what the firetruck?

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!#$@@$#!

What are you referring to?

Sad that Twitter might not become a Musk Ox despite it enacting it’s secret poison pill (firing people) ?

Maybe this?

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Texas has declared open season on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with censorship law

Texas's law makes it illegal for any social media platform with 50 million or more US monthly users to "block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression."

Texas residents can now sue Facebook, Twitter and YouTube for allegedly censoring their content after a federal appeals court sided Wednesday with the state's law restricting how social media sites can moderate their platforms.

Remember when the GOP was all We have too many lawsuits in this country?

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… in oral arguments at the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, a three-judge panel confused social media platforms with internet service providers; disputed that Facebook and Twitter are websites; and expressed surprise that a service such as Twitter could "just decide" what content appears on its platform as a matter of course.

Tech geniuses they ain’t. So, what happens now?

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The reality might look more like email before the advent of spam filters. Because algorithms would be prohibited from removing or down-ranking material, social media platforms would have to host spam, porn, or hate speech indiscriminately -- an "unmoderated garbage dump,"

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In the face of all this uncertainty, tech platforms could simply throw up their hands and stop offering services in Texas altogether. But even pulling out of Texas might not save them. Buried in the law is a prohibition on discriminating against Texans based on their geographic location. By withdrawing from Texas, tech companies could expose themselves to allegations they have geographically discriminated against Texans in violation of HB 20.

Listen. We’ll make you a deal, Texas. We won’t mess with Texas, if you’ll stop messing up the rest of the world, m’Kay?

Also, feel free to build a fence on your southern border, if we can build ones on your east, north, and west.

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The reality might look more like email before the advent of spam filters. Because algorithms would be prohibited from removing or down-ranking material, social media platforms would have to host spam, porn, or hate speech indiscriminately -- an "unmoderated garbage dump,"

The paragraph that follows that paragraph also shows how nuts this law is:

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That may not protect tech platforms from lawsuits either, however. Thanks to the law's broad language, a plaintiff could try to argue Facebook has silenced a user because her speech is now no longer visible underneath a mountain of spam. In this world, Facebook gets sued no matter what it does: Sued for taking down content and sued for not promoting content.

I sorta fantasize that this law will lead to social media sites shutting down completely because the only one I personally use is a family web page on Facebook that has in the last year dwindled down to being hardly used at all. Maybe we would be better off without social media websites. (Spoken like a true boomer luddite.)

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e pluribus unum

Apparently, the way the law is written, even if they allow an unmoderated dump they are guilty of breaking the law as individual postings would be buried under all the spam and not easily seen. So the companies are breaking the law if they moderate and breaking the law if they don't moderate.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

Yeah, I don’t really do social media either (except here, if that counts), so I look at this whole Facebook/Trump/Texas/Twitter/Musk scrum with a bit of detached bemusement.

I also stubbed my toe this morning

Would our gracious and understanding sponsors want to risk the bank and headaches on a forum that could not put some limits on some of our former trolls?

Tweaks to this law could lead to the demise of many specialized forums.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

I think our kind sponsors have some/all of their operations in Texas.

Me hopes our friendly gathering spot remains unscathed…

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=wr=

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wave rider
I think our kind sponsors have some/all of their operations in Texas.

Me hopes our friendly gathering spot remains unscathed…

From pdq's post:

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Texas's law makes it illegal for any social media platform with 50 million or more US monthly users to "block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression."

It might be close, but I think maybe MacResource may not quite reach the 50 million monthly users mark.

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e pluribus unum

Quote
Ted King

Quote
wave rider
I think our kind sponsors have some/all of their operations in Texas.

Me hopes our friendly gathering spot remains unscathed…

From pdq's post:

Quote

Texas's law makes it illegal for any social media platform with 50 million or more US monthly users to "block, ban, remove, deplatform, demonetize, de-boost, restrict, deny equal access or visibility to, or otherwise discriminate against expression."

It might be close, but I think maybe MacResource may not quite reach the 50 million monthly users mark.

D'oh, missed that…

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=wr=

Limit the number of users to 49,999,999. Problem solved.

I'm being facetious, but no more so than the Texas law.

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