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

301–309 of 309 posts

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

#301

Post by vaulk »

TameAntelope wrote: post #237
prepend wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s hard to claim your definition for”defund the police.” Perhaps some people view it as “reduce police funding” but many mean it to mean “$0 to police” and that’s the definition of defund. Words matter and language matters and trying to nuance a pretty simple statement like “defund” is hard for people to understand. Especially with people, friends of mine to be specific, literally mean to defund and remove…

Do you think you’ll ever move past the initial shock of disagreement with a movement’s slogan that may be an oversimplification or misleading, or will you always need someone to clarify the argument before you can take it seriously (and not take it seriously until then)?

Do you think you'll ever move past thinking the slogan was a silly mistake and realize that it's intended to convince useful idiots that they're on the same side as the people who yes, literally do want to abolish the police?

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opinion/sunday/floyd-abol...

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

#302

Post by dd36 »

PeterisP wrote: post #169
dd36 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the legal defense would be whether the site acted reasonably and liability would be difficult to establish without harm. If people use your site to coordinate doxxing someone and you don’t take reasonable actions to prevent, stop or legally identify the users behind it, then you’re going to have a tough time getting out of liability. AFAIK doxxing isn’t illegal but harassment can be. Side note: I wonder what…

If there is harm, then without section 230 "acting reasonably" is not a legal defence - you (as the website/business/service allowing user-generated content) will be targeted by lawsuits even if you act reasonably simply because may be easier to extract monetary compensation from you than from a random teenager who actually posted the harassing content. Even if you identify that poster and ban them, that does not und…

Have any of the Sandy Hook parents sued a platform on this basis? Seems like Reddit would be at great risk.

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

#303

Post by dd36 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #171
dd36 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes you responsible for what your user sees and doesn’t see. If you’re not presenting info transparently by time or popularity, you’re editorializing. Perhaps the reason there hasn’t been a big, precedent setting court case yet is the difficulty getting the data or seeing the editorializing. It seems like that veil is slowly coming down though through some of these court cases. What comment on a local news artic…

First, your opinion on how things should work is separate from the discussion I was taking part in. "Editorializing" isn't relevant to the protection section 230 provides. On your point, I'm not entirely sure what you want. Do you think Facebook should be sble face libel charges for how they present somebody else's post? Or do you want their ranking algorithm should be transparent. Should Google search results be con…

Transparent. Similar to how Reddit’s comment ranking algorithms are.

Only if Google is hosting the content.

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

#304

Post by dd36 »

csnover wrote: post #244
dd36 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It creates an incentive to improve moderation automation and reduce moderation costs. One way to do that is to verify users, which will help with our sock puppet and deliberate misinformation problems.

If you are concerned about the chilling effect of sites arbitrarily moderating user-generated content they find objectionable, just think about how much worse identity verification would be. Here on HN, people regularly create throwaway accounts so they can provide valuable insider accounts of things happening at companies where they work; that would never happen if they had to prove their identities first. In fact,…

Sure it could happen. The identity verification needn’t be public.

Facebook et al have no real barrier to fake accounts.

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

#305

Post by dd36 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #268
dd36 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It creates an incentive to improve moderation automation and reduce moderation costs. One way to do that is to verify users, which will help with our sock puppet and deliberate misinformation problems.

Automated moderation can’t possibly solve that problem. How do you automatically moderate libel?

It’s a problem Facebook is working on. Presumably signals like user reporting but yes, it’s not easy. If someone figures it out, they’ll make a lot of money.

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

#306

Post by dd36 »

graeme wrote: post #174
dd36 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What legal action would you be concerned about?

If your forum had money, you’d be a sitting duck for someone claiming their rights were violated and demanding compensation.

And they’d have to prove it in a court of law.

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

#307

Post by PeterisP »

dd36 wrote: post #302
PeterisP wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is harm, then without section 230 "acting reasonably" is not a legal defence - you (as the website/business/service allowing user-generated content) will be targeted by lawsuits even if you act reasonably simply because may be easier to extract monetary compensation from you than from a random teenager who actually posted the harassing content. Even if you identify that poster and ban them, that does not und…

Have any of the Sandy Hook parents sued a platform on this basis? Seems like Reddit would be at great risk.

There's no grounds for them to sue a platform because of the immunity granted by Section 230 which was passed 16 years before the events of Sandy Hook as part of Communications Decency Act of 1996. The above comment was about a hypothetical situation if that immunity was repealed - then we absolutely should expect every platform to be sued into ground unless (and even if) they censor everything.

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

#308

Post by [deleted] »

vharuck wrote: post #151
meekrohprocess wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>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…

[deleted]

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

#309

Post by praestigiare »

virgilp wrote: post #277
praestigiare wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether you agree with it or not, the purpose is to remove funds from police, which many believe is a positive outcome. Look at police budgets, how that money is spent, how it affects communities to have 60-80% of their tax money go to police. Again, you may disagree, but removing money from the police is the point of the slogan.

Here's a simple test: if half of the funds that go today to the police would simply be wasted (say, they go to a "Trump foundation" where Trump may use them as he pleases) - would you consider that a "win"? If not, your primary goal is not "defund the police", it is better allocation of funds

It's a bit late to reply, but I do think that would be a win, if not as great a win as using the money elsewhere.
Post reply on HN