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

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

#111

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

stale2002 wrote: post #62
conistonwater wrote: post #23

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…

> Is that supposed to be better? There already exists laws that act very similarly to what people are proposing. Specifically these laws are called common carrier laws, as they apply to phone systems, for example. Do you believe that the existing laws, that apply to phone networks, are tyrannical or worse or bad? I don't think it is unreasonable to consider how our existing laws, that most people find reasonable, suc…

I don't think phone and Internet providers are the same as social networking sites.

I'm happy to let people I don't like have their own websites. I don't want to be forced to let them use mine to post about how I should die.

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

#112

Post by glasss »

I don't believe that repealing or modifying 230 is right, all websites deserve the protections it provides.

However, I do believe that social media feeds and the companies or people that thrive on them are a cancer on society that need be to regulated into hell and never brought out again.

If people are going to get upset about recent events and how companies are reacting, I would really prefer it if they focus on what the root cause is, instead of trying to get a one up on their enemies.

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

#113

Post by BlueTemplar »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #82
topkai22 wrote: post #10

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…

Couldn't you make the same argument about stickied posts on old forums? I don't think how the content is displayed changes whether they are covered by section 230, and I think the anti-discriminaton exceptions would need to be more explicit to matter.

It looks like to me that you can. When does a moderation choice becomes an editorial choice? Shouldn't there be some difference between the kind of moderation that removes content and the kind of moderation that promotes content?

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

#114

Post by redis_mlc »

libraryatnight wrote: post #75
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…

yes, that's what shut down craigslist personals.

What shut down craigslist personals was the intersection of several US puritanical events:

1) The Backpage takedown. (The early mainstream press turned out to be questionable.)

2) States Attorneys viewing CL personals as a kind of "attractive nuisance," despite CL hiring moderators and promoting a safer environment for workers.

3) States Attorneys viewing closing CL personals as an easy win to show they're tough on crime at election time

4) States Attorneys viewing closing CL personals as step two in playing whack-a-mole with related sites.

Note how there was no way to work with the States Attorneys, despite effort from the CL founder and an overall safer environment for workers through moderation. The law was used as a blunt instrument, where public policy was needed.

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

#115

Post by BlueTemplar »

topkai22 wrote: post #68
froh wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my understanding fb would just need a number of your likes or shares to guess your gender, ethnicity, age, education level. 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 c…

Right- it's well known that discriminatory algorithms can evolve unintentionally. It's quite possible to accidentally create a feed that almost never shows black people white potential roommates and vice-versa. I don't think "the algorithm did it" would be necessarily be shield against liability. And, back to my orginal point, I think hosting content a person's profile page is one thing, and making the (probably auto…

Well, it's like in murder vs manslaughter, the intent matters (but not to the point to get you completely off the hook).

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

#116

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

This is a great summary of what the law's function is.

To address those trying to repeal it:

• Some people think that if 230 was repealed, websites would moderate less. That's false. Because of the liability for users' posts, big websites would be forced to moderate more. And small websites would shut down out of fear of lawsuits.

• Some people think that 230 must be repealed because websites are moderating too much. Well, the great thing about 230 is you can create your own websites. If you want to make your own free-speech forum and watch it be filled with far-right insurrectionists like all the other ones, you can, and you won't assume much liability for it. On the other hand, if 230 was repealed, you would not have this option, and the big tech companies you don't like would censor your friends for the same reasons they do today.

I don't think everyone using Twitter and Facebook is good but this can't be solved by making it hard to run small forums.

I also think it's dangerous to try to force people to run their forums with “fair” moderation. Free speech is important as a right to stop the state using violence against you. Being kicked out of a private group because you're disruptive, mean or faked your speedrunning scores, is on the other hand no great injustice that the law should interfere with.

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

#117

Post by BlueTemplar »

toast0 wrote: post #56
liaukovv wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is if twitter is a private square or a public one.

Yes, absolutely. Section 230 doesn't really take a position on that. 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 sayin…

There is legal precedent for a company town jailing a Jehovah's Witness who was preaching on their sidewalk, the company was later still found guilty of violating the preacher's free speech, even though this was their sidewalk.

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

#118

Post by ummonk »

A lot of these are straw men arguments. In particular it's taking a lot of statements about how Section 230 ought to be amended or replaced, and falsely portraying those statements as being about how Section 230 currently works. Obviously Section 230 doesn't work that way right now, which is precisely why people are proposing changes.

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

#119

Post by test001only »

wtallis wrote: post #93
_yhdy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree that the manipulation is automated and intended to increase their profit. The effect seems to be that it creates really bubbles where you only see views that align with your existing world view. My own experience - I have my own YouTube profile filled with videos which reflect my political opinion and the feed of my friend who leans towards the other side of the political spectrum had videos reasserting his world views. I don't think the big tech is trying to steer socius towards one unified political view.

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

#120

Post by BlueTemplar »

IMHO the main issue is kind of orthogonal to Section 230 : It's that some companies have grown too big, and have too much power, which is a direct threat to democracy, especially in smaller countries.

Where it does come around to Section 230 is that the way that they can (ab)use their power is tied to what they do and laws like it : an ISP with several billion customers but under net neutrality and common carrier laws would probably still be less problematic than current Facebook/Twitter/YouTube.

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