U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by xpe » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 7:01 PM UTC

boh wrote: post #95

everdrive wrote: post #14

When I was young, I realized that eventually the problems of the real world would catch up to the internet. It was in the mid-2000s that I realized a well-staffed company, with people working on problems for 8+ hours a day, for years, could always outpace individuals. Just as has been true with all human affairs: better-resourced groups can overpower lesser-resourced groups. It has been true for years now that the pr…

Our American founders, who are so venerated as the architects of the country's acceptance of free speech, were not too keen on an unfettered discourse of the masses. Coming from a time when the public’s reach was limited by expensive distribution methods and a lack of literacy, the assumption was that this free speech they proposed would be mostly limited to learned men like themselves. This similar assumption was in…

I almost agree with the first two sentences, with this modification:

> American founders ... were not too keen on an unfettered discourse of the masses

I expect the founders' thinking about information sharing was largely based on their circumstances (printing presses, traditional mail service, town announcements, etc). Perhaps most founders considered them as immutable realities. Did any think of them as movable constraints?

Did any think about the downstream economic and political consequences of lowering the cost of communication? I don't know off the top of my head. Have you seen any evidence of this?

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

#112

Post by ocdtrekkie » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 7:18 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #105

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The US government's priorities changed when it became clear those companies could tamper with their election chances. All other concerns immediately became secondary.

> all the new compliance cost

We don't need new compliance costs, we just need the DOJ and FTC to enforce our existing laws and break Google and Facebook up. They're already in violation of the law.

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

#113

Post by prepend » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:28 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #103

prepend wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

There are many threats from normal people to normal people that result in conviction. [0] I didn’t intend for my example to be representative for all.

If you report a death threat to the police and fbi it will be investigated. I think the problem is they have to be substantiated. If I just run around the town square saying “I’m going to kill you” that’s not actually a criminal death threat. So someone saying “#diaf” is not a death threat, it’s obnoxious but not a crime.

Fortunately murder rate is not correlated to internet death threats or we’d all be dead.

This doesn’t mean that platforms shouldn’t stop boorish behavior, but it’s not a crime and we probably don’t want the FBI investigating stuff that’s not a crime.

But when it is, when I think someone is going to kill me, I feel confident that I can call the law and they’ll do what they can.

[0] https://elkodaily.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-online-dea...

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

#114

Post by IG_Semmelweiss » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

xpe wrote: post #110

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 poli…

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

--- Given the regulation itself this is not a bipartisan effort (this is different from support bipartisan)

>>> Can you tell me about examples of legislation that you think have been done well

---I think the constitution is a sound example. Only the takings clause seems to have some pushback . Another hugely succesful act is U.S. Airline Deregulation Act. This is the only relatively recent act of congress that eliminated an entire US Agency (CAB), which itself makes it a rarity among the rare successes. Sherman act is one that everyone seems to come back to (and generally seems to be underpowered vs abused), the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Internet Tax Freedom Act, Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Most acts restricting the power of the federal government tend to enjoy broad support over time.

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

---No child left behind ACT, Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Patriot Act, etc.

You can tie together almost all bad laws passed when they are (a) a reaction to specific events and circumstances (b) not bipartisan (c) usually sponsored by a very specific group. Such laws tend to not pass the test of time.

The reverse is also true, of course.

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

#115

Post by prepend » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 9:08 PM UTC

xpe wrote: post #107

prepend wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fre…

> What do you mean by the "free speech principle”

Good point, sorry, I said this like it was some simple concept that everyone understands in the same way.

I mean it in the terms of what the UN calls freedom of expression and I think is based on the Ancient Greek origin. [0]

That’s not absolute and there’s still debate, but, in my mind, it’s a philosophy that more communication on more topics is ultimately better for improving society and doing great things than less. An application that I think is relevant to this definition is Postel’s Law [1] to be liberal in what’s accepted and conservative in what’s said.

And I think part of this is to not try to have a rules based approach of specific banned topics because it ends up being circular, eternal, and nonproductive. So any efforts to get specific rules around this seem to harm groups.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech [1] https://devopedia.org/postel-s-law

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

#116

Post by prepend » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 9:11 PM UTC

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,…

I don’t know, usually when I talk and think about freedom of speech, I don’t mean 1A. I mean the principle of free speech that is the idea parent to 1A.

I’ll frequently try to think about freedom of speech when trying to work out some community process or way to interact with people and if someone thought I was talking about 1A, I would feel bad for their confusion.

I’m not sure how to prevent this in my speech as if I said “free speech* *independent and not specifically 1A” every time it would probably be more confusing.

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

#117

Post by LocalH » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #43

bcrosby95 wrote: post #3

I'm generally fairly hesitant about restricting 230 protection, but removing it for paid content, such as ads, makes a lot of sense to me.

The failure though is the government isn't accounting for content next to ads. Ad companies are likely to keep user generated content that drives good ad revenue, even if it's also harmful. This is a start, but the solution is to revoke 230 entirely.

I think section 230 should be modified to explicitly provide protections only for platforms that ban all moderation that isn't related to security or the most heinous of illegal content such as CSAM. Any platform that bans for ideological reasons should not be shielded from liability when they get it wrong.

I think it is also important to advocate for decentralized, federated communication channels. Increase the total number of possible points of failure, and they absorb the load in a more graceful manner.

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

#118

Post by ecliptik » Fri, Feb 05, 2021, 11:03 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #71

everdrive wrote: post #14

When I was young, I realized that eventually the problems of the real world would catch up to the internet. It was in the mid-2000s that I realized a well-staffed company, with people working on problems for 8+ hours a day, for years, could always outpace individuals. Just as has been true with all human affairs: better-resourced groups can overpower lesser-resourced groups. It has been true for years now that the pr…

> In its infancy, the internet was an "island of sanity," a (socially and intellectually) secure enclave from the real world. Just find another place on the internet with a barrier to entry that hasn’t been eliminated yet. Back to Gopher and IRC I guess.

Gemini too, https://gemini.circumlunar.space/

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

#119

Post by xpe » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 12:36 AM UTC

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #114

xpe wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 poli…

>>> It depends on how the legislation is written, which will determine who makes various decisions and how the decisions are made. --- Given the regulation itself this is not a bipartisan effort (this is different from support bipartisan) >>> Can you tell me about examples of legislation that you think have been done well ---I think the constitution is a sound example. Only the takings clause seems to have some pushb…

> Given the regulation itself this is not a bipartisan effort (this is different from support bipartisan)

Would you like to finish the sentence? It is incomplete.

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

#120

Post by xpe » Sat, Feb 06, 2021, 12:41 AM UTC

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #114

xpe wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 poli…

>>> It depends on how the legislation is written, which will determine who makes various decisions and how the decisions are made. --- Given the regulation itself this is not a bipartisan effort (this is different from support bipartisan) >>> Can you tell me about examples of legislation that you think have been done well ---I think the constitution is a sound example. Only the takings clause seems to have some pushb…

Your comment implicitly defines legislative success in terms of long-running popularity.

What is the intended purpose of such a definition? Is it meant to be explanatory? Predictive? Normative? Have you thought about the limitations of such a definition along these three categories?

Is this definition an attempt to find a neutral definition of legislative success? Or at least an attempt to find a definition that can be easily measured?