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U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#101

Post by offtop5 »

asah wrote: post #34
offtop5 wrote: post #10

>Called the SAFE TECH Act, the bill would mark the latest effort to make social media companies like Alphabet Inc’s Google, Twitter Inc and Facebook Inc more accountable for “enabling cyber-stalking, targeted harassment, and discrimination on their platforms,” Senators Mark Warner, Mazie Hirono and Amy Klobuchar said in a statement. Ehh. Slippery slope theory, if you don't want to be subject to these behaviors don't…

It's worth a google search before claiming this: https://www.google.com/search?q=bars+held+responsible+for+dr... https://www.google.com/search?q=dram+shop+laws "A commercial establishment may be held legally responsible for over-serving a visibly intoxicated person, or for serving alcohol to a minor, when that individual causes death or injury after leaving the establishment and causing: A motor vehicle accident, A p…

You can be too drunk to drive without being visibly intoxicated.

Regardless the impetus is on the individual to take an Uber to the bar if they plan on drinking.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#102

Post by boardwaalk »

krapp wrote: post #100
boardwaalk wrote: post #97

If we’re going to adjust 230, it’s a perfect chance to favor smaller platforms. e.g. if you are under a certain size, you get to keep full 230 protections. The size and power of these companies needs to be addressed.

So all I need to do is have a bot register n+1 accounts, then I can legally force them to publish whatever I want them to or else they have to go under to avoid legal liability? Neat.

My single sentence obviously doesn’t capture the nuance that would be put into a law. And there are many ways to measure the size of a company.

Also, removing limiting liability doesn’t force companies to post things. That’s just 100% not what that is.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#103

Post by jfengel »

prepend wrote: post #54
Afforess wrote: post #2

Good. It is bizarre to me that one could post literal death threats online endlessly without fear of any consquences, yet if you were to yell the same threats in a public location, the police would be summoned. My main concern would be that any regulations that punish companies for allowing threatening material on their site punish in proportion to the audience who was exposed to it. Big fines for big tech, tiny fine…

Death threats posted online are just as illegal as if they are yelled in public. Police (FBI) investigate and prosecute lots of death threats and there’s lots of examples of people who thought they were anonymous being found and prosecuted for criminal threat. [0] So I suppose it’s regulated in that it’s criminal and criminal actions are prohibited. I’m not sure how you would fine Twitter because one of its users mad…

That threat was issued against a political candidate, which raised it to the FBI's attention. The vast majority of violent threats receive zero attention.

So it's technically correct to say that it's "just as illegal", but that's not the best kind of correct. While I'd be very interested in a directive that the FBI should take all violent threats online seriously, they don't have anywhere near that kind of resources. And I have a feeling that if they did start making numerous requests to unmask anonymous users, a lot of HN readers would oppose that as well.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#104

Post by coffeefirst »

bastawhiz wrote: post #92
whack wrote: post #86

Ironically, this law would give tech companies vastly more power to censor and police online speech. As soon as tech companies are made legally liable for any speech that occurs on their platform, they would be both legally and morally justified in using draconian measures to preemptively block activities that could expose them to liability. For example, banning all controversial hashtags, automatically banning anyon…

This is absolutely the truth. I've talked with attorneys about what this would mean for my side hustle (podcast hosting) and their advice is to have tools for doing exhaustive moderation ready to go. The risk of being sued for user content is large enough to be business-ending for startups of my size. I sincerely hope that this is just political theater that never manifests into law. Section 230 is a blessing to the…

Without 230, that's probably correct. But with the specific changes being described, I'm having a hard time understanding how it would affect a podcast hosting service. Can you elaborate?

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#105

Post by novok »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #85
novok wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If section 230 disappears, it will likely mean HN will also disappear. Also HN is high end marketing as an input for Y Combinator's founder program, if there was no business of Y Combinator funding it, it would not exist.

On the contrary, I expect the death of harmful ad companies like Google and Facebook would cause an explosion of growth in the Internet startup space.

I doubt the US govt will break their top surveillance partners and 3/5 companies responsible for most of their GDP growth for the past decade in any meaningful way. After all of this saber rattling, they will still stand, with probably stronger positions because all the new compliance cost will shut out new entrants.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#106

Post by hypersoar »

Section 230 reform feels to me like gnawing around the edges of the problem. I've started thinking that we should consider going nuclear on online platforms with some version of "social networking platforms funded substantially by advertising revenue are prohibited". Something that will restrict, as powerfully as we can, the existence of platforms incentivized to solely maximize user engagement. Congress can strip them of their liability shields. Facebook can set up all the moderators and review boards it wants. In the end, we all know how their bread is buttered.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#107

Post by xpe »

prepend wrote: post #42
xpe wrote: post #20

Too many people do not understand the First Amendment (1A). In case you have not reviewed the 1A recently, please read this carefully: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/first_amendment > The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. It prohibits any laws that establish a national religion, impede the free exercise…

Who do you think doesn’t understand 1A? I’m not sure if you mean that the senators don’t understand. Or social media companies. Or us? Government (in the US) regulates commercial speech all the time. Try broadcasting without an FCC license. Government also regulated privately owned public places. Try banning people of a particular race from your shopping mall and see what happens. Shopping mall operators aren’t free…

> I think it’s reasonable that government could treat social media companies as privately owned public spaces and add new regulations or requirements.

Yes, this kind of argument seems to have a lot of traction right now, and I think there is precedent to build on, though -- again -- I'm far from an expert on it.

> I don’t think this would mean a constitutional amendment to revise 1A...

Agreed.

> ... but using the free speech principle for these regulations makes sense.

What do you mean by the "free speech principle"? I think 100 different people would probably have _at least_ 10 significantly different ideas of how free speech should work.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#108

Post by xpe »

hypersoar wrote: post #106

Section 230 reform feels to me like gnawing around the edges of the problem. I've started thinking that we should consider going nuclear on online platforms with some version of "social networking platforms funded substantially by advertising revenue are prohibited". Something that will restrict, as powerfully as we can, the existence of platforms incentivized to solely maximize user engagement. Congress can strip th…

For the sake of argument, assume I agree with you.

Next, would you be willing to talk about the complexities of gathering places, free speech, and who funds those gathering places? Would you be able to formulate one, two, or three basic theories (or models) of how these factors relate? Could you test them?

The reason I ask is this: I think there are some recurring patterns that connect these factors. I won't claim these patterns are universal, but I would expect to find useful patterns across many regions and many periods of time.

Having a tested, applicable model of how these are connected can help find the leverage points to target with regulation to achieve particular goals.

Caveat: what I've stated above is, more or less, a compact statement of how I think public policy should be made, at least for the most significant issues that we face.

And, if an issue is not deemed significant enough to warrant this kind of analysis, that's understandable. However, I don't think anyone should fool themselves into thinking that some 'obvious' action will also be verifiable *solution*. It might happen to seem effective to some people, but that doesn't make it an effective policy or decision -- very few of us are provably good at separating association from cause and effect.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#109

Post by fallingknife »

xpe wrote: post #98
fallingknife wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That comment makes no mention of the first amendment.

The above comment is obviously true, but how much does it advance the conversation? Not much in my opinion, but I'll try to build on it. I'll try to unpack what I think you were getting at. While it is obvious that the comment doesn't say "First Amendment", that is not the end of the matter. When people talk, it is important to think about what they mean in a particular context . That comment very much relates to 1A,…

This isn't a law class, so let's not apply those standards. The 1st amendment itself refers to "freedom of speech" so there is absolutely a principle that exists outside of the 1st amendment. There is absolutely an argument to be made that the scope of the 1st is too narrow to protect freedom of speech in the US.

Re: U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms

#110

Post by xpe »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #41

Im worried this would codify fine power for whatever way the political wind blows, which seems to be incremented by increasing the size of payroll particularly at the FTC. Here is an idea for better oversight of big tech that does not involve more regulation: a deacentralized moderation system that replicates the us court system. If something is flagged, then a jury made up of randomly selected users decide if the co…

> I'm worried this would codify fine power for whatever way the political wind blows

It depends on how the legislation is written, which will determine who makes various decisions and how the decisions are made.

Can you tell me about examples of legislation that you think have been done well? And what is your idea of 'well done'? Should I interpret your comment as meaning that you don't like arbitrary changes in political opinion -- that you think legislation should have deeper standards or principles? In the case of social media and speech, what do you think the standards should be?

Can you also give an example of legislation that has not been done well.

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