51–60 of 309 posts
Before today I was a strong defender of section 230. After today, I say burn it all down.
This makes me feel like I missed something. Are you writing this because you read the article today or did something else happen?
Actually quite an awesome read here. But also kind of funny that the resource does a great job explaining what 230 is not — while a terrible job of what it is. At this point, I have no idea what Section 230 is. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t really care for the details of this. Hell, I barely understand how a bill is actually turned into law. Though, I do know that the POTUS vs Twitter showdown today has put a bittersw…
What law would that be? Internet service providers must provide their service to everyone? Great, now it’s illegal to kick people off your minecraft server and the new york times MUST publish my op-ed. Twitter gave orange-julius cesar a platform, they can take it away.
I 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 s…
That’s an interesting train of thought. I also wonder about content that’s been modified in some significant way (fact check labels not clearly separated from the content itself for example) by the provider: is there a point where the provider could become liable? I.e. if I made a joke website where you could post comments and it would auto-replace any mention of “topkai22” with “the notorious scoundrel topkai22”, co…
That's one of the many silly things about the usual 230 discourse: one of the earlier flashpoints was around things like Facebook and Twitter flagging "misinformation" and the like, when they don't actually get any protection under 230 for those labels, since they're writing them themselves.
Interesting that the first couple of paragraphs talk about a meme, a viral idea he can assume we'll know of because we're all so connected online. Also refers to another popular online article in the same format he liked and adopted. Disconnecting someone from social media feels like it may only be helping their cause.
I think our social networks are too centralised and it's a problem, particularly because people can be accuraretly targeted with misinformation, as well as the social media algos displaying things out of order (i.e. their order). Unfortunately it's a truism that there are plenty people who are not empirically sceptical of what they read online and they're only too happy to share it.
As much as I don't agree with Trump on pretty much everything, I think he has a point about social media being arbiters of truth is a problem. I'm also a Brit so say very little about other country's party/policies. If only we could accurately measure reasons why people stormed Capitol Hill. My hunch is that information read online is the primary motivator, weighed in with the fact how information discovery is heavily entrenched in social media.
I would make platforms liable for their content (or at least greater emphasis on them taking an active role) and yes, I appreciate that would make them untenable as they currently stand, but I'm sure there's plenty of strong counterpoints that'd make me reconsider. At the very least, viral content's virality could perhaps be limited. Can't recall the last viral thing I saw that wasn't trivial but was positive. Social media has a lot of power at the moment.
I 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 s…
If a site has a black box algorithm that uses unlawful criteria (race) to limit the scope of searches, the site will not be immune under Section 230c and are liable if and only if they require the users to provide the information (race) as a condition of accessing its service in which case they act as “information content provider”
You giving away your data this way, would that count as providing the information to control the information stream?
And follow-up: This reminds me of the story of that data mining store chain which with high accuracy predicted pregnancy. A dad to a teenage daughter was very pissed when the chain started, in his perception, a personalized mail in coupon campaign to his teenage daughter "to become pregnant". When she actually already was. (The dad later apologized.) Nonetheless, the chain then concealed their knowledge, their targeted baby stuff and organic everything coupons, between just enough noise of tires, tools and men's sth sth, that it was no longer obvious to the innocent eye.
Would that tactics be sufficient to white wash from section 230c obligations?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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? It's not a massive gift to big tech. It's a gift to everyone. It's a big deal to remove it. Certainly, it would affect lots of big tech companies; but it would affect…
The question is if twitter is a private square or a public one.
The problem is, if Twitter is a private square; are there any public squares (online); and if we have no public squares, what good are our rights in the public square.
On the other hand, if Twitter is a public square, that places a burden on a private company that they don't necessarily want. Although if you look at quotes from 2013, they were saying things like "We're the free speech wing of the free speech party." [1] I don't think we can necessarily hold a company to the words of a seven year old interview of a former CEO; but it's certainly no longer holding free speech as important above moderation of reprehensible speech.
[1] https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/03/21/17...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, so is the idea of those proposals that the federal government or the courts or the lawyers are going to be in charge of deciding what counts as aggressive moderation as opposed to regular moderation? Is that supposed to be better? Also, your comment is confusing because "limiting moderation to illegal content and viagra spam" was the legal limit before section 230, if I understood correctly, so it's not making…
Making decisions like that is why we have courts. They are responsible for deciding whether a particular act was murder or self-defense, whether something is pornography or art, whether something is protected or forbidden by the Constitution, etc. They're far from perfect, but is it better to give the power to control digital communications to a few corporations?
This doesn’t seem that complicated to me. What’s all the I-am-smarter-than-you smugness about? > Law text: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher.” People who want Section 230 repealed or modified want to be able to make the legal argument that by actively banning certain speech while elevating other speech, social media companies ARE acting as publishers. The law do…
The reasons are obvious but the outcome is the important thing. Largely the sentiments behind wanting to repeal section 230 seem to be about the big platforms. The point that often gets missed is that without 230 ONLY the big platforms could afford to exist (and probably not even them in their current form). So while the goal to limit the power of the tech giants may be good, the proposed method will likely accomplis…
I 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 s…
That’s an interesting train of thought. I also wonder about content that’s been modified in some significant way (fact check labels not clearly separated from the content itself for example) by the provider: is there a point where the provider could become liable? I.e. if I made a joke website where you could post comments and it would auto-replace any mention of “topkai22” with “the notorious scoundrel topkai22”, co…
A subtler one is a site that only surfaced snippets about a subject. It wouldn't be that hard to write an algorithm that surfaces only negative segments about a subject, or to automatically quote out of context.
Surely that is transformative, but the information is still coming from the original authors.
Seems like that part might be untested law.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s an interesting train of thought. I also wonder about content that’s been modified in some significant way (fact check labels not clearly separated from the content itself for example) by the provider: is there a point where the provider could become liable? I.e. if I made a joke website where you could post comments and it would auto-replace any mention of “topkai22” with “the notorious scoundrel topkai22”, co…
Information that a provider creates itself isn't covered at all by 230, so they're potentially liable for things that don't originate from users like fact check labels no matter how they're applied. That's one of the many silly things about the usual 230 discourse: one of the earlier flashpoints was around things like Facebook and Twitter flagging "misinformation" and the like, when they don't actually get any protec…