DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation • Hacker News Board

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#171

Post by vcxy » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

beervirus wrote: post #139

hawkice wrote: post #133

Unsurprisingly, this is pretty horrifying for anyone who cares about either the 1st or 4th amendments (and the 5th amendment considerations of 'you can't blind yourself to bad content stuff', that's amazingly bad). It blows my mind this isn't a separations of powers concern to even allow these people to draft language or make any statements on the record of what they think the law ought to be.

It blows my mind that anyone who purports to care about the first amendment would argue that we shouldn’t “allow these people to draft language or make any statements on the record of what they think the law ought to be.”

The rights protected in the first amendment don't apply to a department of the executive branch drafting language for the legislative branch.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#172

Post by lawnchair_larry » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:12 PM UTC

ROARosen wrote: post #77

I 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…

Did they just make tor illegal?

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#173

Post by shadowgovt » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #161

shadowgovt wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd think hackers would understand that rules are for show. I may be misinterpreting your wording here (my apologies if I am), but I'd assume the opposite. I'd think people who operate in a realm where text becomes action executed by a machine designed wholly around faithful, reliable execution of text fed to it would come to learn the reality-defining power of rules.

> I'd think people who operate in a realm where text becomes action executed by a machine designed wholly around faithful, reliable execution of text fed to it would come to learn the reality-defining power of rules. Ah, but don't forget how often the code that gets written doesn't do exactly what the writer expected! Or is exploited by another party...

Indeed. I wouldn't say the law is for show; I would say the written law isn't the whole story. Reality is a three-edged sword: the law, the intent, and the implementation.

"For show," to me, implies you can ignore it and charge forward, bull-in-a-china-shop-style. That doesn't work in law or computers; naive invalid input gets rejected by the first-stage parser, and a court complaint completely ignorant of the law can get tossed by the clerk before it even sees a judge's desk. Rather, hacking is understanding and exploiting the consequences of, and nuances within, the rules.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#174

Post by sailfast » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

Having a legislative affairs office is one thing, but publishing draft legislation? That seems WAY out of line for an executive department. Why are my tax dollars being used for the executive to write laws?

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#175

Post by beervirus » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

vcxy wrote: post #171

beervirus wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows my mind that anyone who purports to care about the first amendment would argue that we shouldn’t “allow these people to draft language or make any statements on the record of what they think the law ought to be.”

The rights protected in the first amendment don't apply to a department of the executive branch drafting language for the legislative branch.

The comment was about “these people,” not the DOJ qua DOJ.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#176

Post by heavyset_go » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #62

checker wrote: post #54

Earlier 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.

This is like suggesting that if you build a spam filter, you need to build a filter that scans content and catches and reports every type of crime possible to commit ever.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#177

Post by gwright » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

hawkice wrote: post #133

Unsurprisingly, this is pretty horrifying for anyone who cares about either the 1st or 4th amendments (and the 5th amendment considerations of 'you can't blind yourself to bad content stuff', that's amazingly bad). It blows my mind this isn't a separations of powers concern to even allow these people to draft language or make any statements on the record of what they think the law ought to be.

> It blows my mind this isn't a separations of powers concern to even allow these people to draft language or make any statements on the record of what they think the law ought to be.

That seem to be an untenable position. Legislation is drafted with input from lots of different groups including the agencies that might be enforcing the legislation. Proposing legislative changes isn't infringing on the powers of the Legislature.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#178

Post by firebird84 » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

analyte123 wrote: post #80

tboyd47 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Having a tipline isn't so bad on its own, but then the problem becomes: User leaves unverifiable tip, what do you do with it? It's not like you can break the encryption...

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#179

Post by Frondo » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

tboyd47 wrote: post #69

analyte123 wrote: post #24

The 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…

It is also a dumb name because the phrase "Good Samaritan" comes from the unexpectedly helpful behavior of the original Samaritan -- Samaritans and Jews despised each other, so the man who was ignored by a priest and a Levite, but helped by..of all people!..a Samaritan, found cause to remark on this.

(This is all from memory...)

Going by the original parable, this should probably just be "Samaritan carve-out," or maybe better yet as just "Bad actor carve-out".

Anyway...

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#180

Post by gwright » Wed, Sep 23, 2020, 9:23 PM UTC

vcxy wrote: post #171

beervirus wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It blows my mind that anyone who purports to care about the first amendment would argue that we shouldn’t “allow these people to draft language or make any statements on the record of what they think the law ought to be.”

The rights protected in the first amendment don't apply to a department of the executive branch drafting language for the legislative branch.

What are you getting at here? That the Constitution doesn't prevent Congress from passing a law that prohibits the DOJ from participating in the formulation of public policy?

This just seems like a nonsensical rabbit hole to explore to me.