Techdirt Scatter-Trashes Axios

Let's dig into some details - Everyone thinks it's easy to make disinformation go away until you actually have to make the calls yourself.

then you can take the time to read all there is in the entire article

As White House Says It's 'Reviewing 230', Biden Admits His Comments About Facebook Were Misinformation

Too Much Free Time

from the of-course,-not-in-those-words dept

Wed, Jul 21st 2021 9:32am — Mike Masnick

"In the never ending stupidity saga, kicked off by the White House picking a fight with Facebook because Facebook hasn't banned 12 individuals (who were named as disinformation dozen by the Center for Countering Digital Hate), things have kicked up a notch -- and nobody involved in the debate seems to know how any of this works. First, the White House has claimed that it is "reviewing Section 230" whatever that means.

> Enter Axios, for example. As we recently noted, Biden's executive order prods the FCC to restore net neutrality and the agency's Title II authority over broadband providers. But in a piece covering the news axis trots out a lot of false industry claims verbatim without even bothering to fact check them. Such as the idea that Trump regulators engaged in "light touch" regulation (aka: letting AT&T do whatever the fuck it wants), which frames doing anything other than that as something heavy handed. Or, for example, this utterly false claim from "industry leaders" that net neutrality harms network investment:

"Industry leaders fear net neutrality rules will pave the way for the government to set broadband prices and have argued that the rules deter investment in the sector."

It literally takes about sixty seconds of research to find that this claim was never actually true. . .

> Yet here comes Axios, which not only frames the debate badly, but repeatedly cites industry lobbyists in absolute good faith spewing gems like this:

"Net neutrality has become an expensive, time-wasting exercise that has little real world effect," Michael Powell, president of cable trade group NCTA, said in a statement. "The drama detracts from focusing on genuine broadband issues, most critically our collective effort to get broadband to communities that lack service."

Again, the "real world effect" was that the FCC was left largely powerless to protect consumers right before a pandemic struck and gave everybody a painful crash course on the importance of broadband. The "real world effect" was that the repeal left federal and state regulators less prepared to rein in billing fraud (like bogus fees) and other harms of mindless monopolization (aka limited competition). And the "real world effect" was that with neither competition nor regulatory oversight to constrain them, regional telecom monopolies doubled down on shitty behavior, price hikes, and layoffs just as most folks predicted.

> Then there's here where Axios quotes a lobbyist busy arguing that doing anything other than letting AT&T dictate all federal telecom policy is doomed to failure:

"Of course, we can all suit up to play another game of ping pong, with yet another administration, but the inevitable years-long regulatory proceeding, exhaustive court challenges and likely trip to the U.S. Supreme Court some three or four years from now serves no one."

. . .And the White House isn't doing anyone any favors by claiming that getting rid of Section 230 would actually help. If anything, it would make things way worse, by vastly cutting back on the ability of websites (including Facebook) to experiment with better approaches to actually minimizing the impact of misinformation on their platforms.

On top of that, as some are noting, this appears to be yet another case of the government trying to cover up its own policy failings by blaming social media. "

Filed Under: content moderation, disinformation, joe biden, kate bedingfield, liability, misinformation, section 230, vaccines
Companies: facebook