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A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

latimes.com

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Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#61

Post by buro9 »

keithpeter wrote: post #57

One wonders if Ava Bird is actually OK. Do people often drop off the grid like that and fail to respond to court papers &c? UK: I suspect the legal situation is a bit more complex here (it usually is), so perhaps the title should be 'most important law in the US'?

> UK: I suspect the legal situation is a bit more complex here (it usually is), so perhaps the title should be 'most important law in the US'? reply

It's simpler in the UK and EU at the moment.

You want to look at the EU e-commerce directive, paragraph 43 and the definition of "mere conduit" in the appendix: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE...

In essence, (and directly from the law):

    "Mere conduit"
    
    1. Where an information society service is provided that consists of the transmission
     in a communication network of information provided by a recipient of the service, or the
     provision of access to a communication network, Member States shall ensure that the 
     service provider is not liable 
     for the information transmitted, on condition that the provider:
    
    (a) does not initiate the transmission;
    
    (b) does not select the receiver of the transmission; and
    
    (c) does not select or modify the information contained in the transmission.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#62

Post by kuschku »

jaredklewis wrote: post #58
tomohawk wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It happens because the US, unlike pretty much any other civilized country, does not have the so called "English Rule". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_rule_%28attorney%27s_f... This is unlikely to change as the trial lawyers have enormous power and sway over at least one of the 2 major political parties. Pretty much any politician who has attempted to change this has been destroyed.

How is this relevant? It seems the parent comment was primarily shocked by the size of the damages, which are not affected by the rule (or would if anything be larger with the English rule, if you want to include legal fees under damages).

Because the English rule also means that all damages are purely compensatory, not punitative.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#63

Post by kuschku »

jaredklewis wrote: post #59
bkor wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you don't want to have the exhorbitant amounts usually asked for in an initial suit, show up to court. That's not reasonable. If the person for whatever reason doesn't show up, but it is a company vs a person lawsuit, then granting everything doesn't make any sense. There could be various reasons why the person didn't show up.

So how does your system work? Tortfeasors can just get out of damages by not showing up?

The court is responsible for notifying each side of the court case, and the case doesn’t proceed until each side has at least been given an actual chance to appear at the court?

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#64

Post by abricot »

kuschku wrote: post #63
jaredklewis wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how does your system work? Tortfeasors can just get out of damages by not showing up?

The court is responsible for notifying each side of the court case, and the case doesn’t proceed until each side has at least been given an actual chance to appear at the court?

It sounds like the court is giving both sides "an actual chance".

But what do you know?

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#65

Post by xsplain »

guelo wrote: post #14
eeZi wrote: post #8

We don't have section 230 in Europe yet the sky isn't falling.

Yea, all the giant European social media companies are doing fine. Oh wait, they don't exist. I wonder why.

That would be a net positive, so the sky is really not falling.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#66

Post by philh »

kuschku wrote: post #62
jaredklewis wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this relevant? It seems the parent comment was primarily shocked by the size of the damages, which are not affected by the rule (or would if anything be larger with the English rule, if you want to include legal fees under damages).

Because the English rule also means that all damages are purely compensatory, not punitative.

"It should be borne in mind that, in virtually all English civil litigation, damages are merely compensatory."

That doesn't sound like it follows from the English rule.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#67

Post by makomk »

tomohawk wrote: post #56

Since sites like facebook seem to be taking more of an active role in censoring/curating comments and content, it seems like this exemption would no longer apply to them at some point.

As the law currently stands, no. You can take an active role in curating comments and still be protected. You can even build a business model around charging people to remove defamatory information about them from your site, and Section 230 not only protects you from liability, it protects your business model by preventing the courts from forcing you to remove that content. A number of companies such as RipoffReport.com have built up very successful businesses around this model, and it's that which is endangered by this lawsuit.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#68

Post by kuschku »

abricot wrote: post #64
kuschku wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The court is responsible for notifying each side of the court case, and the case doesn’t proceed until each side has at least been given an actual chance to appear at the court?

It sounds like the court is giving both sides "an actual chance". But what do you know?

Giving both sides an actual chance also means that if the person has moved across the country, or is on vacation for a month or two, or so on, that they don’t just get fucked.

Giving them a chance means notifying them in multiple ways, or delaying the process until it can be verified that they have been notified.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#69

Post by pif »

makomk wrote: post #67
tomohawk wrote: post #56

Since sites like facebook seem to be taking more of an active role in censoring/curating comments and content, it seems like this exemption would no longer apply to them at some point.

As the law currently stands, no. You can take an active role in curating comments and still be protected. You can even build a business model around charging people to remove defamatory information about them from your site, and Section 230 not only protects you from liability, it protects your business model by preventing the courts from forcing you to remove that content . A number of companies such as RipoffReport…

> it protects your business model by preventing the courts from forcing you to remove that content.

Well, than Section 230 is simply wrong. It's important not to hold Yelp responsible for what a user wrote on his forum, but I fail to see how it can be damaging for a site to delete some unlawful-ruled content (which it didn't create), apart from the immoral case you named.

Re: A little SF personal injury case threatens 'most important law' on the Internet

#70

Post by confounded »

buro9 wrote: post #61
keithpeter wrote: post #57

One wonders if Ava Bird is actually OK. Do people often drop off the grid like that and fail to respond to court papers &c? UK: I suspect the legal situation is a bit more complex here (it usually is), so perhaps the title should be 'most important law in the US'?

> UK: I suspect the legal situation is a bit more complex here (it usually is), so perhaps the title should be 'most important law in the US'? reply It's simpler in the UK and EU at the moment. You want to look at the EU e-commerce directive, paragraph 43 and the definition of "mere conduit" in the appendix: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELE... In essence, (and directly from the law): "Mere…

So, algorithmic curation completely changes classification. (Seems like a sensible law.)
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