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The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

wired.com

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

#151

Post by basch »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #105
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.

Perhaps it would be useful to separate these functionalities into two categories: User-initiated (searches) and passive (sidebar garbage, play next video trash, etc). Giving the user the ability to search doesn't mean you're curating content with a recommendation engine.

Search is absolutely a recommendation engine. It’s sorting by relevancy whether or not it’s keywords, similar videos, or play next.

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

#152

Post by singleshot_ »

indymike wrote: post #129
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…

I remember when DCMA passed, and everyone assumed that "safe harbor" meant that if a provider moderated or policed the content, then that service would be liable. If they just allowed things to pass through, not unlike the phone company, then the company could claim safe harbor. The law was designed to shield ISPs and online services from liability for what their users did with the service, not to enable content filt…

“Section 230 was intended to clarify that the government would not impose liability on internet companies even if they moderated their content.” -Jeff Kosseff

How come you and Jeff Kosseff seem to think opposite ideas about whether 230 was intended to enable content providers to moderate content? I wonder who is right.

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

#153

Post by jenkstom »

I'm done with wired magazine. They no longer produce content, they produce drama. That article about how there's no point in identifying evil people because there's no evidence supporting it was massively harmful to people in abusive relationships who are trying to sort out why they are suffering so much and what evil really is. From the comments below this one apparently is clickbait. I'm done.

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

#154

Post by wnoise »

kelnos wrote: post #133
eli wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm having a hard time connecting this to Section 230. So you're saying there should be an exemption for recommending harmful content but only if the content is easier to share than forwarding an email?

The issue is that there is no connection to Section 230. Section 230 deals with liability for user-generated content posted publicly. Email is... not that.

E-mail absolutely is user-generated content. Section 230 doesn't say anything about "posted publically". Now, there's not quite as much need for it to protect non-public content, because getting people to sue over that is a bit harder, but it really is rightfully protected too.

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

#155

Post by wnoise »

kube-system wrote: post #98
eli wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would want Hacker News or any other forum to be legally responsible for comments posted by users?

I do think that any site which believes it is too burdensome to be legally responsible for their content should not be permitted to market their content as safe for children.

So, banning marketing lies, and fraud? No need to touch 230.

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

#156

Post by wnoise »

hrunt wrote: post #96
pgodzin wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if YouTube used the same deep learning models to push people to more extremist content but without using any user signals so that everyone has the same recommendations that's no longer promotion? Fundamentally any decisions a site makes to filter and sort content to show, including HN ordering by vote count and mixing in new content to allow it to make the top page, is an explicit choice they are making that canno…

> So if YouTube used the same deep learning models to push people to more extremist content but without using any user signals so that everyone has the same recommendations that's no longer promotion? I don't want to respond to part of your comment and not the other, so I'll just say: I don't know, because exactly defining the specifics is not my goal. > Fundamentally any decisions a site makes to filter and sort con…

> exactly defining the specifics is not my goal

Exactly defining specifics is kind of important in having workable laws.

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

#157

Post by moronicQ »

tristor wrote: post #65
billythemaniam wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is necessary to understand how the internet works technically to "understand the internet". It's like saying a race car driver can't drive fast without understanding the physics of a piston.

I get what you're saying, but I think you might be missing the point that I'm making. DNS and BGP aren't JUST technical, they're also deeply geopolitical. The Internet isn't an accident, it's an intentionally and carefully formed set of peer autonomous networks, with a shared protocol and written (and unwritten) rules for how we name and resolve the path to get to those different networks from one another. These stan…

[dead]

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

#158

Post by spaced-out »

freejazz wrote: post #150
spaced-out wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Not sure why that's my problem, I'm not the one making money by promoting reactionary videos to reactionaries. The reason I think we should see it as our problem is because I think the solution companies arrive at is just to turn the internet into cable TV, where only approved media organizations are able to share content because of liability concerns.

I'm not sure why YouTube should be able to operate the service it does with the little content filtering it does. In what other industry would you be allowed to post child pornography because it's too difficult to make sure it doesn't get posted? No newspaper could take that excuse. Toys R Us couldn't say "oh jeez, we didn't realize that a corner of our store was being used by child pornographers to spread child porn…

>No newspaper could take that excuse. Toys R Us couldn't say "oh jeez, we didn't realize that a corner of our store was being used by child pornographers to spread child pornography and also recruit children" and not be liable. I'm not sure why we think it's good to give an excuse to YouTube and Facebook for this and anything else anyone else would normally be liable for.

I'll admit, we may even be better off as a society of communication was less "democratized." There certainly would have been a lot less covid and election misinformation out there if every rando wasn't able to have their uninformed ideas broadcasted by giant platforms.

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

#159

Post by freejazz »

spaced-out wrote: post #158
freejazz wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure why YouTube should be able to operate the service it does with the little content filtering it does. In what other industry would you be allowed to post child pornography because it's too difficult to make sure it doesn't get posted? No newspaper could take that excuse. Toys R Us couldn't say "oh jeez, we didn't realize that a corner of our store was being used by child pornographers to spread child porn…

>No newspaper could take that excuse. Toys R Us couldn't say "oh jeez, we didn't realize that a corner of our store was being used by child pornographers to spread child pornography and also recruit children" and not be liable. I'm not sure why we think it's good to give an excuse to YouTube and Facebook for this and anything else anyone else would normally be liable for. I'll admit, we may even be better off as a so…

Exactly, I understand why section 230 is in place and what it achieved, but I do wonder what good it has actually done and whether or not we actually need it. perhaps we don't need to break up the big tech co's, and instead just make them as liable as any other business would be. in that sense, I don't think they could afford the conglomeration they have right now.

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

#160

Post by anonymouskimmer »

shadowgovt wrote: post #121
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume that non-profit forums would be judgement proof (literal first amendment grounds). Possibly even including non-profit forums attached to a for-profit entity. With regard to Hacker News in particular the only possibly problematic element would be the YC-linked advertisement posts. Of course I'm not a lawyer. But section 230 is not the only protection here.

No; "Judgment-proof" means "too poor to be sued because there is no universe in which the costs will be repaid," not "Case too worthless to bring." Anything that is criminal liability is never judgment-proof (when jail is on the table, a defendant can always "pay" with their freedom); civil liability is judgment-proof if the defendant could never possibly scrape together the cash to make the plaintiff whole. Basicall…

> The only thing that keeps the forums themselves from catching a lawsuit when that happens is s230.

Section 230 came about because of suits against for-profit entities. Has there ever been suit against the likes of IRC, USENET, or BBSes for libel from content of their participants?

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