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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

#281

Post by inglor_cz »

danShumway wrote: post #279
inglor_cz wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a WordPress blog and a separate forum for comments. If I were responsible for comments, I would do either of two things: a) just shut down the forum, b] use a paid commenting service that would come with moderation. This means that people who would want to comment would probably pay some fee for that privilege. Accidentally, b) is unusual for us, but a quite sustainable model. Surely more sustainable than curr…

> use a paid commenting service that would come with moderation. Note that a side effect of this is that you would no longer have moderation control yourself. And how many of those paid services would exist, given the legal costs of running them? What makes you think there wouldn't in practice be the same centralization that we see today -- one or two paid services that handle moderation for the entire Internet becau…

"What makes you think there wouldn't in practice be the same centralization that we see today -- one or two paid services that handle moderation for the entire Internet because only they have the lawyers necessary to do so."

One important difference is that the networking effect is not as big as in case of FB et al.

But yes, the general trend in maturing markets is toward some kind of oligopoly. It is, I believe, time to reactivate antitrust laws, we are well beyond the point where they should have been used.

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

#282

Post by triceratops »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #132
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…

This is simply wrong. It would mean platforms that don’t moderate have no liability. The law was created because a website that didn’t moderate was found to be not liable for the comments it’s users posted, and a website that did was found to be liable. This is even on the Wikipedia page for section 230. I guess the conclusion that repealing it would result in more censorship is based on the idea that platforms would…

> When really, that’s simple not possible, and they would have to abandon the practice all together.

Can't do that, it'll hurt the bottomline. Most users aren't keen on using platforms filled with spam, porn, trolls, and hate speech. And if you don't believe this, ask yourself why a lot of these sites don't allow porn, spam, trolls, or hate speech right now. It's partly moral, but mostly because it's bad for business.

Stricter moderation will be the more likely outcome, and we'll have even less free speech than we have now.

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

#283

Post by triceratops »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #252
vharuck wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. It would also cost however much a lawyer charges for helping to moderate every submission. Because I doubt the average WordPress blogger is familiar with all possible laws the submissions could violate. Or can make correct judgements based on precedent for things like copyright…

Setting up your own Wordpress blog can be done with a domain name and server hosting outside the United States, and with some effort this can be done anonymously. In that case, you don't need to worry about Section 230, you only have to worry about the (possibly laxer, possibly stricter) local laws. The reason that big social media sites are vulnerable to this particular US law is because they are businesses that cho…

Can't the US require performing DNS blocking of sites that violate American law? Can't they sanction entities that do business with your American law-breaking website?

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

#284

Post by joshuamorton »

diebeforei485 wrote: post #264
codazoda wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today its primary effect is to give an impenetrable legal shield to giant tech corporations that engage in deliberate society-wide manipulation of information. I work at a small (compared to Google and Facebook) classifieds site. I don't think we could exist without section 230, because it would have been too expensive to start without immunity for what our users posted. So, it still does it's initial purpose. I wo…

I'm not sure this is true. Before Section 230 was a thing, companies were not liable for what users wrote on their platforms so long as they didn't moderate legal content [illegal content would be like housing ads with landlords specifying preferred race of tenants, or threats against the President]. A classifieds website could definitely exist post-230, and many did pre-230.

> or threats against the President

It is very much legal to threaten the President. You might get a visit from the Secret Service if your threat is deemed credible enough, but otherwise, threatening the President is exactly the same as threatening anyone else (actually perhaps even less likely to result in sanction: I could eventually accuse you of harassment for repeatedly making threats against me, the President likely cannot).

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

#285

Post by krapp »

joshuamorton wrote: post #284
diebeforei485 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is true. Before Section 230 was a thing, companies were not liable for what users wrote on their platforms so long as they didn't moderate legal content [illegal content would be like housing ads with landlords specifying preferred race of tenants, or threats against the President]. A classifieds website could definitely exist post-230, and many did pre-230.

> or threats against the President It is very much legal to threaten the President. You might get a visit from the Secret Service if your threat is deemed credible enough, but otherwise, threatening the President is exactly the same as threatening anyone else (actually perhaps even less likely to result in sanction: I could eventually accuse you of harassment for repeatedly making threats against me, the President li…

>It is very much legal to threaten the President.

Sorry, no[0].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threatening_the_President_of_t...

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

#286

Post by joshuamorton »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #236
rpdillon wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I find Masnick's writing quite accomplished, and he is quite correct that there is a lot of misinformation (which he links to!) about Section 230. I agree he writes confidently about technology's intersection with the law, but I don't see that as a flaw: the Techdirt team seems to have a much better handle on these issues than the average journalist, and certainly a better understanding than the average…

Agreed. This part... >If you said "Once a company like that starts moderating content, it's no longer a platform, but a publisher" I regret to inform you that you are wrong. That’s not the argument. Not really. The argument is that these companies are removing entirely legal content they just don’t like. Their TOS pages are interpretive depending how much they dislike the poster of the content. They do this intention…

> That is the exact crux. I created the content, but EVERY one of these sites is clear they own it. Once I wrote it and hit send, I gave it to them and assumed ownership, they are clear about this. So they ARE publishing THEIR content.

This isn't the distinction the law makes though. The distinction is about the provider, not the owner. If I write a book, and you post an excerpt from that book on my website, I'm not liable under 230, even though I'm the original author of the content! The distinction the law makes is between a first party provider and a third party provider.

That is, imagine I got a license to an image in my book, but not for distribution on the internet. You then post the page from the book as a comment on my website. I didn't violate my license, even though the book posted on my site was mine.

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

#287

Post by diebeforei485 »

joshuamorton wrote: post #284
diebeforei485 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure this is true. Before Section 230 was a thing, companies were not liable for what users wrote on their platforms so long as they didn't moderate legal content [illegal content would be like housing ads with landlords specifying preferred race of tenants, or threats against the President]. A classifieds website could definitely exist post-230, and many did pre-230.

> or threats against the President It is very much legal to threaten the President. You might get a visit from the Secret Service if your threat is deemed credible enough, but otherwise, threatening the President is exactly the same as threatening anyone else (actually perhaps even less likely to result in sanction: I could eventually accuse you of harassment for repeatedly making threats against me, the President li…

> threatening the President is exactly the same as threatening anyone else

This is completely untrue.

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

#288

Post by humanrebar »

xxpor wrote: post #254
humanrebar wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, courts have a habit of leaving arcane technical details to regulators and then we end up back at government regulation of internet speech.

The alternative is leaving it up to corporations so the current status quo doesn't seem that bad. (See everyone that wants to repeal Chevron deference)

Or the courts could insist the legislature does its job -- write legislation.

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

#290

Post by waheoo »

benlivengood wrote: post #228
hedora wrote: post #220

I have one issue with this article. Section 230 certainly encouraged centralization of the internet. Without it, platforms would be liable for content they hosted, which would be financially unviable. Instead, people would have to self-host their own content on their own infrastructure. (230 provides no protection for people that do that.) In addition to preventing the big monopolies from arising, this would have mad…

> As it is, we’re in a situation where even the speech of the POTUS is beholdent to corporate censors. We've always been in that situation. Aside from the presidential alert system there is no government-controlled communication channel from the president to individuals, and there never has been. It's always been up to citizens to inform themselves of governmental goings-on. Finally, the president of the United State…

Trump had a 47% approval rating on the 6th and a 49% approval rating on the 7th.

Nobody is asking for special treatment, they're asking that he and the 50% of Americans that voted for him get the same uncensored ability to share their views as the other 50 who commonly emote the extreme views in the other direction with thout such censorship.

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