You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
1–10 of 309 posts
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#2I start to feel like whats the point, I'll just be told its "fake news" and they totally ignore it.
Good article though.
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#3Is it fair then to say that the only way to “lose section 230 protection” is to cease having content partners by paying them, or employing them, or something like that? I don’t have a political point with this question and apologies if it was covered in the article and I missed or misunderstood it.
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#4> if you're in a real rush, just read Section (c)(1), which is only 26 words, and is the part that basically every single court decision (and there have been many) has relied on.
> (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Wouldn't repealing Section 230 mean more censorship and restrictions as the liability would be too great to be on the hook for what some random account might decide to publish, no?
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#5I started reading this in the smug knowledge that I knew it already, that I wasn't wrong about 230.
But then I saw this passage:
> The "user" protections get less attention, but they're right there in the important 26 words. "No provider or __user__ of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker...." That's why there are cases like Barrett v. Rosenthal where someone who forwarded an email to a mailing list was held to be protected by Section 230, as a user of an interactive computer service who did not write the underlying material that was forwarded.
I didn't know that! I guess I was wrong about Section 230 :)
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#6> if you're in a real rush, just read Section (c)(1), which is only 26 words, and is the part that basically every single court decision (and there have been many) has relied on. > (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information…
Yes, I believe that's why it was introduced in the first place because that used to be a problem. The EFF has a summary of its history [1] and the case was [2].
[1] https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/legislative-history
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#7Is it fair then to say that the only way to “lose section 230 protection” is to cease having content partners by paying them, or employing them, or something like that? I don’t have a political point with this question and apologies if it was covered in the article and I missed or misunderstood it.
I don't know that that would be losing protections, merely having nothing that qualifies for protection.
If there were some content on that site which was 3rd-party generated, say comments, they would presumably remain protected.
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#8> If you said "Section 230 is a massive gift to big tech!"
> Once again, I must inform you that you are very, very wrong.
If section 230 is no big deal, let's just repeal it. What's the hoopla about it, then? Why are companies so adamant to protect it?
The section itself is very broad, but the impetus for the passing of Section 230 was to protect free speech by removing liability concerns for what others say online.
> On July 23, 2013, the attorneys general of 47 states sent Congress a letter requesting that the criminal and civil immunity in section 230 be removed. The ACLU wrote of the proposal, "If Section 230 is stripped of its protections, it wouldn't take long for the vibrant culture of free speech to disappear from the web." [1]
So, apparently big tech has killed that vibrant culture and in 2021, I think we can declare it dead. Tens of thousands of people are getting purged from social media, others alienated, ostracized, and shadow banned. There is a concerted effort to manufacture consent through targeted algorithmic hijacking of free speech. And so, we find ourselves in a situation where the current situation is UNTENABLE.
A free society cannot have its discourse completely dominated by a handful of corporations. This is a civil rights issue. I'm sorry, some people want to weasel out of this with arguments of technicality.
Technically, before labor laws were passed in the 20th century, there was nothing wrong with asking someone to work 60-70 hours a week and paying them the same rate. There was nothing illegal about paying someone 10 cents an hour prior to minimum wage laws. But we realized that some broad protection for certain workers rights were worth intervening in the free market for.
That is the issue of the 21st century. We are the content producers on social media. We should have rights to not be deplatformed. And no, it's not acceptable to arbitrarily empower a handful of corporations to decide what is acceptable speech and what is not. If the speech is not illegal, it should be protected. And in the U.S. we have broad, broad protections for speech for an extremely important reason. Cannot forget that. Too many societies have fallen to tyranny as a result of free speech restriction. Tens of millions perished for the right to speak freely. That can't be understated or forgotten. Ever. The 21st century deserves a movement for a digital bill of rights.
[1] https://www.aclu.org/blog/national-security/privacy-and-surv...
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#9Is it fair then to say that the only way to “lose section 230 protection” is to cease having content partners by paying them, or employing them, or something like that? I don’t have a political point with this question and apologies if it was covered in the article and I missed or misunderstood it.
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not your lawyer, but allow me to play one on the Internet.
Looking at two parts of the law:
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
> The term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.
I think employing people to create or develop information under your direction would likely cause you to "lose 230 protection," but paying them for content they created or developed independently probably doesn't. If you contract them to independently create something new, it might be your responsibility in part; I dunno.
Edit: reviewing the article linked by conistonwater's sibling comment, it seems pretty clear from Blumenthal v. Drudge that a contractor's work is not the site's responsibility. I imagine there could be circumstances where the site specifically sanctionable content, and they might be held responsible.
Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA
#10I was struck by a thought while reading the article- are the feeds of social media companies actually protected under section 230? My Facebook feed is more than just a simple serving of my friends content, it’s a work in and of itself (like a collection of essays).
It seems like a stretch given that the law states that they can’t be considered the publisher of “information” provided by others, but possible as these sites are the ones engaged in picking content.
The article mentions the roommates.com racial discrimination case. I wonder what a court would do if a site had some black box algorithm that ended up consistently showing a feed of rooms in one zip code to whites and rooms in another zip code to blacks, never overlapping.
Edit- My point being- it might be possible to hold Facebook/Twitter/YouTube liable for the information in their feeds, particularly that which is surfaced out of order or from people a user isn’t subscribed to. But I’m not lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.