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Trump Signs Law Weakening Shield For Online Services (vice.com)

President Donald Trump has signed a new law aimed at curbing sex trafficking. From a report: The bill -- a mashup of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which is commonly referred to as the latter -- passed Congress in March. It makes websites liable for what users say and do on their platforms, and many advocacy groups have come out against the bill, saying that it undermines essential internet freedoms.

It could be months -- or as late as January 2019 -- before FOSTA is enacted and anyone could be charged under the law. But even in the days immediately after the bill passed in Congress, platforms started scrambling to proactively shut down forums or whole sites where sex trafficking could feasibly happen. Fringe dating websites, sex trade and advertising forums, and even portions of Craigslist were taken down in the weeks following, while companies like Google started strictly enforcing terms of service around sexual speech.
Commenting on the development, EFF said, "As we've already seen, this bill silences online speech by forcing Internet platforms to censor their users."

2 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Play stupid games win stupid prizes by RightwingNutjob · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    And hope no one notices that the loudest agitators for "net neutrality" and a "free and open internet" have also been caught red-handed censoring perfectly legal user content they disagree with.

  2. Re:Dichotomy by Dragonslicer · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    On the one had, with regards to the Second Amendment, some people are more than willing to infringe on Rights when they believe the greater good would be served . Often making the argument that the Second is outdated, that the founders never saw Semiautomatic weapons coming, etc.

    Not really. The 2nd Amendment specifically refers to "a well-regulated militia". Almost no other parts of the Constitution and Amendments include a rationale, so the only reasonable interpretation is that the rationale was included for a specific reason. It's no different than advocating for patent reform because one feels that the current system is not meeting the purpose explicitly given in the Constitution.