Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

techdirt.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 309 posts

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#91

Post by michaelmrose »

colllectorof wrote: post #85

Dismissive article that misrepresents both why "normal" people out there are unhappy about section 230 and what the higher levels of conversation about changing it really look like right now[1]. Articles like this are read meat for Hacker News. You endlessly reassert your political bias while pretending you are "informing" some imaginary group of stupid people (who in reality isn't even here to be "informed"). [1] He…

Can you explain the society wide manipulation of information and what positive results can be obtained by allowing the kind of actions that are currently blocked by 230 which could be brought were it to be repealed.

Most users who want 230 repealed seem to believe that Facebook would have to give up moderation of their offensive comments/posts to be treated as a common carrier somehow to avoid liability. This is of course completely imaginary. Liability wouldn't be avoided by simply publishing everything.

Others assert that Facebook has had a shitty net effect on society and could be punished if not for 230. This is a little closer to reality but provides no conceptual framework for deciding what obligations Facebook has or how it meets them.

I don't believe that any reasonable solution starts with repealing 230 because fixing the internet one lawsuit at a time is horribly expensive, intractable, suffers from challenges as to jurisdiction and anonymity, unavailable to 90% of the planet.

Instead if you do not like the current state figure out how to articulate Facebooks obligations to society.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#92

Post by yokaze »

h_anna_h wrote: post #34
erichocean wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every alternative to Twitter is shittier. It's practically a law of nature.

This is quite wrong. The fediverse is a lot better, has less noise, and much less toxic than twitter.

Wait till it gets more popular. Same as with the whole internet.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#93

Post by wtallis »

_yhdy wrote: post #89
colllectorof wrote: post #85

Dismissive article that misrepresents both why "normal" people out there are unhappy about section 230 and what the higher levels of conversation about changing it really look like right now[1]. Articles like this are read meat for Hacker News. You endlessly reassert your political bias while pretending you are "informing" some imaginary group of stupid people (who in reality isn't even here to be "informed"). [1] He…

I do not like people like you who are intelligent enough to be intentionally intellectually dishonest while being extremely malicious underneath. You fool people for sure. I do not know why you do it, though. There is no manipulation going on by “Big Tech”. Your fear mongering is unfounded. Pushing this sort of rhetoric is what created the insurrectionist events a few days ago.

> There is no manipulation going on by “Big Tech”. Your fear mongering is unfounded. Pushing this sort of rhetoric is what created the insurrectionist events a few days ago.

There's definitely manipulation going on by "big tech". Social media has radically distorted political discourse and amplified some trends far beyond what Fox News style media alone could have accomplished.

What's debatable (and perhaps straying into crackpot conspiracy theory territory) is the idea that "Big Tech" has done this deliberately, collectively, and with goals of steering society at large in any particular direction. This hypothesis is a lot more far-fetched than the default assumption that big tech has smaller, more localized concerns about maximizing profit, and cares little for the broader consequences of the interaction between their algorithms and society. (Analogously, it is absurd to suggest that US food companies have a goal of making everyone obese and giving them diabetes and heart disease. They simply want to make more money, and have found ways to optimize their product until it becomes addictive, and they don't care about the long-term or large-scale impact on the public because it's not their job to care.)

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#95

Post by dragonwriter »

NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #66
dragonwriter wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today we had 4 tech billionaires/CEOs telling us what politicians we’re allowed to hear from or talk about. Nope, they are telling you who is allowed on their platform . You can hear from or talk about whoever you want.

Let me guess, you’re the type of person who will complain incessantly about the Koch brothers and money in politics and super PACs... and yet here you are gleeful about giving tech oligarchs the effective power to choose the next President.

> Let me guess, you’re the type of person who will complain incessantly about the Koch brothers and money in politics and super PACs...

Well, no, not the way you mean.

That is, I think all those things are corrosive within the structure of the present US political system; OTOH, I also think that the ways people propose to constrain them tend to both have side effects as bad or worse than the problems they solve, and violate the First Amendment.

> and yet here you are gleeful about giving tech oligarchs the effective power to choose the next President.

I disagree that that is the result, and I'm not at all gleeful.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#96

Post by cm2187 »

awb wrote: post #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…

I think the rationale is rather to hurt big tech if they are perceived to suppress conservative opinions. The business model of any social media would likely collapse if they are liable to everything said on their platform. Or at least I believe it is the assumption.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#97

Post by roenxi »

conistonwater wrote: post #23
Meekro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, repealing section 230 would result in more censorship, not less. But I think "repeal section 230" has been shorthand slogan for a more detailed set of proposals (much like "defund the police" doesn't mean $0 budgets for all law enforcement). For example, see the DoJ's proposal to amend and clarify section 230 [1] [2]. Among other changes, they suggest limiting the extent to which a platform can moderate…

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…

Judges are the ones we all officially trust to make judgments. It isn't better as such to get them involved, but it might become necessary.

I won't worry about technicalities, because I have no idea what they are. But it is becoming abundantly clear that the social media companies have political power and are willing to wield it if they think that it is appropriate, similar to newspapers and television. It is reasonable that the regulations for social and non-social media converge.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#98

Post by notahacker »

meekrohprocess wrote: post #41
awb wrote: post #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…

No, I don't believe so. Any individual can easily create a website and publish whatever they like. It costs maybe $100/year and takes a couple of hours for an inexperienced user to set up a Wordpress blog with manually-moderated comments. Nobody's speech would be censored if Section 230 were repealed. Instead, platforms would be treated as though they had consciously decided to publish every publically-available comm…

If Section 230 were repealed the business model of selling ads around user generated content would still exist, but it would cost enough in lawyers to kill off the smaller forums that actually wanted to moderate properly, and you could be sued over the manually moderated comments in your WordPress blog.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#99

Post by cblconfederate »

michaelmrose wrote: post #91
colllectorof wrote: post #85

Dismissive article that misrepresents both why "normal" people out there are unhappy about section 230 and what the higher levels of conversation about changing it really look like right now[1]. Articles like this are read meat for Hacker News. You endlessly reassert your political bias while pretending you are "informing" some imaginary group of stupid people (who in reality isn't even here to be "informed"). [1] He…

Can you explain the society wide manipulation of information and what positive results can be obtained by allowing the kind of actions that are currently blocked by 230 which could be brought were it to be repealed. Most users who want 230 repealed seem to believe that Facebook would have to give up moderation of their offensive comments/posts to be treated as a common carrier somehow to avoid liability. This is of c…

I believe the understanding is that without 230, facebook would be liable just like the rest of the press is, and thus be essentially forced to disallow free-for-all posting.

This is a different mode of manipulation, where the people who own the media can shape the public discourse, but isn't that what the whole world had for decades and decades before social media?

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#100

Post by cecja »

h_anna_h wrote: post #34
erichocean wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every alternative to Twitter is shittier. It's practically a law of nature.

This is quite wrong. The fediverse is a lot better, has less noise, and much less toxic than twitter.

The fediverse much less toxic? I think your server isn't federated.
Post reply on HN