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And what do you think would have happened to Minneapolis or the Portland courthouse or the White House during the summer riots if there had not been a more competent security response? What happened at the Capitol was serious. So was what happened over the summer. But over the summer I heard nothing by "mostly peaceful protests" as literally billions of dollars of damage was caused and numerous deaths were racked up. Captiol protesters break some windows and I hear nothing but "violent rioting insurrectionists".

Back during the summer, Trump being secured in a shelter because of the riot security risk was LAUGHED at by the left. They accused him of being a coward for being taken to a bunker due to the risk of BLM protesters who burned a church across from the White House. Where's the same media laughing at the Congressional representatives fleeing from the people they're supposed to represent?

Look at the utterly insane mental gymnastics you're engaging in. "People are angry at constantly being treated with contempt and having their elected representative smeared. Let's impeach him again, call all his supporters terrorists, and ban them from communicating!" People like you and the Democrats seem desperate to cause more violence instead of de-escalating the situation with a peaceful, dignified exit. It's a shame that you care more about "owning Trump" one more time rather than promoting peace, but I'm not surprised.

I think it was a very concerning and unpredictable situation, but describing this group as "violent rioters" while describing the riots over the summer as "mostly peaceful protests" is farcical gaslighting. The potential consequences were more grave here, but the actual conduct itself seems much more orderly.

But I agree that as the Democrats and social media companies still continue to poke and poke and poke already angry people that the consequences can get worse. I wish someone reasonable would try to de-escalate the situation instead of continuing to add gasoline to the fire with further suppression, insults, and contempt for Trump and his supporters--but Silcion Vally and Democratic leadership can't seem to help themselves and would prefer to further insult and alienate the 74 million people who voted for Trump just 2 months ago.

Did you actually read the Twitter blog post explaining the ban? They claim Trump Tweeting that he will not attend the Biden inauguration is “an incitement to violence”. That’s delusional.

> when the law in fact does the exact opposite

Yes. That’s exactly the problem people who want it repealed are pointing out: the current law offers broad blanket protection to social media companies to moderate content however they want, even if their moderation practices are highly editorial and partisan, akin to traditional publishers.

Techdirt seems to think people don’t understand that the law doesn’t distinguish between platforms and publishers. On the contrary, that’s precisely why people want it repealed or modified. Either attach platform “neutrality” requirements to these broad protections, or eliminate the protections and allow social media companies to be subject to the old legal regime attached to publishers.

This doesn’t seem that complicated to me. What’s all the I-am-smarter-than-you smugness about?

> Law text: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher.”

People who want Section 230 repealed or modified want to be able to make the legal argument that by actively banning certain speech while elevating other speech, social media companies ARE acting as publishers. The law doesn’t need to define publisher again. We already have an understanding of what publishers do: they selectively choose and publicize OTHER people’s content.

What am I missing? Whether or not it’s justified, the reason some people want it repealed seem obvious to me.

Yes. Attacked federal courthouses and a mob outside the White House burned a church.

I’m not even opposed to Biden, who is basically just a moderate Republican. But each day I get more and more outraged by the non-stop media smears and hysteria against Trump. I find my blood boiling at the hypocrisy—and I’m basically just a passive observer. For a real Trump supporter—of which there are tens of millions—I can only imagine the intensity of the hatred and anger that this speech suppression and new impeachment charade will cause. Instead of letting an old man go off to pasture and maybe start a little media company, they want to keep attacking and fanning the flames.

I give a lot of leeway to private companies, but there is something deeply concerning about Facebook and Twitter deciding what politicians are “acceptable”. Whether you like him or hate him, Donald Trump is a mainstream politician as evidenced by the tens of millions of votes he got.

And, there is a non-trvial chance he’d like to run for elected office again. But Twitter and Facebook and several companies seem to explicitly be saying, “no, we will not allow that.”

It’s not a power I want Jack Dorsey or Zuck to have.