Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently signed what the state government is calling Florida’s Digital Bill of Rights, that forces Google and other popular search engines to reveal if search results are prioritized based on political bias and belief.
Senate Bill (SB) 262 “prevents government-led censorship by prohibiting state or local government employees from colluding with Big Tech companies to censor protected speech,” according to an official state website.
Moreover, this Digital of Bill Rights allows and protects against:
- The right to control personal data, including the right to confirm, access, and delete your personal data from a social platform;
- The right to know that your personal data will not be used against you when purchasing a home, obtaining health insurance, or being hired;
- The right to know how internet search engines manipulate search results;
- The right to opt out of having personal data sold; and
- The right to protect children from personal data collection.
Floridians should have the right to control their own personal data. If a multibillion-dollar company is conspiring to take your data and sell it or use it against you, it is your right to be able to protect that data. No longer will the Big Tech oligarchs be able to commandeer your personal information and deprive you of the right to access, confirm, or delete that data as you wish.
DeSantis said in a statement
The bill will also enable the following:
SB 262 gives consumers the right to confirm, access, and delete their personal data from a social media platform and allows users to opt out of the processing of personal data for the purposes of targeted advertising and the sale of personal data. Additionally, users will be allowed to opt out of the collection of personal data through voice recognition. This bill adds biometric data and geolocation information to the definition of personal information under the Florida Information Protection Act.
This legislation also protects children in online spaces by prohibiting online platforms that provide a service, game, product, or feature to children from processing the personal information of any child or collecting, selling, sharing, or retaining any personal information that is not necessary to provide an online service, product, or feature.
Additionally, this bill will require that an online search engine publishes an up-to-date plain language description of the main parameters that are most significant in determining ranking and the relative importance of those main parameters, including the prioritization or de-prioritization of political partisanship or political ideology in search results.
SB 262 will also prohibit government employees from using their position to communicate with social media platforms to remove content or accounts from the platform. Additionally, a governmental entity may not initiate or maintain any agreements or working relationships with a social media platform for the purpose of content moderation.
This bill builds on legislation the Governor signed recently, SB 662, to protect the online information of Florida’s students by creating the Student Online Personal Information Protection Act. That law substantially restricts online operators from collecting, disclosing, or selling student data that is used for school purposes. Additionally, the legislation prohibits online operators from engaging in targeted advertising practices based on information collected from educational technology and prohibits the online operators from sharing, selling, or renting student data to third parties.
AUTHOR COMMENTARY
While there are some nice-sounding things listed in this bill, the bill is not doing a whole lot in actuality.
For example, being able to “delete your personal data from a social platform” is a very basic function that already exists; but the implication is people will be able to wipe it from these platform’s databanks and cloud saves, which simply will not happen. Everything you do online, every keystroke in fact, can and is being monitored and stored somewhere.
There is no such thing as anonymity online. Period. You can limit what you say and do and post, that is true, yes, but the idea of being truly incognito and totally conspicuous is simply a ruse.
Moreover, the supposed right to now how a search engine paginates and ranks search results based on political views set a dangerous precedent; as something like this can easily be swung in the wrong direction. All it takes is to not have the right label and be stigmatized to be therefore demonized; and for the government to start asking how a site ranks search results based on political views is the foundation for not-so-good things down the road. Also, most search results are prioritized by Search Engine Optimization (SEO), pay-to-play; so those who pay top dollar will be at the top. Granted there are still tons of stuff that are artificially pushed at the top and others things buried, no doubt.
But because of the labels, all it takes is for companies and websites to send off false beliefs to get around this; but that assumes this will actually take effect.
This to me is just another dog & pony bill to make DeSantis look good as he runs for President.
[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).
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Jacob, what fo make of this?
sorry meant to write what do u think of this