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DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

justice.gov

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Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#311

Post by RangerScience »

yunohn wrote: post #121
jakelazaroff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's approachable, and doesn't fall into the interpretation biases of the reporter. I agree with this, but don't forget that interpretation biases will still come into play as the law is enforced — the biases of police, lawyers and judges. So it still makes sense to read others' interpretations of what this might mean in practice.

I think this is a systemic issue on hackernews. People forgetting reality exists, and always pointing at the rules and acting as if they're infallible. You'd think /hackers/ would understand that rules are for show. I've seen this regarding serious legislation like this or even something as mundane as Apple's app store "guidelines".

> /hackers/

When man found Truth, a worried demon went to the Devil who nonchalantly said; "Eh, I'll get them to institutionalize it".

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#312

Post by slaymaker1907 »

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…

This is so stupid. It's completely ignoring the fact that programs like GPG have existed for decades that allow you to transmit whatever illegal content you want to over any media supporting arbitrary plain text.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#313

Post by sgift »

cortesoft wrote: post #276
reb wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackers are specifically interested in exploring/exploiting the way human nature makes all machines vulnerable. IE taking a reasonably well-defined system of rules built with good intentions and using them for something entirely unintended. In this sense, law is similar to code, but far easier to exploit.

> In this sense, law is similar to code, but far easier to exploit. I would disagree. I feel like programmers see logical contradictions or loop holes in laws and think that if they make the argument in court, the court will segfault and they will go free. In reality, courts use more inductive reasoning than computers, and aren't as easily tricked.

Courts are easily tricked, the hacks needed are just different from what most programmers assume them to be. The whole job of lawyers is hacking the court to get a more favorable outcome. If this wasn't true it wouldn't matter which lawyer you have since the court would always interpret law in exactly the same way.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#314

Post by ryukafalz »

BobbyJo wrote: post #309
strbean wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we started with this approach from the beginning, we wouldn't even have social media or sites like Wikipedia. Enshrining it in law just means only the existing players can play the game.

How so? Wikipedia is a bad example as it is probably one of the most heavily moderated sites on the web. Social media is still 100% possible, it'll just be impossible to scale overnight as you'll have to scale moderation efforts with your username.

Wikipedia is heavily moderated, but primarily by volunteers. Do you think that would be sufficient if the Wikimedia Foundation was liable for anything bad that users might post? That’s putting a lot of trust in your community, and the consequences of volunteer moderators slipping up or missing something are pretty big.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#315

Post by anonHacker2 »

mullingitover wrote: post #71

What's stopping web sites from getting around all this with some basic changes to their terms of use?

Subparagraph (c)1(B) says that the only safe harbor for removing content is (c)(2). (c)(2)(A) restricts the criteria that can be used to remove content to the following: "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, promoting terrorism or violent extremism, harassing, promoting self-harm, or unlawful".

Furthermore, section (c)(1)(C) implies that removing ANY content by a user could make the forum liable for ALL OTHER content posted by that user, unless there is "good faith", but "good faith" is defined in section (g)(5)(A) to require all moderation criteria to be defined with "particularity".

Most open-ended subjective moderation criteria (such as used on Hacker News e.g. "Be kind. Don't be snarky") could be construed to lack "particularity" and is often about things not on the list in (c)(2)(A).

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#317

Post by CyberRabbi »

yunohn wrote: post #121
jakelazaroff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's approachable, and doesn't fall into the interpretation biases of the reporter. I agree with this, but don't forget that interpretation biases will still come into play as the law is enforced — the biases of police, lawyers and judges. So it still makes sense to read others' interpretations of what this might mean in practice.

I think this is a systemic issue on hackernews. People forgetting reality exists, and always pointing at the rules and acting as if they're infallible. You'd think /hackers/ would understand that rules are for show. I've seen this regarding serious legislation like this or even something as mundane as Apple's app store "guidelines".

Hacker news is a very big site. It’s unreasonable to expect that the average commenter is an upper-percentile person in any dimension.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#318

Post by dillondoyle »

slaymaker1907 wrote: post #307
joshuamorton wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

Notably, there is no carve out for factually untrue information. So you can't remove posts claiming that silver solution will cure Covid...

But isn't that covered in the new last section 'good faith'?

where so long as it's clearly defined in TOS and moderation policy you can remove it. E.g. fb has a more clear policy that's public that says no false facts that can cause harm.

I'm a 100% skeptical of this administration and the (run on rant ahead) insanely religious zealot by the name of Barr who is terrifying in trying to force his crazy beliefs on all of us whilst creating a monolithic fascist-esque unitary executive who's whim (or that who has his ear last..) controls virtually all aspects of our lives...

but this seams reasonable and seems like it would answer a lot of the problems we see complained about on HN all the time?

right now one of the top posts is about YouTube take down with no info/recourse.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#319

Post by ashtonkem »

adrianmonk wrote: post #225
gwright wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DOJ really should back off here > They can recommend all they want Isn't that what they are doing, recommending? Your statements seem contradictory.

I think when the person above you said recommendations should be "valueless", they meant it should be a neutral, objective recommendation. Like you've tasked us with enforcing laws A, B, and C, and if you gave us powers D, E, and F it would make that easier in these ways. Not like Barr's words: "For too long Section 230 has provided a shield for online platforms to operate with impunity. Ensuring that the internet is…

> I think when the person above you said recommendations should be "valueless", they meant it should be a neutral, objective recommendation.

No, I mean that the DOJ's opinion on what the law should be is literally without merit, and possibly is worth even less than that. The creation, implementation, and adjudication of the laws are separated into distinct branches of government by design. I do not want the group that is responsible for enforcing the laws weighing in on what they think the law should be; one does not ask the group that will wield the power what powers they ought to have if one wants it to end well for everyone else.

I would be much happier if the DOJ stuck to enforcing the laws as written and would prefer if they would kindly shut up and go away on the issue of what laws they think should be written.

Edit: To be clear, I also think that Barr is full of it. He's blown any credibility of being anything but a partisan hack. But even with a different AG and a different administration, the idea of the DOJ recommending to Congress what powers it should have strikes me as very much a bad idea, and I would say that even if I was otherwise happy with the administration suggesting it.

Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation

#320

Post by vharuck »

lmm wrote: post #306
vharuck wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "undesirables" can make their own websites, which are totally protected from the government by the First Amendment. The owners of the shadow-banning websites should also have the right to decide what thoughts are exposed on their website. I get to take down any flyers on my fence, even if I leave up the ones I like. Or I can vandalize the ones I dislike, maybe entirely changing their message. My fence.

> The "undesirables" can make their own websites, which are totally protected from the government by the First Amendment. No they're not; the government has already shown itself able and willing to do an end-run around the First Amendment by e.g. pressurising payment processors to refuse to do business with such websites. > The owners of the shadow-banning websites should also have the right to decide what thoughts a…

>No they're not; the government has already shown itself able and willing to do an end-run around the First Amendment by e.g. pressurising payment processors to refuse to do business with such websites.

I cannot see how a change to a law that's proposed by the enforcement arm of government will actually protect people from abuses done by that same enforcement arm. If they act in bad faith now, why assume good faith will follow?

>you need to hold up your end of the bargain by hosting the kind of uncomfortable discussion that society needs.

I don't think Amazon's user reviews are where uncomfortable discussions need to happen. But I do think the government demanding what should be discussed on servers owned by private citizens is a clear violation of the First Amendment.

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