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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

#91

Post by lliamander »

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…

This isn't about removing section 230. The DOJ proposal has essentially 4 goals:

- requiring platforms to be more proactive about removing illegal content.

- helping law enforcement to punish illegal content

- enabling antitrust action against monopoly platforms

- requiring platforms to be more transparent regarding their moderation policy

The first two I'm conflicted about, but the latter two I think would be a big win.

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

#92

Post by mcintyre1994 »

arprocter wrote: post #42
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard not to see this as an authoritarian backlash to "speaking truth to power" when the President is arguing Twitter should lose 230 because they fact checked his tweet. Fact checking a President's tweet translates quite naturally to speaking truth to power.

It's a double standard if Joe Sixpack can sign up for an account and claim the moon is hollow and made of cheese without it getting flagged Maybe if Twitter decided all verified accounts will be subject to fact-checking?

I guess that’s the truth to power bit - Joe Sixpack isn’t powerful and nor are most verified accounts imo, the President is.

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

#93

Post by sub7 »

lliamander wrote: post #83
sub7 wrote: post #78

If Twitter has taught us anything, it's that everyone should not have an equal voice and an equal platform. A person or company's reach or audience should be a function of 1) what they're talking about and 2) what credibility they have re: 1. I'm all for anyone being allowed to say anything but I'm completely against anyone being allowed to amplify anything. Also, the Republicans would do well to introduce legislatio…

> If Twitter has taught us anything, it's that everyone should not have an equal voice and an equal platform. A person or company's reach or audience should be a function of 1) what they're talking about and 2) what credibility they have re: 1. How do you propose we should establish credibility of sources? Also, how do propose to factor in the originality of what they say? > Also, the Republicans would do well to int…

Let's put aside originality for now. I think with a few small deep structural changes, you can get 80% of the way there.

I would have all posts require a tagged context, let's call it a topic (in reality it'd be multi facet hierarchical object). I would also have all profiles list the topics they'd like to be credible in.

The credibility score for a given topic would be an algorithm that would use followers credibility scores to "rub off" on your score for that topic. You seed the profiles you know to be credible and then propagate the graph. It'd initially be a guesstimate and then gets refined as more humans rate, interact and judge the post. Over a few posts, I think you'd be able to get a broad credibility bucket for a given profile/topic pair.

Btw I've built a social network with tens of millions of users and we used this approach and it works pretty well. It does require a bit of moderation and bad actor weeding out but for the most part it works.

Also, FB and Twitter aren't full of retards (shockingly) They know they can do this but they also know they would tank a shitload of their core quantitative metric for a vague qualitative metric. It'd just never happen from within.

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

#94

Post by dilap »

burlesona wrote: post #29
dilap wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically just don't believe in free speech. Which is, historically, the more popular position. The idea that ideas should be able to amplified & spread w/o institutional control is rather radical.

That’s false. There has always been a difference between freedom to say what you want and freedom from consequences. The famous adage “you can’t shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.” Newspapers are liable for libel suits and other legal remedies if they publish false and damaging information. I think it’s fair to consider Facebook a publisher when their algorithms take content and distribute it to the world better than…

If you're "free" to do something, but only with consequences, you're not actually free.

If you have the belief that the best possible outcomes can be achieved by open discussion of ideas, then any sort of consequences for speech, be it social opprobrium, being blacklisted from jobs, having social media accounts closed, being blacklisted from web-hosting, etc., are all suppressing the open discussion of ideas, and thus bad.

There is a continuum; it is possible to have a viewpoint that certain kinds of speech are identifiably negative and it's worth banning them; hence, e.g., laws against slander (or, in the past, indecency).

The kinds of restrictions that are now becoming in vogue, however, go far beyond that, and are basically trying to squash politically undesirable viewpoints. I think at that point you've passed anywhere on the continuum that could reasonably be described as "free".

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

#95

Post by ashtonkem »

arprocter wrote: post #42
mcintyre1994 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard not to see this as an authoritarian backlash to "speaking truth to power" when the President is arguing Twitter should lose 230 because they fact checked his tweet. Fact checking a President's tweet translates quite naturally to speaking truth to power.

It's a double standard if Joe Sixpack can sign up for an account and claim the moon is hollow and made of cheese without it getting flagged Maybe if Twitter decided all verified accounts will be subject to fact-checking?

That’s a prudential argument against twitter fact checking, but it’s not a legal argument.

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

#96

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

Image boards are not devoid of moderation. They just don't go out of their way to censor political extremists they don't agree with.

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

#97

Post by ashtonkem »

lliamander wrote: post #85
amanaplanacanal wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. If readers can see that it is obviously satire, then Twitter just looks silly and no harm has been done. If readers can't tell though, then Twitter is providing a useful service here.

If readers can't tell, then Twitter should label it "satire" not "manipulated content". EDIT: just speculation, but by mislabeling the tweet, I wonder if Twitter could be exposing itself to a libel lawsuit.

No, they have not. Even without 230 this wouldn’t be libelous for a huge number of reasons. The bar for libel is not “someone is offended”, even if that someone is the president.

The contortions that people keep going through to find a way to make Twitter liable is both getting old, and frankly it’s embarrassing.

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

#98

Post by matheusmoreira »

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…

Under this law, a host will be immune from liability only if they "assist government authorities to obtain content (i.e., evidence) in a comprehensible, readable, and usable format". A host that uses end-to-end encryption would not meet this requirement and would therefore not be immune from liability.

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

#99

Post by akersten »

carapace wrote: post #70
akersten wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Facebook carries both messaging traffic and user-generated content. If they support E2E encryption in their messenger, the threat is that they are not "following best practices for law enforcement intercept" and risk losing their protections over the non-E2E user-generated content on their main site.

The confusion is understandable because the two are unrelated in any technical capacity, but the DoJ seeks to twist their arm by taking away an existing legal protection for not making law enforcement's job easier.

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

#100

Post by akersten »

lliamander wrote: post #72

While I am concerned about the potential negative consequences to altering section 230, there are several elements in the DOJ proposal that I think would be excellent ideas: > 3. Promoting Competition A third reform proposal is to clarify that federal antitrust claims are not covered by Section 230 immunity. Over time, the avenues for engaging in both online commerce and speech have concentrated in the hands of a few…

The outcome of "breaking up advertising monopolies" can be achieved with existing anti-trust law, without cannibalizing an existing protection that benefits every UGC website large and small.

> Is it too much to ask for social media companies to actually abide by their TOS? How often have we seen people complain (outside the realm of politics) about getting banned without explanation or appeal?

A physical business can trespass you for any non-protected-class reason they want. Online, one should expect no different treatment.

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