Tag: Twitter

Devin Nunes at ‘dead end’ in legal battle to expose identity of fake Twitter cow: Lawyer

AlterNet logoOn Friday, The Fresno Bee reported that an attorney for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) says he is at a “dead end” in the legal case to expose the true identity of @DevinCow, a satirical Twitter account that pretends to be a cow belonging to Nunes and continually mocks him.

“Nunes, R-Tulare, filed a lawsuit against Twitter last year alleging he was defamed on Twitter by Republican political strategist Liz Mair and the writers behind anonymous social media accounts that call themselves ‘Devin Nunes’ Cow’ and ‘Devin Nunes’ Mom,’” reported Kate Irby. “Nunes’ attorney and lawyers for Twitter were in court on the social media company’s motion to dismiss the case. The San Francisco-based company argues it is protected from lawsuits like Nunes’ under a federal law that says social media companies like Twitter are not liable for what people post on their platforms if they don’t have a hand in creating the content.”

“Nunes’ attorney Steven Biss said that Twitter should not qualify for immunity under the law, known as Section 230, contending it treats Nunes unfairly,” said the report. “‘They’re doing more than allowing Liz Mair, the cow and the mom to post a tweet,’ Biss said. ‘They’re censoring, they’re promoting an anti-Nunes agenda, they’re banning conservative accounts and they’re knowingly encouraging it.’” Continue reading.

Twitter disables Trump campaign’s George Floyd video tribute

The social media company last month slapped fact-check warnings on two tweets from the president’s own account.

Twitter has blocked a Trump campaign video tribute to George Floyd over a copyright claim, in a move that adds to tensions between the social media platform and the president, one of its most widely followed users.

The company put a label on a video posted by the @TeamTrump account that said, “This media has been disabled in response to a claim by the copyright owner.” The video was still up on President Donald Trump’s YouTube channel and includes pictures of Floyd, whose death sparked widespread protests, at the start.

“Per our copyright policy, we respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” Twitter said in a statement. It did not say who made the complaint. Continue reading.

Fact-Checking Misinformation Can Work. But It Might Not Be Enough.

Last week, Twitter tried something new. When President Trump tweeted that “There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent,” Twitter appended this message to Trump’s tweet: “Get the facts about mail-in ballots” — which in turn, linked to a page with the headline: “Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud.”

Given the dangers misinformation poses to both democracy and public health, many believe social media platforms have a responsibility to monitor and correct misinformation before it spreads. But can corrections like this even work? And what role should social media platforms play in combating misinformation?

Well, it turns out there is evidence that fact checks do work. Numerous studies have demonstrated that when confronted with a correction, a significant share of people do, in fact, update their beliefs. Continue reading.

GOP deeply divided over Trump’s social media crackdown

The Hill logoConservatives are deeply divided over President Trump’s executive order directing the federal government to consider stripping some of the legal protections afforded to the social media platforms.

The order, which came after Twitter appended a fact check to one of the president’s claims about mail voting fraud, would ostensibly make it easier to sue the social media platforms over content posted by the people who use their websites.

Conservatives have long been concerned by what they view as political bias in Silicon Valley. Those concerns have grown as outlets such as Google, Twitter and Facebook have become primary sources of news aggregation for many consumers. Continue reading.

Trump social media order starts off on shaky legal ground

The Hill logoPresident Trump‘s executive order that aims to strip certain legal protections from social media companies such as Twitter and Facebook is making political waves, but legal experts say the measure is mostly toothless and vulnerable to court challenges.

The order drew praise from Trump allies who share the president’s view that Silicon Valley carries an anti-conservative bias. The practical effect of Trump’s executive action, however, is likely to be minimal, according to telecommunications lawyers.

The most ambitious component of the order is a proposal to peel back legal immunities that online platforms have enjoyed for almost 25 years. Those valuable protections fall under a provision of a 1996 law often referred to as Section 230. Continue reading.

The Memo: Trump ratchets up Twitter turmoil

The Hill logoPresident Trump’s battle with Twitter intensified on Friday, sparking new debates around the combustible themes of race, policing and protest.

Trump has been accused of inciting violence. The president has suggested that he would like to shut Twitter down if he could.

The question is where the row might go next, given the conflicting dynamics at play.

Twitter enables Trump to go around the traditional media and communicate directly with his 80 million followers — even as he fulminates about alleged bias in Silicon Valley.  Continue reading.

How a ‘notoriously stupid’ Fox News host inadvertently let slip Trump’s corrupt plan: media reporter

AlterNet logoAlthough President Donald Trump has used Twitter incessantly to promote himself, he has been furious with the social media outlet this week for fact-checking two of his tweets — so furious that on Thursday, he issued an executive order targeting social media companies and claimed that he did so to “defend free speech.” Twitter hasn’t removed any of Trump’s tweets, but flagged or hidden them as inaccurate or violent. While legal scholars have been asserting that the order cannot withstand legal scrutiny, Media Matters’ Matt Gertz stresses that it serves a useful purpose for Trump nonetheless — and that purpose has been identified by the “notoriously stupid” Fox News host Steve Doocy.

“President Donald Trump capped off a multi-day tantrum at Twitter for appending a mild fact-check to one of his false tweets by retaliating with the power of the federal government,” Gertz explains. “The executive order he signed Thursday is slapdash and incoherent, rooted in a false premise, hypocritical and potentially unconstitutional, legally unenforceable yet dangerously authoritarian, with sections that read like a Fox News screed. But to analyze the executive order’s flaws is to miss the point entirely.”

That purpose, according to Gertz, is “raising the cost of defiance until his perceived enemies break” — and the executive order “forces Twitter to expend resources fighting it, but if the company bends to Trump and does what he wants, maybe it will just go away.” Continue reading.

No, Twitter is not violating Trump’s freedom of speech

Washington Post logoBut what about Trump’s apparently retaliatory executive order?

President Trump is alleging that Twitter “is completely stifling FREE SPEECH” by appending a label on one of his tweets about mail balloting for its users to fact check what he said. On Friday, Twitter went a step further, blocking users from immediately seeing one of his tweets that said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” about police-violence protests in Minneapolis.

Trump appears to be alleging that Twitter violated his constitutional right to free speech— but it didn’t either time it appended an official note to his tweets.

First, a primer on the right to free speech: It’s right there in the First Amendment of the Constitution that Congress shall make no law “abridging the freedom of speech,” in addition to other freedoms such as religion and press and the right to assemble. And for centuries, the courts have erred on stringently protecting people’s freedom of speech from government intervention. Continue reading.

Trump’s Order on Social Media Could Harm One Person in Particular: Donald Trump

New York Times logoWithout certain liability protections, companies like Twitter would have to be more aggressive about policing messages that press the boundaries — like the president’s.

WASHINGTON — President Trump, who built his political career on the power of a flame-throwing Twitter account, has now gone to war with Twitter, angered that it would presume to fact-check his messages. But the punishment he is threatening could force social media companies to crack down even more on customers just like Mr. Trump.

The executive order that Mr. Trump signed on Thursday seeks to strip liability protection in certain cases for companies like Twitter, Google and Facebook for the content on their sites, meaning they could face legal jeopardy if they allowed false and defamatory posts. Without a liability shield, they presumably would have to be more aggressive about policing messages that press the boundaries — like the president’s.

That, of course, is not the outcome Mr. Trump wants. What he wants is the freedom to post anything he likes without the companies applying any judgment to his messages, as Twitter did this week when it began appending “get the facts” warnings to some of his false posts on voter fraud. Furious at what he called “censorship” — even though his messages were not in fact deleted — Mr. Trump is wielding the proposed executive order like a club to compel the company to back down. Continue reading.