When Twitter and Facebook censored the New York Post story Oct. 14 exposing Biden Inc., the family business led by patriarch former Vice President Joe Biden and run by his 50-year-old son Hunter and 75-year-old brother James Biden making lucrative deals with foreign governments, Republicans in Congress cried foul. Since their outset, Internet service providers [ISPs] enjoyed what are called Section 230 protections, allowing them to publish third party content with liability protection. Free speech was supposed to reign supreme on the Internet, where ISPs provided a vehicle for content driven sites to post material, good, bad or indifferent. Section 230 provides immunity from prosecution or lawsuits stemming from third party content posted on ISPs. ISPs agreed under Section 230 to not be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by an Internet content provider.
Twtter’s 43-year-old CEO Jack Dosey and Facebook’s 36-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg have taken heat for blocking the New York Post from disseminating their story exposing egregious corruption in the Biden family when it comes to overseas business dealings, a big deal fro someone running for president. New York Post’s story was so defamatory toward the former Vice President that Twitter and Facebook tried to limit exposure to the story’s content, essentially becoming a editorial board, arbitrarily picking what content is acceptable to its users. ISPs like Twitter and Facebook are strictly prohibited under Section 230 from making editorial decisions, essentially censoring content because it might have an impact on the 2020 presidential election. Whether you agree or disagree with the New York Post story, it’s not up to Dorsey or Zuckerberg to decide whether its users see the news story.
Stripping Section 230 protections would expose ISPs to potential lawsuits for anyone finding material on the sites objectionable or politically motivated. When you consider the today’s broadcast and print media does whatever it wants, edits, censors and restricts content on their Web or print pages, it’s fully within a newspapers rights to control editorial content. Broadcast and print outlets can put or remove anything they want on content pages, depending on political agendas. Take the New York Post story, for instance, the content doesn’t appear on the pages of the New York Times, Washington Post or other liberal papers that seek to protect 77-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden from defamatory content. It’s the kind of censorship that’s routinely practiced by editorial boards of newspapers but no ISPs, obligated to let any third party post content without restrictions..
New York Posts Oct. 14 story exposed content of emails found on 50-year-old Hunter Biden’s disabled iBook, left at a Delaware computer repair shop. Emails found on Hunter’s computer go into great detail about Joe’s knowledge of Hunter’s overseas business dealings in China, Russia and Ukraine. Joe has insisted that he knows nothing about Hunter’s foreign transactions under Biden Inc., the family business run by Joe’s brother James, trading on the former Vice President’s name to land lucrative deals with foreign countries. Joe told a national debate audience in Nashville Oct. 22 that “he never took one penny from any foreign country, not ever,” denying that he took cash directly into his pocket. Joe didn’t deny that Hunter and his brother Jim took money from foreign countries using his name and access to land deals with foreign government and private companies indirectly benefiting him.
Republicans senators on the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee want to know why Twitter and Facebook decided to make an editorial decision to ban the New York Post story from both Web portals. “Without Section 230,” Dorsey said. “Platforms could potentially be held liable for everything people say,” opening the companies up for endless lawsuits. Dorsey warned that stripping ISPs of Section 230 protections could “collapse how we communicate on the Internet and leave “only a small number of giant and well-funded tech firms.“ Yet Dorsey and Zuckerberg’s concerns didn’t stop them from censoring the content of the New York Post story because it potentially could harm Biden’s campaign. Facebook and Twitter reversed their policy, now allowing the New York Post to disseminate its story. Companies protected under Section 230 shouldn’t censor their content.
Internet Service Providers showed that they’re capable to censoring information on their Websites, claiming they fact-check content, something that’s prohibited under Section 230 protections. Created in the 1990s, Section 230 protects ISPs from liability for third-party contents posted on their Websites. Once ISPs get into the fact-checking business, it’s the beginning of the end for companies claiming immunity under Section 230. Under Section 230, tech companies are not supposed to censor content like newspapers or broadcast news stations. Dorsey rescinded his ban on the New York Post story, offering an apology for censoring the story. Twitter said it would restrict access to the Post story until its fact-checkers could review the content. Dorsey apologized but it opens up a can of worms for ISPs deciding to cherry pick which stories make it to widespread distribution and which stories don’t.
