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The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

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Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#31

Post by mrguyorama »

Retric wrote: post #14
mikece wrote: post #5

I suspect Section 230 will need to be revamped or at least more thoroughly defined. Some interpretations suggest that any editorial action by a platform (aside from those required by law) changes them from being a common carrier to a publisher with all of the liability that goes with it. It only makes sense that there should be an intermediate zone where a platform provider can engage in editorialism/content restrict…

The problem isn’t the definition it’s that companies want the common carrier status without actually acting like one. The phone company doesn’t editorialize and we would think it insane if they started doing so.

Except we are right now screaming that the phone companies should be responsible for eliminating spam from the phone system! That exact moderation should not cause them to lose their common carrier status, and that moderation should be expected, and that moderation should not cause them to be responsible if someone uses their phone network to call in a bomb threat.

All section 230 does is make clear that if you don't have people signing off on each and every bit of content on your platform, but respond with a good effort to reports of illegal content, then you will not be held responsible for someone using your platform as a way to do illegal things.

If all these weird people that misunderstand this get what they want, it doesn't mean youtube recommends their conservative creators more, what it means is that youtube stops doing any personalized recommendations, and all you are going to see on youtube is Logan Paul, Mr Beast, and the other mega creators that little children love.

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#32

Post by shadowgovt »

causi wrote: post #9

Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider Should it? This feels a lot like a "have your cake and eat it too" situation. Either you're a neutral party or you are not. Being a trillion-dollar company doesn't exempt you from that. Letting a computer make the de…

There's a good breakdown of the situation and arguments here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzNo5lZCq5M).

The tl;dr is that it may not be possible to split a hair as thin as the difference between an automated recommendation algorithm and automated (or manual) moderation (if the system chooses not to put your tweets in the Trending Topics, are we refraining from up-signalling you or down-signalling you? Is "signal" on a continuous real number line or two separate number lines?).

If the Court rules narrowly against Google, it'll be a major change to the function of much of the Internet (we can expect companies to respond to the new liability by switching off their recommendation systems completely), but the fundamental way-of-life we know today will continue. If the Court rules broadly against Google, it functionally kills S230 and opens the entire Internet up to massive liability lawsuits in a way that may end online fora for all but the "judgment proof" of the world.

Not even HN would likely be able to afford to operate if anyone posting a controversial idea slips through the moderation cracks and gets seen. The site would have to go to moderate-all-by-default, not post-and-then-moderate.

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#33

Post by tristor »

The reality is that most people, EVEN technical people, don't actually understand the Internet. The only people I consistently have conversed with who understand the Internet are technology advocates that have a deep background in Internet networking. Even on HN, most people believe many things about how the Internet works, at the networking layer, at the application layer, and socioculturally, that are not true, and provably not true, but widely believed. A true headline would be "Hardly anyone who isn't at least a double CCIE with ~15 years of experience in web policy understands the Internet."

Most technical people don't understand DNS, and it's one of the most basic and core technologies to how the Internet works today. The courts definitely don't understand DNS. The vast majority don't understand BGP, and it's literally the basis for how Internet networking works. Many don't understand the Web as a tech stack, outside possibly the basics of website design. Even people who develop web applications don't understand the Web as a tech stack.

It's actually a major concern for me, because the promise that future generations would be "digital natives" with deep technology understanding didn't come to fruition. The knowledge of how all of this infrastructure actually works is dying off, and very few people are interested in learning it, and the entire global economy is now built on the Internet in a myriad of ways. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/2347/ except extrapolate from open source software to literally all essential technologies the world runs on.

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#34

Post by eli »

causi wrote: post #24
eli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that also make it incredibly difficult for a new startup to invent a better and less harmful recommendation system?

Sure. The fact you can't knowingly do business with known criminals and stolen money also makes it harder to start a new bank.

Google knowingly promoted extremist videos? Or did they take them down when made aware?

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#35

Post by mrguyorama »

ajross wrote: post #18
mikece wrote: post #5

I suspect Section 230 will need to be revamped or at least more thoroughly defined. Some interpretations suggest that any editorial action by a platform (aside from those required by law) changes them from being a common carrier to a publisher with all of the liability that goes with it. It only makes sense that there should be an intermediate zone where a platform provider can engage in editorialism/content restrict…

> Some interpretations suggest that any editorial action by a platform [...] changes them from being a common carrier to a publisher None that have been made with a straight face before a real court, that I'm aware of. That's the spin that the activists put on this, not something that anyone thinks SCOTUS is going to rule on. You're absolutely right that 230 as written doesn't really speak well to the modern semi-aut…

>You're absolutely right that 230 as written doesn't really speak well to the modern semi-automated echo chamber.

Section 230 does not speak about this because section 230 wasn't supposed to care about this. Section 230 was entirely about protecting large companies from legal harm when, say, the christchurch shooter posts their spree on your platform, or someone uploads literal child porn to your platform, as long as you attempt to remove such content when it appears. Section 230 is simply a legal admission that moderation is hard but necessary, and a single failure should not doom your platform.

If we think the way large platforms recommend content is harmful, we should write legislation for that, instead of yet again fucking with a working law to hammer it into something it wasn't meant to do. The USA loves to do that and all it does is give us really shitty legislation.

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#36

Post by eli »

ericmay wrote: post #30
eli wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that also make it incredibly difficult for a new startup to invent a better and less harmful recommendation system?

What would a non-harmful or less harmful (than what?) recommendation system look like? What's the end goal of a recommendation system?

Pick any definition you like. If recommendation systems come with existential legal risks for a small company, then only the biggest companies can afford to run them.

Or think of it this way: How is Mastodon supposed to take on larger social networks without recommending people to follow? Should every Mastodon server operator be legally liable for recommending someone harmful?

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#37

Post by spaced-out »

causi wrote: post #12
ladyattis wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that the law as written allows them to do just that. If they don't like your content on YouTube, they can punt it instantly. And it can be for ANY REASON. And that's not even including their first amendment right to refuse distributing or listing your content.

If they don't like your content on YouTube, they can punt it instantly. And it can be for ANY REASON Certainly. But Section 230, at least from my reading, does not protect them for the promotion of content. I could be wrong about that. The Supreme Court will decide. Personally I'd find it delightful if the rage-engine got smashed with a legal hammer and my Youtube recommendations were as useful as they were fifteen y…

>Personally I'd find it delightful if the rage-engine got smashed with a legal hammer and my Youtube recommendations were as useful as they were fifteen years ago.

Why would it be safe for them to use an older recommendation system? It doesn't solve the problem, if their older system recommends a terrorism video, even if it only did so because that video came up chronologically, they're still liable.

I would think they would need to just stop allowing the general public to upload videos anymore and only permit trusted media companies and influencers (ones known to not create controversial content) to do so. Probably after being approved through a vetting process where their lawyers can look through at least some of the content first.

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#38

Post by automatoney »

tristor wrote: post #33

The reality is that most people, EVEN technical people, don't actually understand the Internet. The only people I consistently have conversed with who understand the Internet are technology advocates that have a deep background in Internet networking. Even on HN, most people believe many things about how the Internet works, at the networking layer, at the application layer, and socioculturally, that are not true, and…

> Even on HN, most people believe many things about how the Internet works, at the networking layer, at the application layer, and socioculturally, that are not true, and provably not true, but widely believed.

Could you debunk some of the most common/biggest false beliefs you encounter? I'm curious to see which traps I fall into.

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#39

Post by prepend »

eli wrote: post #29
Veen wrote: post #3

It seems to me the difference in this case is that it complains about content promotion, not content publishing. The issue is that YouTube's algorithms promoted extremist content to people who were prone to extremist behavior. That's not quite the same as simply hosting extremist content uploaded by users. As it says on the Supreme Court site: "Issue: Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immuni…

Google decides what emails go in the gmail inbox vs spam folder vs rejected outright. Should they be legally responsible if an offensive email lands in your inbox?

I don’t think spam filtering is promoting content as it is removing material.

I think they would be liable if they took emails that weren’t addressed to you and showed them in your inbox and it did some harm.

Or if they showed an ad that did some harm.

Re: The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

#40

Post by koboll »

coffeeblack wrote: post #15

230 would be okay if the user had the ability to choose the algorithm that determines what content that user sees. That was one of the early ideas for Twitter when Musk took over. Could even have external, independent “filter providers”. Then the user a chose what bubble they want to live in. Or none at all, if they are brave enough to see opposing opinions. But if the web site decides the algorithm for the user, wel…

The problem is that with modern ML-based recommendation systems there is not really an "algorithm" at all.

Which is probably the reason that particular promise from Musk never actually went anywhere.

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