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Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

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Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#61

Post by carapace »

manfredo wrote: post #36
pjkundert wrote: post #19

Liberty means liberty for all, especially those whom you intensely disagree with. It also means allowing someone to do or say something you consider stupid -- because, someone, somewhere will consider whatever you're doing stupid; do you really want some random self-righteous inquisitor shutting your speech off? Furthermore, if some group is really proposing or performing heinous, illegal acts, we should want to have…

> Liberty means liberty for all, especially those whom you intensely disagree with. Correct, and said people have the liberty to create their own websites. Freedom of speech also means freedom from compelled speech. Removing section 230 means all sites have to be like 4chan - devoid of moderation and hosting the content of genuine Nazis and the like. While it's fair to point out that moderation may be biased, forcing…

Or, remove sec. 230 protections and social media becomes Disneyland and the cesspool recedes to the "darknet".

(Whether that's a good thing or not I dunno.)

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#62

Post by leetcrew »

csnover wrote: post #7
leetcrew wrote: post #3

most of this stuff sounds like bad news, but I have felt for a while that we need to address the issue of moderation on the largest social media platforms. I don't think it should be a binary choice between safe harbor and doing any moderation whatsoever, but there ought to be some sort of gradient for liability. that is, the more you remove stuff you don't like, the more accountable you should be for whatever stuff…

> the more you remove stuff you don't like, the more accountable you should be for whatever stuff you continue to host It seems to me that this just creates a perverse incentive to never moderate anything. How would that be an improvement? At a minimum, you’d end up with a space overrun by spammers.

maybe I didn't express this clearly, but the scale of the platform (in users, and possibly also revenue) should be taken into account. a forum the size of HN with only a couple moderators should have most or all of the current safe harbor protections. but if a platform the size of facebook wants to pick and choose what kind of content is allowed, it should face some liability for whatever it allows to stay up. maybe not the same as if I post something libelous on my own personal website, but some fraction of that, proportional to the degree of moderation.

the point is not to discourage moderation entirely, but to make it a bit more costly/risky so that the influence of the biggest players is checked somewhat.

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#63

Post by akersten »

ashtonkem wrote: post #50
speeder wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant that people posting instructions on how to see country flags or how to make a swastika or gay rainbow flag should not be moderated, of you do moderate then you are liable (for example if someone post instructions to sew a KKK hood and you refuse to remove that, but you remove other things, then you get sued for condoning hate speech)

The problem is that it’s very hard to write a law that both bans the moderation of political speech, and would allow the hypothetical sewing forum operator to ban non-sewing content. How do you define political? How do you handle extreme political ideologies that advocate for violence too? Who has the power to decide which speech is moderation proof? How do you avoid abuse when politicians eventually control such a s…

Right? And even if there were some magical law that could distinguish between "off-topic" and "on-topic," that would still prevent me from running my little sewing site - because if I truly don't want the KKK hoods on there and I remove them, I'm suddenly still responsible for anything else that gets posted. So I'd either get no sleep because I'm constantly reviewing every post, have to hire a dedicated moderation team, or give in to the trolls entirely.

S230 is not just a "big tech" shield, it literally enables internet communities as we know them to exist.

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#64

Post by akersten »

carapace wrote: post #52

> any platform providing secure end-to-end encryption would face a torrent of litigation I do not see this. By definition content transmitted with end-to-end encryption cannot be moderated. How would anyone but the sender and receiver know that a given message contains "illegal content"? (I put "illegal content" in quotes because it makes my skin crawl, even though in practice I think some content should be suppresse…

I mean there is also a parallel effort led by Bill Barr and some folks in Congress that would effectively remove your S230 protections for running E2E anyway (EARN IT act), so it's a battle we're fighting on all fronts right now.

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#65

Post by leetcrew »

manfredo wrote: post #36
pjkundert wrote: post #19

Liberty means liberty for all, especially those whom you intensely disagree with. It also means allowing someone to do or say something you consider stupid -- because, someone, somewhere will consider whatever you're doing stupid; do you really want some random self-righteous inquisitor shutting your speech off? Furthermore, if some group is really proposing or performing heinous, illegal acts, we should want to have…

> Liberty means liberty for all, especially those whom you intensely disagree with. Correct, and said people have the liberty to create their own websites. Freedom of speech also means freedom from compelled speech. Removing section 230 means all sites have to be like 4chan - devoid of moderation and hosting the content of genuine Nazis and the like. While it's fair to point out that moderation may be biased, forcing…

freedom of speech is a bit of a red herring here. liability (and even criminal penalties) for certain speech is not generally considered incompatible with the first amendment. keep in mind that section 230 exempts the platform from the usual liability and penalties that an individual or company would normally face.

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#66

Post by sgift »

FpUser wrote: post #53
jmole wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why should twitter be responsible for user content? Certainly libel and defamation already apply to any material that twitter themselves post.

Because they are supposedly active in moderating content (I am not talking about taking down illegal stuff here). Moderating content to fit their narrative arguably makes them a publisher with all the consequences. I guess what they are saying (entities that are meddling with 230) is either be totally neutral with the exception of taking down illegal stuff and spam or face the outcome.

> Moderating content to fit their narrative arguably makes them a publisher with all the consequences.

The problem being that there is no proof that this happens. Despite all attempts to construct some kind of "one side gets moderated stronger than the other" narrative this stays a conspiracy theory.

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#67

Post by pjkundert »

joshuamorton wrote: post #54
pjkundert wrote: post #19

Liberty means liberty for all, especially those whom you intensely disagree with. It also means allowing someone to do or say something you consider stupid -- because, someone, somewhere will consider whatever you're doing stupid; do you really want some random self-righteous inquisitor shutting your speech off? Furthermore, if some group is really proposing or performing heinous, illegal acts, we should want to have…

One of the big complaints towards these platforms is that content is already too clustered (the filter bubble effect). Clustering people makes things worse.

I struggle to see how clustering trolls so they're just trolling each-other is a problem?

K-means clustering can quite easily distinguish between "echo chambers" -- where people just want to hear others who parrot their opinions and downvote any other voice, from "reasoned debate" -- where people downvote others who spout un-reasoned opinion, but upvote people they don't agree with, but who bring reasoned, respectful debate.

This is a solved problem. Its just that platform owners don't like the financial (and other) results of the solution.

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#68

Post by pjkundert »

manfredo wrote: post #55
pjkundert wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It only "is not a positive change", suddenly, now that websites friendly to the accepted dogma du jour are at risk of being exposed to it!

So let me get this straight: the total removal of moderation, and the subsequent inclusion of content which espouses ideas of racial superiority and extermination of peoples is a positive change? Calling for violence against groups of people is not illegal. Only specific, actionable incitement of violence [1]. I don't think you really understand what total absence of moderation really means. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia…

I'm wondering how you jumped from "K-means Clustering", which implements much stronger and more fairly applied moderation than any current scheme, to "total removal of moderation".

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#69

Post by akersten »

carapace wrote: post #61
manfredo wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Liberty means liberty for all, especially those whom you intensely disagree with. Correct, and said people have the liberty to create their own websites. Freedom of speech also means freedom from compelled speech. Removing section 230 means all sites have to be like 4chan - devoid of moderation and hosting the content of genuine Nazis and the like. While it's fair to point out that moderation may be biased, forcing…

Or, remove sec. 230 protections and social media becomes Disneyland and the cesspool recedes to the "darknet". (Whether that's a good thing or not I dunno.)

The cesspool's already on the clearnet, we have examples of what it looks like: 4Chan, Gab, Voat - are all platforms that pride themselves on minimal moderation.

If we want the entire internet to either look like that, or force platforms to review every post for potential illegality (an impossible task), then yeah removing S230 is the way to go. If we think that sounds silly, then preserving S230 is essential.

Re: Proposals to Amend Section 230 Share a Similar Goal: Damage Online Users’ Speech

#70

Post by carapace »

akersten wrote: post #64
carapace wrote: post #52

> any platform providing secure end-to-end encryption would face a torrent of litigation I do not see this. By definition content transmitted with end-to-end encryption cannot be moderated. How would anyone but the sender and receiver know that a given message contains "illegal content"? (I put "illegal content" in quotes because it makes my skin crawl, even though in practice I think some content should be suppresse…

I mean there is also a parallel effort led by Bill Barr and some folks in Congress that would effectively remove your S230 protections for running E2E anyway (EARN IT act), so it's a battle we're fighting on all fronts right now.

I read up on that and, while it's obviously a naked power-grab and bad law IMO, it also seems to me to have the same loop-hole.

I don't understand how a service provider can be anything but a carrier if the traffic is E2E encrypted.

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