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Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

economictimes.indiatimes.com

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Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#31

Post by sabalaba »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #21

Personally I think that social media companies should be at least in part liable for content posted by their users. There is a tendency to treat social media as a mere conduit, like the post office, that should not be responsible for content but the post office doesn't decide who sees what or profits from advertising inserted into mail. I thought about this a few months ago and came up with this rant completely reaso…

USPS profits from advertising inserted into mail. https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#32

Post by esperent »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #21

Personally I think that social media companies should be at least in part liable for content posted by their users. There is a tendency to treat social media as a mere conduit, like the post office, that should not be responsible for content but the post office doesn't decide who sees what or profits from advertising inserted into mail. I thought about this a few months ago and came up with this rant completely reaso…

> There is a tendency to treat social media as a mere conduit, like the post office

I don't think anyone thinks of them like a government service (post office). Rather, when they talk about social media being a conduit/provider, what they have in mind is a variation on a search engine.

Do you think search engines should be liable for content? That's a slippery slope.

A stronger argument is that they are claiming to be like a search engine, but actually being nothing of the sort. So they should have a choice - make all algorithmic content opt in, with tunable, open algorithms, or be made liable for what the algorithm shows to users.

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#34

Post by matheusmoreira »

logicchains wrote: post #28
mlinhares wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, that's how the law works, social media platforms can't show nazi content in germany cos that's the law there. they're perfectly fine doing it.

Germany is a country without freedom of speech, where people can be fined for criticising politicians online. It's not something anyone should be aiming to emulate.

> where people can be fined for criticising politicians online

Brazil has flirted with that sort of tyranny as well. This is what this is all about. Censorship of political "fake news" that harms the ruling party. They decide what's fake, of course.

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#35

Post by mlinhares »

logicchains wrote: post #28
mlinhares wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, that's how the law works, social media platforms can't show nazi content in germany cos that's the law there. they're perfectly fine doing it.

Germany is a country without freedom of speech, where people can be fined for criticising politicians online. It's not something anyone should be aiming to emulate.

That is up for Germans to decide, not foreign social media platforms.

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#36

Post by AnimalMuppet »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #21

Personally I think that social media companies should be at least in part liable for content posted by their users. There is a tendency to treat social media as a mere conduit, like the post office, that should not be responsible for content but the post office doesn't decide who sees what or profits from advertising inserted into mail. I thought about this a few months ago and came up with this rant completely reaso…

The problem is, if everything has to be reviewed, almost nothing will be posted. Why? Because the social media companies don't make enough off of each post to hire that many people.

(Do I trust AI to do a first-pass review? No, I don't.)

You can reduce that to some degree by putting a threshold of number of views. But that just moves the problem. Then you won't have many posts that exceed the threshold. (Though it reduces the problem somewhat, because social media posts that exceed the threshold will be the one that they make the most money from.)

But the worse problem is, who decides what's "damaging"? The politicians do. That means that posts that are damaging to the politicians are going to be among the first things removed. That makes this a very dangerous path.

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#37

Post by AndrewStephens »

sabalaba wrote: post #31
AndrewStephens wrote: post #21

Personally I think that social media companies should be at least in part liable for content posted by their users. There is a tendency to treat social media as a mere conduit, like the post office, that should not be responsible for content but the post office doesn't decide who sees what or profits from advertising inserted into mail. I thought about this a few months ago and came up with this rant completely reaso…

USPS profits from advertising inserted into mail. https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm

Sorry, I was imprecise with my comparison. A better analogy would be that the USPS doesn't scan your post to figure out which pieces of mail you are likely to actually look at and then affix stickers to those letters advertising related products.

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#38

Post by tencentshill »

sabalaba wrote: post #31
AndrewStephens wrote: post #21

Personally I think that social media companies should be at least in part liable for content posted by their users. There is a tendency to treat social media as a mere conduit, like the post office, that should not be responsible for content but the post office doesn't decide who sees what or profits from advertising inserted into mail. I thought about this a few months ago and came up with this rant completely reaso…

USPS profits from advertising inserted into mail. https://www.usps.com/business/every-door-direct-mail.htm

Because they were forced to be unreasonably profitable for a public service.

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#39

Post by AnimalMuppet »

close04 wrote: post #15

There's probably a lot of politics behind this judgement that shaped it. But to a certain degree it's fair. Why would social media companies only make money from what users do on their platform but be spared any accountability? Everything a user does on a social media platform is visible to the company and is monetized. Is any other sector spared any accountability when they know the customer is breaking the law? Thi…

> Everything a user does on a social media platform is visible to the company and is monetized.

Well, it's visible to the computers. It's potentially visible to a human, but no company has humans actually reading all that content.

And no, an AI is not adequate to filter it, either.

Re: Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

#40

Post by ufo »

For context, it's useful to remind that after the last presidential election, Brazil withstood a coup attempt similar to USA's January 6th. Since then, the courts have taken a tougher stance against social media, including a country-wide blockage of X/Twitter last year.

We can expect that social media companies will lobby against this. In Brazil they find allies in the far-right which are also interested in moderation-free social media. For instance, two weeks ago Meta and Google sponsored an event from Bolsonaro's PL party about social media and AI, including lectures to train party members into how to effectively employ social media and AI tools. https://oglobo.globo.com/politica/noticia/2025/05/21/pl-anun...

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