Social Media: The New Coliseum and Its modern-day Gladiator Villains
We live in a stimuli-saturated world that is becoming more and more virtualized by the day and all the while we are enabling those who use manipulation, reputation savaging, denigration, and self-promotion to rule the day. The psychopathic types have been allowed and through social media compensated for spewing venom as they dominate the social conversation spreading their poison into the public domain. They do this with no fear of being stopped by the collective society and in fact are being monetized and promoted by those that run the social media channels.
This past week on the 22nd of February the Supreme Court is grappling with whether Twitter can be held liable for aiding and abetting Isis under the anti Terrorism Act because some members of Isis were able to use Twitter to recruit and fundraise for their enterprise and because some people were killed in terrorist Isis attacks. The Court justices seemed to be really trying to get their arms around what the implications would be for all kinds of other businesses banks, gun dealers, telephone companies that might be implicated in a similar type of situation in which Isis or another terrorist group can use General Services that are used broadly by everybody and allowed to by used by terrorist for purposes to commit a terrorist act.
The lawyer for Twitter made his case by saying “the court should ultimately conclude that failure to not do more to remove terrorist content does not amount to the knowing provision of substantial assistance to Isis and therefore this case should go away.”
Twitter now owned by Elon Musk, the newly self-proclaimed arbiter of social media freedom of speech, faced more criticism in court than YouTube and Google did under the section 230 separate case that both aforementioned had to respond to.
A decision is not to be expected until later in the Supreme Court term. Section 230 is the communications decency act for the 1996 law provision protects tech platforms regarding third-party content and at the end of the day the victims in both of these cases are going to have a long way to go to prove that the provision of these type of general services to everybody ultimately amounts to aiding and abetting terrorist organizations.
Googles case involved the question of whether immunity should apply to targeted recommendations. Twitters case centers around the Anti-Terrorism Act.
Victims are arguing that they have legal grounds against Twitter arguing that because these companies provided services to the Isis group in this case, helping Isis recruit and fundraise giving Isis an advantage and making Twitter liable for assisting in terrorist activity.
Ironically Twitters new owner Elon Musk won his defamation case over his tweet to his 129 million followers in which he called the British caver that rescued the trapped Thai schoolboys calling him a “pedo guy.” Elon went back and forth with the British caver back in June 2018 during the rescue attempt that eventually saw the rescue of the 12 trapped boys from the Thai cave.
Mr. Vernon Unsworth, the defamed British cavers lawyer Lin Wood said their side would leave the court “with our heads held high” but that the decision was “not a good verdict for society.”
Mr. Wood went on to say “This verdict sends a signal, and one signal only – that you can make any accusation you want to, as vile as it may be and as untrue as it may be, and somebody can get away with it.”
