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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."
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."
I for one can't wait until the politicians who approved this bill have users post links "illegal" sites and they get hauled off to jail.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Since everyone in Congress told us this bill was necessary to take down Backpage.com, are they going to after them now?
Or that this law is completely unnecessary and Backpage was just a strawman to get this power grab passed.
For most sites with User-Generated content for the business model. Normally have ways to find and remove inappropriate material.
Otherwise their forums would fall apart from all the chatter and abusers. Doing this type of work to keep the forums clean in general is a good business practice to keep their business model.
The sites at risk are ones who just say "don't do that" with a wink-wink-nudge-nudge and cry when they are being targeted because there is illegal activity going on and they are not doing anything about it, behind a twisted version of free speech.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
This would all be much simpler if we'd just legalize & regulate prostitution already.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
Trump didn't act unilaterally this time. The bill passed in the Senate 97-2: https://www.democrats.senate.g...
This law gives THE GOVERNMENT the ability to go after sites for things that are most definitely not what Backpage did. Under the old law, if you contributed to sex trafficking though your own actions your immunity was revoked. Under the new law, if a user does something that the government decides you should have known about and stopped, your immunity is revoked. That's a huge difference, and includes a nice little bit where the government can dispense arbitrary justice by picking and choosing who should have know what.
As an afficionado of trolling attempts; this one caught my eye. Notice the playful way in which he's attempting to elicit a response by hitting the key points of "think of the children" and then accusing those who disagree of being zealots. Then by calling out founding father's and using a bit of .. what can only be called "psychic wizardry" to ascertain what a group of people who died 200 odd years ago were actually thinking (despite them being very, very clear in the phrasing) he's attempting to reel you in by basically saying: "Hey, i'm just like you - a patriotic American! This shouldn't be controversial!"
But then he sadly botches the landing with that last sentence. Hitting the 'think of the children' trope yet again, he ruins the craftsmanship of the previous sentences.
All in all, i'd give it a 5/10. Good potential though, keep it up!
Without picking a side, I'd like to point out the interesting dichotomy we have here.
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.
On the other hand, presumably those same people absolutely stand against a law the also arguably infringes on Free Speech rights and arguably for a purpose just as valid as their Second Amendment statements. After all, the Founding Fathers could never had imagined that a 12 year old girl could be purchased anywhere on the continent with the click of a button. (Ironically, 12 year old girls were practically marriage material back then.)
I guess a silver lining in all of this is that pretty much everyone will become acutely aware of the consequences of infringing on any of our Constitutional Rights, no matter how well intentioned.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It's hard to stomach a law meant to curb bad sexual behavior signed by Mr. "Grab 'em by the pussy".
Who could have seen this coming, besides anyone who gave it a moment’s thought?
The new federal legislation that closed down Backpage.com "is creating an actual market for pimps."
WaPo reports on the unintended consequences of the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act.
According to The Guardian, the site allowed sex workers to screen potential online clients before meeting them in person. It was a simple layer of safety without resorting to pimps for protection. These deals, that were once handled online, will now be pushed back into the open streets, leaving women on their own to protect.
The Internet disintermediates. Take away the Internet, and you get re-intermediation.
It's going to be really funny when they have to shut down Twitter and the POTUS will have no way to communicate with the outside world.
Not really. The 2nd Amendment specifically refers to "a well-regulated militia".
In constitutional days well-regulated meant equipped and trained to an effective level, it did *not* mean having all your regulatory paperwork and permissions in order.
Also to this day by federal law the federal militia includes all able bodied male citizens age 18-45. There is no enlistment, no signup, no requirement to show up anywhere and train, you are in automatically. This is the "inactive" component component of the militia, the national guard is the "active" component of the militia. The national guard is not the entire militia. Armed citizens with no prior armed forces affiliation are also part of the federal 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.
Armed citizens with no prior armed forces affiliation are also part of the federal militia. Hence the 2nd amendment being an individual right that supports the militia. And as others have pointed out the 2nd amendment has also been ruled an individual right with respect to self defense. Which also has a historical tie to the militia. In colonial/constitutional days the militia was not just used for military conflict, it could also be used to suppress riots, defend against and/or arrest bandits, etc.
Many advocacy groups have come out against the bill, saying that it undermines essential internet freedoms.
Of course it does. That's the fucking point.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
I'm not arguing about it's utility at the time it was drafted. It might have served it's intended purpose for a while, it might not have. The fact is, in modern times, the 'right' to own a gun is no more essential to liberty than the 'right' to own toothpaste or pseudoephedrine.
You ignore the right to self defense, which the Supreme Court recognized as a right derived from the second amendment. Self defense being a historic militia activity as well, so the spirit of the original militia persists into modernity in that sense. Actually it exists in rare other senses as well, suppressing a riot for example, witness the armed business owners of the 1990s LA riots. Only the militia in the sense of military conflict is obsolete.