fight it.
That side has also shown how incredibly gullible they are, so the simplest information warfare will likely pacify them. Russia has certainly demonstrated how easy a group they are to control.
> Guess to which side the overwhelming majority of the military and private arms ownership leans? Hint: it's not yours.)
Ooooh scary! lol.
Anyway, I'm done with this convo. I'd rather not enable this kind of fantasizing any further. Cheers.
Nah. Like I said, the changes will sneak up on the gullible while they're waiting for a Red Dawn type scenario. Wasn't ever expecting folks like you to show up on HN to be honest, but everyday you learn something new I guess.
> The only solution here is mandatory re-education and/or limiting who can vote, or hopefully waiting for the oldest and most stubborn conservatives to die out so alphas and gen-z can vote with a little more heart and brain.
What do you do in a situation where half the population won't take a vaccine during a pandemic because they think Bill Gates is going to track you with microchips?
Honestly, what's the solution here other than to wait and hope the voting population normalizes and self-corrects?
I agree that would be a great help, but I don't see that happening when half the population is just going to be contrarian and obstructionist to something like that. Not least because it would mean they would have significantly less power if people had more options.
Are you suggesting the population came up with the idea and conclusion on their own that Gates tracking and microchips were real?
Or did they listen to and trust someone who told them that? And if so why did they listen to and trust that person?
How about the people who have the right, and science backed answers learn how to hear out and build trust with the population, so the population actually wants to listen and trust what they say?
The population doesn't have to be smart, those who have the right answers just need to be caring and compassionate and build trust with the population.
I'm sorry, but democrats seem to have no interest in even attempting to hear the right out and to work towards building any sort of trust with them.
> Or did they listen to and trust someone who told them that? And if so why did they listen to and trust that person?
Who cares? The issue is their gullibility and lac of education and ability to think critically.
> How about the people who have the right, and science backed answers learn how to hear out and build trust with the population, so the population actually wants to listen and trust what they say?
We're past that point. The tribalism is so entrenched that most of those people are never going to give the other side a chance.
You'd have to devote time to sit with each person individually and put in the time to try and educate and better them, and it's impossible since we don't have time or people to do that.
> The population doesn't have to be smart,
They kind of do. Or you end up with people that think Alex Jones is a credible source.
> I'm sorry, but democrats seem to have no interest in even attempting to hear the right out and to work towards building any sort of trust with them.
It's hard to hear out and build trust with a group of willfully ignorant superstitious ultra patriots who all too often behave in ways that could be described as bigoted.
> Trump's an especially bad candidate to be leader, the left just wants the Romney style republicans back.
Pretty much. The left wants people they can debate and negotiate with. Not a bunch of McConnell-style babies that absolutely refuse to negotiate on anything.
In context though, it's quite terrifying given how much the US has fallen into tribalism. Half the population wouldn't convict a certain candidate no matter what they did.