we're not going to do the next part in sharpie font. i can't edit html headers on a per-post basis, and the process of converting and cutting is rather time consuming.

so, the order is over here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-preventing-online-censorship/

i'm going directly to the source because i don't trust the capitalist press to report on the capitalist president carrying out what looks like a capitalist power grab. i know they like to make it look like they're in conflict, but the world runs on class divisions, not political partisanism. the republicrats and silicon valley are on the same side, here. so, what are they doing, then?

the news reports were confusing, to say the least. but, reading the order directly isn't helping much. this appears to be a true exercise in trumpian logic, and it's probably going to take a logician to understand the multivalued logic system - and i've had to sit down and write it out to get it, and just concluded that it's incoherent.

so, what does the law say, first?

what it seems to say - and i'm a canadian that has never looked into this before, but does have legal training - is (1) that only the direct author of any content uploaded through any service should be considered to be it's owner and publisher and (2) that no "provider" of an "interactive computer service" should be held liable for any good faith attempt at restricting access to legitimately lewd material. that's clear enough, and i think we take it for granted as obvious.

and, what is trump trying to do?

well, he's arguing that if you edit the post then you should be liable for it. but, what that really means is that he's trying to scratch out the first part, without which no liability could be legally erected. there's no law against aiding and abetting offensive speech; if google or facebook (i don't use twitter...) is to become liable for the content of it's users, that necessarily implies it owns their content, otherwise there would be no basis for liability. that's what the analogy to a publishing house implies, in the end - that these companies will take ownership of the content via copyright. and, i'll get to that in the end.

but, of course, it's ridiculous and incoherent for the president to try and push something like that down. rather, he seems to be trying to threaten twitter into laying off on the censorship. this is where the trumpian logic comes in - he seems to legitimately think that making an absurd threat will create the outcome he wants, and the weakling tech companies will cower in fear of his greater manliness, or some stupidity such as that (or that's at least the surface delusion).

but, what's going to actually happen, of course, is that the lawyers for twitter and facebook and ... are going to look at this and scratch their heads and say "ok. what? this makes no sense.". and, they're not going to cower in fear and comply until they can at least make sense of it. and, at some point, they're going to ask the question "what if we don't comply?".

trumpian logic, which is not rooted in game theory, doesn't seem to allow for dissent or free will, which is why it doesn't ever work out in reality. it's just bully logic - you do what he says, because he says so, because he said so. there's no good reason for it besides dominance and alpha male superiority. which is laughable...

so, what happens if they just shrug it off and don't comply? which is what keeps happening over and over...

well, they may lose liability, but they'll gain ownership. well, in theory anyways. i couldn't imagine them arguing against that particularly loudly, to be entirely honest with you. i might wonder how long they've actually been lobbying for it...

see, trumpian logic is also cartmanian logic in the sense that it tends to skip a lot of steps. there is an endpoint here that seems to make some sense, at least. i've been arguing that we should have public ownership in order to constitutionally protect users (and, in context, the president should be treated like a garden variety user, not like a government entity with special powers), but the other way to bring in constitutional protection would be to have the corporations take copyright over the content. you'd have to break these entities up, so you'd have competing services, but this is the publishing house analogy taken to it's logical conclusion - the services would be liable for defamation, but they'd also have free speech.

so, if twitter ignores the threat, and trump follows through with it, what happens next?

what trump is thinking is something along the lines of "we gave you immunity from defamation, and you're still fucking with my posts. so, i'm going to take away your immunity, and expose you to lawsuits. fuckers.".

twitter is supposed to become fearful and remove the censorship.

but, what they will no doubt actually do is just delete trump's account, because it exposes them to liability.

and, this is why trump always loses - he thinks that he can bully people into submission with these threats, and they usually just laugh at him when he tries.

is any of this going to happen?

well, it's up to congress, really, isn't it?

but, i think he's at least laying down a binary choice and we are going to have to make it at some point. the status quo is not sustainable - we can't have private tyrannies policing speech like this. this has to change. but, will we adopt the model that trump is hinting at, where online companies are treated like publishing houses? or will we take public ownership of the commons?