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  • Letitia James and Andrew Cuomo

    From Gary McGath@21:1/5 to All on Fri Dec 9 05:57:24 2022
    In 2008, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo launched his political
    career with a vicious attack on Usenet. He threatened service providers
    that carried Usenet feeds with child porn charges and pressured a number
    of them to stop carrying the service. Usenet was already pretty
    marginal, so he didn't face much resistance from the big companies.

    https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/cuomo-strong-arms-comcast-over-usenet/

    The current New York AG, Letitia James, has clearly read Cuomo's
    playbook. She's launched a campaign claiming uncensored speech on the
    Internet was responsible for the shooting in Buffalo in May 2022, and
    she got the legislature to pass a grossly unconstitutional bill forcing
    anyone who runs a "social media" website to institute policies against
    speech that "humiliates" or "vilifies" people, under the threat of being
    fined $1000 a day. "Social media" isn't clearly defined and could
    include anyone who runs a Mastodon server or a website that allows comments.

    That's great news for Facebook and Twitter; the fines are less than
    pocket change to them, while the prospect will silence the little guys.

    I don't see any chance the law will hold up in court. There's already a
    lawsuit in progress from FIRE. I'm sure she knows that she can't win in
    court. She's playing to the people who want a censored Internet and
    thinking of what she can win at the ballot box. It worked for Cuomo.

    https://www.thefire.org/news/lawsuit-new-york-cant-target-protected-online-speech-calling-it-hateful-conduct

    James' investigation of Cuomo's sexual harassment escapades pushed him
    out of office, but it's traditional to learn from the accomplishments
    and mistakes of those you overthrow.

    --
    Gary McGath http://www.mcgath.com

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Charles Packer@21:1/5 to Gary McGath on Sun Dec 11 07:53:41 2022
    On Fri, 09 Dec 2022 05:57:24 -0500, Gary McGath wrote:

    The current New York AG, Letitia James, has clearly read Cuomo's
    playbook. She's launched a campaign claiming uncensored speech on the Internet was responsible for the shooting in Buffalo in May 2022, and
    she got the legislature to pass a grossly unconstitutional bill forcing anyone who runs a "social media" website to institute policies against
    speech that "humiliates" or "vilifies" people, under the threat of being fined $1000 a day. "Social media" isn't clearly defined and could
    include anyone who runs a Mastodon server or a website that allows
    comments.

    That's great news for Facebook and Twitter; the fines are less than
    pocket change to them, while the prospect will silence the little guys.

    I don't see any chance the law will hold up in court. There's already a lawsuit in progress from FIRE. I'm sure she knows that she can't win in court. She's playing to the people who want a censored Internet and
    thinking of what she can win at the ballot box. It worked for Cuomo.


    Where is the ACLU in all this? Almost nowhere, apparently.
    Coincidentally, it issued a press release on Dec. 6 regarding an
    internet case, Twitter vs Taamneh, but I don't find any releases
    on the subject of the N.Y. law and I looked back as far as last
    spring. In times past the ACLU would have been out in front on
    something like this, but it has backpedaled on freedom of speech
    in the last few years. This has led me to let my long-standing
    membership lapse.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)