Re: held accountable
What if they presented evidence that contradicted the president or statements from the current ruling party? What if they deleted government selected fake news?
This is potentially the problem, ie the Biden thing-
Twitter said it removed links to the story because it violated its rules on distributing private information and hacked materials. Facebook said it was reducing the visibility of the story in accordance with its efforts to reduce misinformation.
How would Twitter know material was hacked, and how would Facebook know it's misinformation? The NY Post story was as a result of some laptops left at a repair shop, that may or may not have belonged to a Biden. The Post's lawyers presumably did some 'fact checking', and ran the story, which alleges some illegal activity as well as some salacious stuff. Which has similarities to the infamous Steele dossier alleging much the same. Trump engaging in watersports, Hunter in a sex tape with a crack pipe.. But the allegations made in the Steele dossier were touted to the MSM and new media, who ran with it.. And apparently the FBI now has the Biden laptops, so might be investigating (or losing/erasing them). And if they don't, then apparently Rudy Giuliani has a copy, and a website to leak the content..
But such is politics, especially the highly polarised and vicious politics the American left/right seem to have embraced.
The First Amendment to the United States Constitution prevents the US government from making laws which abridge the freedom of speech or the freedom of the press.
But there's also the CDA, or s.230 of the US Communications Act. Which would seemingly put it in the FCC's remit. And the CDA already abridges the freedom of speech, and freedom of the press. It was after all intended to limit pornography, and child pornography. It's also not absolute protection, ie if you host child pornography, s.230 won't protect you. If you're a website, it may not protect you, eg Roommates.com which got in trouble for using a questionnaire regarding preferences for roommates. Democrats/Republicans welcome or need not apply. That website was eventually ruled as an 'information content provider', and not protected under s.230. Stuff that is a federal crime is not protected.
So to an outside observer, it's all a bit of a mess. The 'free press' already has some restrictions, and ever since the first UUCP packets were sent, there has been pressure to apply the same restrictions & regulations to the Internet, albeit with some carve-outs like s.230 or 'safe harbor' provisions in the DMCA. And information content providers want to keep those carve-outs, because otherwise they face massive costs and liabilities in having to police content.. But if they are already policing, ie any real or perceived left/right bias, then they face losing those protections already.
But it's also a huge challenge for legislators, ie definging un-Free Speech, and then regulating/enforcing violations. Regulators like the FCC may not be entirely opposed to this because it increases their power, or they're trying to figure out how to do it. So in future, people may no longer be allowed to piss about on the Internet, because that contains one of the FCC's forbidden broadcast words. And DPI could scan for those 7 deadly words, and automagically remove them. Or issue fines. But then there's 'Net Neutrality', which sort of forbids DPI. Or regulators could start with the 7, then decide to add other naughty words, like Trump, Biden and make the Internet a perfect 'safe space'.