What's stopping web sites from getting around all this with some basic changes to their terms of use?
DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
71–80 of 392 posts
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
All laws in the USA; as is tradition.
All laws everywhere.
This is all so true. Law enforcement depends on the individual doing the enforcement at a particular time and place; the actual law and your interpretation don't matter. Justice depends on groups of individuals coming together to make decisions, as does legislating. All of these people are going to make mistakes, at best.
To bring it back around to the topic at hand, I think this enforcement action is a mistake.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#73An interesting tidbit I found after some digging: "Carve-Out for Actors Who Purposefully Blind Themselves and Law Enforcement to Illicit Material" The recommendations suggest that sec. 230 protections not be extended to platforms that intentionally structure themselves in a way to make giving information to law enforcement difficult or impossible. This probably bodes poorly for private by design forums with aggressiv…
This is not in the current proposal. It would basically ban end-to-end encryption. The current proposal is still pretty bad, though.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#74I think that’s fine to ask social medias to choose between being a publisher or a platform. It’s perfectly fine to push your point of view online as it’s protected by the first. But you should bare consequences for the cases not protected by the first.
> I think that’s fine to ask social medias to choose between being a publisher or a platform.
Why should we force websites to choose between being a publisher and a completely unmoderated platform? Why do people keep parroting that line with zero justification as if it's self-evident? You are commenting right now on a website that is heavily moderated, a website that could not possibly exist if the admins faced personal legal liability for any illegal content an anonymous commenter posts on here. If you don't think Hacker News should be legally allowed to exist why are you posting here?
Nobody outside of a fringe group of edgelords wants their favorite Internet communities to turn into 8chan. But the legal regime you are suggesting would make any other kind of website that hosts user generated content effectively illegal.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if I sent a note with the content you just described to everyone I know via UPS and you define this content as a crime, then UPS should be held liable in facilitating this crime? So therefore UPS needs to inspect the content of every package that it delivers to avoid culpability in crimes like this? Or somehow UPS is different from a social media entity. Then what legally is a social media entity? These are intere…
If the UPS was already opening the mail of everyone to add its own pamphlets when you discuss x or y, yes they should be responsible for facilitating crime that they know of then.
Interesting, so the implication is that web companies are generating advertising from user-submitted content, therefore it's been read by the company, so therefore any cross-user communication needs to be reviewed by a person or a sufficiently accurate AI for endorsement through publication.
So in your framework, transmission of user content + advertising based on that content = culpability. I wonder if social media companies would figure out a way to legally prove transmission of a message without viewing its contents as a way to avoid culpability and maintain some level of profitability.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#76here is the DoJ's breakdown and red-line changes: 1. Incentivizing Online Platforms to Address Illicit Content The first category of potential reforms is aimed at incentivizing platforms to address the growing amount of illicit content online, while preserving the core of Section 230’s immunity for defamation. a. Bad Samaritan Carve-Out. First, the Department proposes denying Section 230 immunity to truly bad actors.…
Oof. That's a good source.
Section 5c is particularly problematic. It disallows shadow-bans if I'm reading correctly.
Section f9 is...suspicious.
Section d4 seems painful for small providers. You lose good samaritan status if there isn't a good way to contact you.
Section c2A is the important one. It basically means that a site cannot remove content unless it is objectively obscene or extreme. Section g5A suggests that you can have a ToS that explains your moderation decisions. But c2A seems to say that you aren't a good faith actor unless you use the objectively reasonable moderations standards defined by the law.
It's not clear that this would even have an effect since clearly you can moderate based on your ToS. A sports site can remove non-sports content even if it isn't obscene.
It seems like the goal would be to say that content moderators are biased in some way and drop section 230 protection based on that pretext, but that'd require a court to find that the moderation is being done inconsistently, and being done inconsistently intentionally. I have a feeling there'll be difficultly proving that.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#77I don't care for most of it except this:
>> Carve-Out for Actors Who Purposefully Blind Themselves and Law Enforcement to Illicit Material
>>...it makes little sense to apply “Good Samaritan” immunity to a provider that intentionally designs or operates its services in a way that impairs its ability to identify criminal activity occurring on (or through) its services, or to produce relevant information to government authorities lawfully seeking to enforce criminal laws. A Good Samaritan is not someone who buries his or her head in the sand, or, worse, blinds others who want to help.
>>One important way to confront the grave and worsening problem of illicit and unlawful material on the internet is to ensure that providers do not design or operate their systems in any manner that results in an inability to identify or access most (if not all) unlawful content. Such designs and operation put our society at risk by: (1) severely eroding a company’s ability to detect and respond to illegal content and activity; (2) preventing or seriously inhibiting the timely identification of offenders, as well as the identification and rescue of victims; (3) impeding law enforcement’s ability to investigate and prosecute serious crimes; (4) and depriving victims of the evidence necessary to bring private civil cases directly against perpetrators.
>>We propose making clear that, in order to enjoy the broad immunity of Section 230, an internet platform must respect public safety by ensuring its ability to identify unlawful content or activity occurring on its services. Further, the provider must maintain the ability to assist government authorities to obtain content (i.e., evidence) in a comprehensible, readable, and usable format pursuant to court authorization (or any other lawful basis).
Is this the end of online privacy as we know it?
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The legislation asks them to take their finger off the scales What do you mean? In what way is the DOJ's finger on the scale? Either facebook is free to manage itself as it sees fit, or it isn't. But if it isn't, then that's the finger being on the scale. That's the government controlling facebook. If you want the government controlling facebook's editorial powers, that's all well and good, but it's putting its fin…
Not the DOJ, the tech companies. Their fingers are on the scale.
That's a claim, yes. The government is [implicitly] claiming that tech companies are being inconsistent. To fix this, the government is stepping in and regulating speech. A perfect solution.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#79I don't care for most of it except this: >> Carve-Out for Actors Who Purposefully Blind Themselves and Law Enforcement to Illicit Material >>...it makes little sense to apply “Good Samaritan” immunity to a provider that intentionally designs or operates its services in a way that impairs its ability to identify criminal activity occurring on (or through) its services, or to produce relevant information to government…
Wow, that seems to be written with Apple (at least) in mind, and is terrifying.
I want operators to intentionally design and operate their services in way that impairs their ability to identify any activity, because any exceptions are exploits. Just saying "criminal activity" doesn't make it not spying on Americans.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#80The changes to the existing “Good Samaritan” section basically do what they said they were going to do: change it so that the section about providers not being publishers and the section about liability for blocking are independent, and clarify what “good faith” in blocking means. Basically the standard for civil immunity is slightly higher for blocking content than providing content. This is weird and still a big ch…
Can you explain more why the section is particularly disastrous? I agree that it's a dumb name. The section: (1) “BAD SAMARITAN” CARVE-OUT. Subsection (c)(1) shall not apply in any criminal prosecution under State law or any State or Federal civil action brought against an interactive computer service provider if, at the time of the facts giving rise to the prosecution or action, the service provider acted purposeful…
If someone is selling drugs, distributing copyrighted material, publishing defamatory things, or participating in any other crime on your platform and you know about it, you lose 230 immunity for all content. Maybe this would encourage E2E encryption, but... If you read further, every single provider that allows user content also has to have a tipline for criminal activity and keep records on it.