The "Take It Down" Act
86 comments
·March 6, 2025userbinator
seandoe
Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Maybe because it _is_ how things work, not seemingly.
Spivak
Depends on what you consider free speech to be I suppose. The left side of the political spectrum has for a very long time advocated for an interpretation of 1A that is "free as in liberty" while the right prefers a "free as in anarchy" approach. Neither is more correct than the other and we have plenty of examples of both in our laws. Rules of the road and FCC spectrum allocations being pretty easy examples of individual freedom being traded for collective freedom.
The last administration was far from perfect but I think they upheld their view of free speech quite well in terms of policy. This administration is on a revenge tour right now and is taking a "free as in I can say whatever I want" power trip so I don't think we'll know how they do until they cool off.
Dracophoenix
> The left side of the political spectrum has for a very long time advocated for an interpretation of 1A that is "free as in liberty" while the right prefers a "free as in anarchy" approach.
You may have it backwards, depending on one's definitions of "left" and "right". It was Berkley's Free Speech Movement, largely composed of leftist students and sympathizers, that kickstarted the "free as in anarchy" approach to speech in its modern incarnation. And anarchy is not even an exaggeration as many of its members occupied buildings, engaged in shut-ins and shut downs of privately owned businesses, as well as mounted police cars when one of their members were arrested. In many ways, this is the style of freedom the internet offered at its earliest and most fringe.
userbinator
The last administration was far from perfect but I think they upheld their view of free speech quite well in terms of policy.
The last administration: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/05/sunsetting-section-230...
Arainach
That article doesn't mention the executive branch at any point.
uhgfdrt
> left side of the political spectrum has for a very long time advocated for an interpretation of 1A that is "free as in liberty" while the right prefers a "free as in anarchy" approach.
This is incredibly incorrect.
> right prefers a "free as in anarchy"
The right wing of USA politics claims this but clearly act in opposition to this claim.
Also, “anarchy” is the most extreme is “leftist” politics.
Spivak
I guess you could read the word anarchy that way but the phrase "as in anarchy" has caught on to describe the notion of a thing being unrestricted on an individual level so that's what I went with. It's the common usage of the word and bares no intended relation to The Anarchist movement.
I'm curious as to your thoughts on the matter if you don't believe this is a fair assessment of each side's ideals. I do agree that how it plays out in practice is always going to be much messier once those ideals are filtered through humans who are by nature imperfect.
dartos
> Also, “anarchy” is the most extreme is “leftist” politics
What? No it’s not.
Anarchy is the extreme libertarian position. The smallest possible form of governance is anarchy.
The extreme left is total communism, where everything is controlled in order to ensure a minimum standard of living.
eru
> Also, “anarchy” is the most extreme is “leftist” politics.
Depends on what you mean by 'left' and 'anarchy'.
See eg anarcho-capitalists as an example that most people would see as 'right' and that uses the term 'anarchy'.
(I'm explicitly not saying that their use of 'anarchy' is the correct definition of the term, just pointing out that at least a substantial number of people use a definition of 'anarchy' that makes this concept possible for them.)
hayst4ck
I think it's more fair to say that liberals believe that the 1A protects speaking truth to power, while the conservative idea is more the 1A protects saying things people don't like.
America's founding fathers were absolutely raging liberals, and within the countries founding document -- the declaration of independence, the liberal idea of "social contract" was encoded. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract)
Liberals are suspicious of speech that violates the social contract, such as speech that is a prelude to violating other people's, like transgender people's, pursuit of life liberty or the pursuit of happiness. If you use your right to speech as a prelude to stripping other people of their rights, it is right for there to be consequences. The social contract in fact demands at least some degree of consequences, otherwise the social contract is useless because it's purpose is fundamentally to protect rights.
In a democracy, should people be allowed to vote for a dictator who promises to dissolve the government? That's a really rough philosophical question. I consent to a democracy, but I don't consent to a monarchy. It's the paradox of democracy and paradox of the idea of a government that exists primarily to protect rights.
sandworm101
>> America's founding fathers were absolutely raging liberals
Except that the first thing they did after gaining independence was to adopt the entire body of british common law, including basically all of the slander/liable jurisprudence. While it was certainly modified by the US constitution, they did not believe that every tom dick and harry should be able to tout lies about people unimpeded. Political satire was one thing, the british had already embraced that, but going after random civil servants or members of the public was not on. Calling judges or election workers criminals/pedos/traitors, as is the norm today, would not have been tolerated.
teh_infallible
[flagged]
diego_sandoval
The left usually tries to conceal their free speech violations under the excuses of "hate speech", and in specific cases in Europe, right to be forgotten.
Trump has no shame just calls it "take it down".
some_furry
The left doesn't have a meaningful presence in American politics.
Just say "Democrats" if that's what you mean.
aaomidi
Yep. There is no “left” here.
fuckbrownpeople
[dead]
userbinator
Also "think of the children" and "privacy".
kibwen
Taking bets on how soon until DOGE takes down this page: https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-1/
fasbiner
I'll take that action for up to high five figures using fiat or crypto and a third party site, reply with the amount you're interested in wagering.
Or are you like the current executive in that you also don't mean the words you say and will always hide behind the excuse that everyone knows you're such a liar that it's unfair for anyone to take what you say literally?
throwaway69123
what odds you offering you will get pretty good liquidity on people who think thats 100:1
rqtwteye
It seems they really are taking inspiration from 1933 "Gleichschaltung". It looks like they want to control everything. Has any incoming administration ever made so many sweeping changes in such short time?
gjsman-1000
Nonsense, our founding fathers didn’t even view pornography as free speech; with the first domestically produced pornography dating to 1840. They also had no problem with slander laws, imported wholesale from Britain.
Revenge porn would have blown their Protestant minds to the point of not writing the first amendment.
Terr_
Hold up: Let's remember that when first made the US Constitution contained limits that only applied to what the new Federal Government could do. (The Articles of Confederation being a failed beta-test.)
Before-vs-After the 14th amendment, a lot of comparisons automatically become apples-to-oranges. The people who crafted and ratified the Bill of Rights in 1791 simply were not operating in a world where those rules had nearly as much interaction/overlap with the 13 different State-level constitutions.
Terr_
P.S.: Tangentially, this leads me to my "I get both sides angry at me" view about what the framers originally intended the Second Amendment to do.
* For the less-gun folks: It creates zero rights to own a gun if you didn't already, since per-state laws took precedence. It merely prevented the federal government from indirectly disarming entire states in a sneaky way. In addition, the status-quo definition of "militias" [0] were forces commanded by state-appointed officers and supplied from state funds.
* For the more-gun folks: Individual states were required to supply those militias with weapons that are significantly stronger than mere personal defense, such as small cannons ("field pieces") that could be towed by a horse. [1] I imagine the modern version would be a machine-gun on a pickup-truck.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation
[1] https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/new-education-pr...
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Animats
Here's the current Senate bill.[1] (passed) Current House bill.[2] (introduced) Last year's Senate bill [3] (passed).
This bill has been kicking around for a while, with bipartisan support. This passed the Senate last December, and the new bill seems to be a duplicate of the old.
The take-down procedure mirrors the DMCA, but there is no corresponding put-back procedure. That's the real problem. With the DMCA, you can fight a take-down with a counter-notice. Then the copyright claimant has to go to court. There's nothing like that in this bill.
A solution for social site operators: if Trump tries to abuse this: use a classifier to find images of all major administration officials and just blank them out.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/146
[2] https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/633
[3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/456...
Banditoz
The article says it passed the Senate.. does it have a chance to pass the House?
nativeit
Sure, it's a bipartisan bill. If Democrats wanted to stop it in the Senate, they could have. That said, the House is typically a more partisan and less predictable place. Shenanigans are always possible..but the US Congress has been largely irresponsible with privacy thus far, why expect anything different?
sebazzz
I curious. Nearly everything has been done through decretes until now. Why choose the difficult path by actually letting this go through the Senate and House?
explodes
The "Take Action" link leads to "Bad Gateway"
turbocon
It just worked for me so maybe it's a been fixed.
righthand
404 not found for me.
wewewedxfgdf
Very interesting times to live in.
thrance
So called "free speech absolutists" the minute they get into power...
An an European often arguing with Americans on whichever definition of free speech is best, that's what always bugged me. It doesn't matter what your law says when people who don't respect the law gain power. They won't protect their opponents free speech.
Punishing hate speech does not lead to political censorship, authoritarianism does.
idle_zealot
> Punishing hate speech does not lead to political censorship
Well, sure it does, if a political party runs on hate!
blooalien
I think perhaps you meant "free speech absolutists", as "absolution" is the act of forgiving someone for their sins or wrongdoing.
thrance
Dang it, you're right. Thanks!
zamadatix
Donald Trump has never been a free speech absolutist. He does like to stir people up about "free speech" though, particularly when it's something he wants to say, but that doesn't turn him into an absolutist.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/26/trump-pledge...
ceejayoz
Musk was the one to claim to be an absolutist.
zamadatix
While there are plenty of opportunities to bring Elon into conversations about Trump, and I have no doubt he's flip flopped on that like everything else he talks about, this act isn't really something he's been involved in. The act was introduced in the Senate prior to Musk teaming up with Trump's campaign 9 months ago, Trump just happened to push the House to also pass it in his address to Congress last night.
9283409232
I made a comment on this already but I do want to add that everyone should call their representatives. It does work and house reps are much more vulnerable than senators so you have more leverage with them.
jauntywundrkind
The recent example of someone putting political commentary on display at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) shows a bit of how this plays out. (The fact that it was un-authorizedly pirated onto the displays at a federal building is a separate topic; I'm focusing here on the content).
BlueSky took down all the videos of it playing around the office. Because it was AI generated. It wasn't clear whether it was (a video of) a real video or not.
But if that video had been done by an artist? If it had been a comic? That would have been acceptable content to keep on the social network, most likely.
There's a lot of cases where I do think computer generated imagery is personally harmful and dangerous and should have some checks. And I definitely fear it's use politically, if we see videos that credulously seem to be a politician doing something they wouldn't do, performing speech they didn't do. Yet, in this example, it feels like there was little risk that the video would be taken seriously. It felt like clear political satire. But this law proposes that we outlaw political satire, purely because computer generation tools helped make the satire. That seems... not good.
This guy already claiming he's going to use it to take down videos of him feels like it will radically chill commentary & expression of thought that people have a right to make.
LAC-Tech
America is one of the last bastions of free speech left. Stuff like this, the tik tok ban, and the "anti-semitism" laws, are very disturbing developments.
bluSCALE4
As an adult that self censors in America, that ship has long sailed.
tehwebguy
> As an adult that self censors
I think that’s just being an adult
drewcoo
> As an adult that self censors
Try harder.
vkou
It's weird that the government of America has fully gotten into the business of tone and morality policing, and banning the press for calling the Gulf of Mexico what it is.
That doesn't seem compatible with being a bastion of free anything.
mullingitover
The US has had pretty iron-fisted anti-free speech laws for most of its history under the guise of anti-obscenity rules. They'll probably come back, too, given the current regime.
Terr_
There's an informative video-dive into that, centered on the effect of the movie Blazing Saddles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzMFoNZeZm0
ranger_danger
freedom TO vs freedom FROM.
For example the left wants freedom from unfair business practices, while the right wants the freedom to do whatever they want in their businesses.
eddythompson80
That whole “freedom TO” vs “freedom FROM” is a meaningless word play. Every “freedom TO” can be reworded to a “freedom FROM” and vice verse.
The only meaningful difference is to use “TO” and “FROM” to illustrate 2 abstract types of “freedoms”. The absence of external constraints and the ability to make choices. Two concepts that are very intertwined. Some times discrete, but most of the time intertwined. You can’t assign left or right to either one.
Whichever the ruling party is, it seems to never be one that actually supports free speech.