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FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

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Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#81

Post by dexen »

eropple wrote: post #75
hyper0perator wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. Platforms are immune to liability of their users. HN could become a platform and abide regulations like the phone company.

And be ruined by bad actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio because--hey, you have to let them stay , even if they're trashing every discussion with nonsense or spam or they're spewing racist sludge you have no interest in endorsing. Nah. This is just mendacity on behalf of the right wing of American culture that has changed their mind and decided that, yes, facts have to care about their feelings.

>And be ruined by shitty actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio

Moderation on the client side is a thing. It already is practiced on networks like Twitter and Mastodon. It was the historical model on Usenet too.

At this point you're just posting excuses for prolonging the monopoly of centralized moderation. The bogeyman of "the right wing of American culture" doesn't help, given how international the discourse of the subject is.

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#82

Post by simlevesque »

dlp211 wrote: post #34
pitaj wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same system as Amber alerts

Yep, the Emergency Alert Systems have existed since at least WWII. From a quick Google search: Canada has a National Public Alerting System (NPAS) which provides emergency management organizations across the country with the capability to rapidly warn the public of imminent or unfolding hazards to life. Public alerts are issued through radio, cable and satellite television and on compatible wireless devices

And they don't have any shape or form of public API which sucks.

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#83

Post by [deleted] »

the8472 wrote: post #59
sfkdjf9j3j wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the GP post was specifically saying that if you're a "platform" you cannot moderate content. You are required to distribute anything users write on your "platform" that is not illegal (in the US?).

The platform operator can't. That's how common carriers work (telephone, your ISP etc.). But things running on that platform could. Basically look at reddit and perhaps take it up a notch. If the platform operator does not want to be associated with some of the stuff happening on their site then perhaps they should deemphasize their branding. It wouldn't be "reddit/watchpeopledie" just "watchpeopledie". I not sure ho…

[deleted]

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#84

Post by eropple »

dexen wrote: post #81
eropple wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And be ruined by bad actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio because--hey, you have to let them stay , even if they're trashing every discussion with nonsense or spam or they're spewing racist sludge you have no interest in endorsing. Nah. This is just mendacity on behalf of the right wing of American culture that has changed their mind and decided that, yes, facts have to care about their feelings.

>And be ruined by shitty actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio Moderation on the client side is a thing. It already is practiced on networks like Twitter and Mastodon. It was the historical model on Usenet too. At this point you're just posting excuses for prolonging the monopoly of centralized moderation. The bogeyman of "the right wing of American culture" doesn't help, given how international the discourse o…

Moderation on the client side doesn't work and never has. The Usenet killfile model was awful and was a big part of why huge swaths of it were an unnavigable mess for most users--because unless you wanted to expend the effort to build one you didn't have one and got the whole sewer pipe spraying straight into your face. And, oh boy, client-side moderation happens on Twitter, it works so well? Then why do female friends whose posts get some attention have a bunch of dudes in their mentions saying how they want to have sex with (consensually or not) and/or kill them no matter how many they block? Could it be because it's an abject failure of a model due to the low stakes of spinning up a new account--so low that Twitter stopped using egg avatars because they destroyed interaction rates with new users because most of them were troglodytes?

I do wonder.

I'm trying to assume good faith in your reply so let me point something out to you: the people who are wringing their hands about this used to bleat about shared block lists being used to get some semblance of value out of "client-side moderation" (which is not to say that it is successful at dealing with shitty actors, just that it's less unsuccessful, when you use them), just as they're bleating about this. Because the real beef here is not with Twitter Deciding, it's with Anyone Deciding that they are not entitled to the attention of anyone they demand it from.

But they lost re: shared block lists, and this is a retrenchment to attempt to keep relevance when they can, and should, lose this one too and be shown the door. If they want "unmoderated", there are platforms like Parler and Gab where they can have that. Relatedly, those platforms are full of literal-not-figurative fascists. I wonder why.

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#85

Post by the8472 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #76
the8472 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The platform operator can't. That's how common carriers work (telephone, your ISP etc.). But things running on that platform could. Basically look at reddit and perhaps take it up a notch. If the platform operator does not want to be associated with some of the stuff happening on their site then perhaps they should deemphasize their branding. It wouldn't be "reddit/watchpeopledie" just "watchpeopledie". I not sure ho…

Your ISP is explicitly not a common carrier, thanks to (aptly) an FCC rulemaking conducted under the chairmanship of Ajit Pai.

You are assuming I am currently residing in the US. Buy yes, they have been and should be again.

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#86

Post by sfkdjf9j3j »

dexen wrote: post #81
eropple wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And be ruined by bad actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio because--hey, you have to let them stay , even if they're trashing every discussion with nonsense or spam or they're spewing racist sludge you have no interest in endorsing. Nah. This is just mendacity on behalf of the right wing of American culture that has changed their mind and decided that, yes, facts have to care about their feelings.

>And be ruined by shitty actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio Moderation on the client side is a thing. It already is practiced on networks like Twitter and Mastodon. It was the historical model on Usenet too. At this point you're just posting excuses for prolonging the monopoly of centralized moderation. The bogeyman of "the right wing of American culture" doesn't help, given how international the discourse o…

It's possible some people just disagree with you. Implying anyone who thinks you're wrong is "just posting excuses for prolonging the monopoly of centralized moderation" is neither civil nor persuasive.

Anyway, your examples are unconvincing. Twitter is primarily moderated by server-side spam and abuse prevention tools. The other two are both far smaller, and don't exactly do a great job at content moderation.

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#87

Post by eli »

post_below wrote: post #23

The most concerning thing about the tweet to me is the popular replies which support Pai's statement. The media, and those of us who understand what Pai did to net neutrality, need to do a better job of communicating to the general public exactly what Pai is, and what he's there to do. It would also be nice if people understood that section 230 protections allow the internet as we know it (not just the social media g…

230 is widely misunderstood on both the left and the right.

Clearly even here on HN people don’t recognize how important it was to the development of the free and public internet.

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#88

Post by eli »

dexen wrote: post #81
eropple wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And be ruined by bad actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio because--hey, you have to let them stay , even if they're trashing every discussion with nonsense or spam or they're spewing racist sludge you have no interest in endorsing. Nah. This is just mendacity on behalf of the right wing of American culture that has changed their mind and decided that, yes, facts have to care about their feelings.

>And be ruined by shitty actors destroying the signal-to-noise ratio Moderation on the client side is a thing. It already is practiced on networks like Twitter and Mastodon. It was the historical model on Usenet too. At this point you're just posting excuses for prolonging the monopoly of centralized moderation. The bogeyman of "the right wing of American culture" doesn't help, given how international the discourse o…

So you agree then that HN on its current form could not exist and we require some new model of client side moderation that doesn’t currently exist?

That’s seems bad.

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#89

Post by [deleted] »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #79
juniper_strong wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When they want the protections of section 230, they claim to be platforms, when they want to block content on a political basis, they act as publishers. I think they should have to decide on which they one want to be, and I think platforms should have greater protection against liability than publishers.

Destroying the concept of moderation does not make the world better. The liability shield is the whole reason Section 230 exists : to make it possible to have enjoyable communities online, without incurring so much liability that you have to shut them all down for fear of getting prosecuted. If you want unmoderated communities, they exist. Go use them. Stop trying to destroy the concept of moderated communities. (Rem…

[deleted]

Re: FCC to move ahead with 'rulemaking' on Section 230

#90

Post by jakelazaroff »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #21

I think that every company should decide if they're a "publisher" or a "platform". If you're a platform, you're not responsible for what your users say (except directly illegal stuff, eg. child porn), and have no say in what stays on, or gets removed/hidden (except, again, illegal stuff). If you're a publisher, you have a say what is posted on your site, and you carry full responsibility for all the onsite content. W…

I have a blog. Let’s say I wanted to let people comment on my blog posts. One day, I get a ton of “I just made $X from my couch!” type comments. My readers try to discuss my latest post, but the spam is suffocating the conversation.

What can I do? They’re not saying anything illegal. If I delete the spam or add some sort of filter, I’m now a “publisher” and liable for every comment my readers make. But if I leave them up, my readers will be frustrated that they can’t have a real discussion.

So I don’t have comments. I really want discussions with my readers, but it’s just not worth the risk.

Now imagine this happening to every website. Every community. Hacker News as we know it wouldn’t exist — probably no voting and certainly no moderation. The whole Internet would turn into a cesspool of spam and flame wars. Many apps wouldn’t even exist in the first place.

All because we decided to enforce this entirely arbitrary “publisher vs. platform” dichotomy.

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