51–60 of 145 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
>Why would social media companies only make money from what users do on their platform but be spared any accountability? Here's the thing that confuses me. In every country I know, TV and radio stations are liable for the content they broadcast. Both in terms of programs and also ads. I've seen several fines being issued for such breaches, and my country is very liberal and loosely regulated here. So then why do we l…
That is, in a way, similar to the problem of user-generated content. There is a limit to how much control a social media company will be able to have over the actions of its users. Unless you replace the system entirely with one where all posts are manually approved by a person before they go up, you will need to have at least some reduced liability for the platform owner.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a legitimate argument social media can for being treated differently given their content is user generated. But that argument falls to pieces given algorithmic boosting, which is clearly an editorial slant.
Think about how this would apply to hacker news? Not all algorithmic bias is evil. If you want to avoid an echo chamber, design an algorithm to boost interesting content that missed the front page. That shouldn't render you vulnerable to legislation. And would this allow Brazil to prosecute hacker news for cyber security violations if a user posts content regarding Flipper Zero or Japanese IC cards, or data breaches…
HN features group-based passive moderation based on well-communicated rules. And active moderation based on a fuzzier standard. The latter is absolutely an editorial standard.
> would this allow Brazil to prosecute hacker news for cyber security violations if a user posts content regarding Flipper Zero or Japanese IC cards, or data breaches of Brazilian companies
If it were posted here, moderators were notified and they chose not to flag (or geoblock) it, yes, I think that’s not totally unfair.
Where this current ruling is ambiguous is in being totally non-specific about how it should be complied with.
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…
Then the same companies will be penalised in other jurisdictions for being overly censorious. There’s no way to simultaneously follow all the rules.
And if you’re thinking “good, I just want to see those companies fined”, that’s fine too. But then that’s just about feeling good, rather than setting good rules for discourse.
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 re…
It is the courts that decide damages.
My argument in the post is that it is really only the widely distributed "viral" posts that cause enough damage to for liability to be an issue. Since the social media companies have a lot of say in what goes viral and closely monitor popularity for advertising reasons, they are in a position to fix the problem and a liable if they do not.
They don't even have to remove posts - just stop pushing them.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why would social media companies only make money from what users do on their platform but be spared any accountability? Here's the thing that confuses me. In every country I know, TV and radio stations are liable for the content they broadcast. Both in terms of programs and also ads. I've seen several fines being issued for such breaches, and my country is very liberal and loosely regulated here. So then why do we l…
There is a legitimate argument social media can for being treated differently given their content is user generated. But that argument falls to pieces given algorithmic boosting, which is clearly an editorial slant.
If you mean, "this user viewed A, B, and C. Other users who viewed them also viewed D; let's show D to this user", then no, that's not an editorial slant or an editorial choice. That's an unbiased algorithm driven by users' choices.
If you mean, "Let's identify posts that are related to position Y on subject Z, and boost them extra", then yes, I agree that is an editorial slant.
My impression is that, when people talk about "editorial control", they usually include the first kind, not just the second.
So: How much of the second kind is going on? More than none, I agree, but how much? Does anyone have data? If not, then we're left with impressions, and my impression is that it's fairly small. (Rather, that it's a quite small number of topics, but since it's probably fairly popular topics it may still amount to a fair number of user impressions.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why would social media companies only make money from what users do on their platform but be spared any accountability? Here's the thing that confuses me. In every country I know, TV and radio stations are liable for the content they broadcast. Both in terms of programs and also ads. I've seen several fines being issued for such breaches, and my country is very liberal and loosely regulated here. So then why do we l…
This isn't entirely true in all cases. Consider something like a live broadcast of a sporting event. If some streaker runs naked across the field, are the stations held to account? That is, in a way, similar to the problem of user-generated content. There is a limit to how much control a social media company will be able to have over the actions of its users. Unless you replace the system entirely with one where all…
If they made no reasonable attempts to move the camera away or cut the feed to something else, yes absolutely they are held accountable. That's why you have TV directors in the studio. Do you think you can get away with lengthy broadcasting of obscene nudity just because you're live?
Have you seen major sporting events like F1? Their broadcasting rooms look like NASA, dozens of people looking as several camera feeds simultaneously and picking the best one. They'll definitely see a naked man running on the field with his junk out in due time and not share that feed. I assume it's the same for FIFA, NFL, NBA, NHL, Golf, Tennis, Cricket and any other major sporting event.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Why would social media companies only make money from what users do on their platform but be spared any accountability? Here's the thing that confuses me. In every country I know, TV and radio stations are liable for the content they broadcast. Both in terms of programs and also ads. I've seen several fines being issued for such breaches, and my country is very liberal and loosely regulated here. So then why do we l…
There is a legitimate argument social media can for being treated differently given their content is user generated. But that argument falls to pieces given algorithmic boosting, which is clearly an editorial slant.