ORLANDO — Former President Donald Trump has called for state governments to effectively repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 through state legislation. That’s his plea with conservative Republicans in state legislatures, at least, if congressional Republicans don’t succeed in gutting the landmark liability shield law at the federal level. Trump’s calls come during a 90-minute address during the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at a Hyatt hotel property in Orlando, Fla.
A fucking Golden Trump
To set the scene, this year’s CPAC featured a literal golden idol of the ousted Republican president (one made in Mexico, no less). I’m not a very religious man, but I’m pretty sure that the Old Testament preaches against worshipping false idols.
Forward, a New York-based publication publishing for the national Jewish community, skewered the Golden Trump by comparing it to the ‘Golden Calf’ depicted as the false God during the Hebrew exodus from Egypt.
Who wore it better? The Golden Trump with very small hands, or the Golden Calf from the Moses story? I think we all know that answer—the smelly calf wore it better.
Several journalists asked that question to Twitter and it merits a follow up to further skewer the brand of blind, Trumpist fascism that now holds a firm grip on the Republican Party. I digress, though.
“Major Sanctions”
The lusty Trump love-fest at The New York Post reported that Trump was merely calling for the federal government to act against a law that supposedly is the root of all of our country’s problems. That bullshit sentiment speaks more to Trump’s petty grudge against platforms like Twitter and TikTok, however — both of which removed his official campaign accounts and upended several of his campaign events that supposedly saw ‘record numbers’ during the 2020 Presidential Election campaign.
“If the federal government refuses to act, then every state in the union, where we have the votes — which is a lot of them — big tech giants like Twitter, Google and Facebook should be punished with major sanctions whenever they silence conservative voices,” Trump said.
I might add that thousands of anti-Trump TikTok users pulled a fast one when they all ‘registered’ to attend a Trump rally in Tulsa, Ok., last year but the campaign organizers were confused because no one showed up. Trump did push for the repeal of Section 230 throughout much of his presidency though, even before the TikTok/rally incident. He, with countless other members of his camp, claim that large technology companies systemically repressed conservative voices on the internet. Keep in mind, this claim has never been proven true.
A true Florida-style proposal
“Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, and in Texas, and in other states are doing this,” added Trump. “If they do what they’re doing, Florida — and that legislation will pass — and Texas and others will have tremendous power to do what’s right and what’s fair.”
The proposal backed by DeSantis that Trump mentions is the so-called Transparency in Technology Act. Under this proposal, DeSantis has floated the idea of civil fines of $100,000 per day for de-platforming political candidates, and daily fines for a platform “that uses their content and user-related algorithms to suppress or prioritize the access of any content related to a political candidate or cause on the ballot.”
DeSantis also called on opt-out mechanics for those who don’t want their content consumption filtered by established content ranking algorithms. This would also require notifications about terms of service and the rights of users to take legal action if conditions are violated. Fun fact: Most web platforms already do this, including Twitter and Facebook, to comply with regulations in California and the GDPR regulation in the European Union.
But that doesn’t seem to be at the top of the mind for these idiots. What are they thinking? I don’t know. Then again, I didn’t dry hump a false idol depicting a golden Trump. And, for that, I am very proud.
