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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

#101

Post by ryandrake »

nindalf wrote: post #55
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…

I think it’s easy to implement this, but the flip side of making platforms responsible is that they become much more restrictive in what’s allowed to be discussed. They start banning topics preemptively, just to limit their exposure. And if you’re thinking “good”, it will make the public discourse sterile. Then the same companies will be penalised in other jurisdictions for being overly censorious. There’s no way to…

We have the postal system and telephone system, which are in theory (and I think most of us believe) content-neutral. You can say whatever you want over these channels, and, as far as we know, the USPS and phone company don't investigate the content and block naughty thoughts, nor are they held liable if we say naughty things or conspire to commit a crime over their channels.

Newspapers, magazines, and TV are at the other end: If they publish naughty stuff, they're going to be held accountable, and therefore they exercise editorial moderation and selection over what they publish.

Social Media and Internet forums are in this weird separate bucket that was simply conjured up by Section 230. They get to have their cake and eat it too. They can both 1. editorialize and moderate their users' content but 2. dodge liability over what they publish. What a great deal!

I think whether you are liable for what your users post -should- come down to whether or not you editorialize and put your thumb on the scale of what gets posted and shown. If you're truly a "dumb pipe" that allows everything, then you should not be liable for what your users send over the dumb pipe. But the minute you exercise any moderation or curation, you are effectively endorsing what you are publishing, and should share liability over it.

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

#102

Post by ty6853 »

atrus wrote: post #89
ty6853 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm definitely not saying it's the same as facebook, but it's an example of content curation based on 3rd party input. Selective advertising reaches a place of prominence, ty6853 doesn't get a special image when I send a letter to Santa.

No, it's buying a service. They aren't curating, they're taking anyones money and sending anything that fits in their guidelines. There's nothing stopping you from displaying your image to a bunch of people. https://www.usps.com/business/informed-delivery.htm The image that goes with the mail is required even.

Yes it's all very different when you use different rhetoric, right?

"Buying a service" is how advertisers get placement of certain content curated.

If it fits in the guidelines, you get the special placement and image, if it doesn't fit the special guidelines, you can draw it on your mails and it gets scanned and all they see is the scan. I can draw a swastika on the front of my envelope and it will show up on the feed (but only in black and white), but can I get the swastika on the advertisement image in color? IDK because the link you sent was literally just tossing back what I already mentioned which is informed delivery, not a link to their policies (the policies themselves are a bit vague, but under them it appears not, and they definitely have stronger 'guidelines' than the black and white for instance regarding weapons).

If your content on Facebook 'fits the guidelines' and the guys 'buying the service' benefit from it, then it gets curated more strongly. If it fits other less strict guidelines, I can still see it. But there's nothing stopping you from paying facebook lots of money and getting something that fits their guidelines displayed more prominently, so that wouldn't be curation!

Your argument is highly specious. "Buying a service" is a total red herring, and "guidelines" is just a hack here so you can pivot around it's a mechanism by which the curation happens.

As for the image, you claim it's required, but my mails don't get it, it appears to be 'required' as part of a particular 'campaign'. I have no trouble believing that some services might require an image, but this doesn't somehow disprove curation.

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

#103

Post by ty6853 »

ryandrake wrote: post #101
nindalf wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s easy to implement this, but the flip side of making platforms responsible is that they become much more restrictive in what’s allowed to be discussed. They start banning topics preemptively, just to limit their exposure. And if you’re thinking “good”, it will make the public discourse sterile. Then the same companies will be penalised in other jurisdictions for being overly censorious. There’s no way to…

We have the postal system and telephone system, which are in theory (and I think most of us believe) content-neutral. You can say whatever you want over these channels, and, as far as we know, the USPS and phone company don't investigate the content and block naughty thoughts, nor are they held liable if we say naughty things or conspire to commit a crime over their channels. Newspapers, magazines, and TV are at the…

The USPS does investigate content.

You can draw a swastika and a machinegun for sale on your regular mail envelope and it will show up in informed delivery, but as black and white.

If you try to get it displayed more prominently in an advertising campaign, it violates their second set of 'guidelines' that stop what you can put in the more prominent colored advertising image.

They use this mechanism in a matter different than most social media curation, but it's still a form of curation, and favoring the particular kinds of speech they like, using two different sets of guidelines -- one guideline for de minimis B&W presentation and a second set of 'guidelines' (which even at USPS are a bit vague) about whether you can get the pretty color image in informed delivery.

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

#104

Post by owebmaster »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #80
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> real coup was perpetrated by the supreme court itself The side that storms the capital sort of gives up its ability to call the other illegitimate in a democracy. That doesn't mean they're right. Just that the situtation in Brazil clearly escalated to the point that suspending the status quo is if not merited, highly historically precedented.

Occupying the government buildings is essentially the standard brazilian protest. It's happened many times before and will happen again. This "storming" amounted to little more than a protest. If only that had been enough to fix things. I watched those judges censor political speech as "fake news" throughout the entire 2022 election. Then they showboated in public about how they had been personally responsible for th…

> only that had been enough to fix things.

Exactly! You, just like the people that was there and now are in jail, wanted that to "fix things", or calling it for the right name, a coup. It didn't work well.

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

#105

Post by mlinhares »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #97
mlinhares wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Here's the thing, Germans don't get to make that choice, their politicians do it for them. Sure, you can vote on some politicians, but what do you do when freedom of speech is not on anyone's menu as they all share different views than you on what freedom of speech is? Having something like the First Amendment in the constitution means no politician can fuck with your freedom of speech too much. It's one of the thing…

oh damn, that has worked so well for the people being placed in prison due to their speech, the students having their visas revoked and all activists that have been killed by the government.

americans really live in a different planet. you only have freedom of speech when your speech is irrelevant or when it doesn't conflict with the views of the elites.

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

#106

Post by FirmwareBurner »

mlinhares wrote: post #105
FirmwareBurner wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the thing, Germans don't get to make that choice, their politicians do it for them. Sure, you can vote on some politicians, but what do you do when freedom of speech is not on anyone's menu as they all share different views than you on what freedom of speech is? Having something like the First Amendment in the constitution means no politician can fuck with your freedom of speech too much. It's one of the thing…

oh damn, that has worked so well for the people being placed in prison due to their speech, the students having their visas revoked and all activists that have been killed by the government. americans really live in a different planet. you only have freedom of speech when your speech is irrelevant or when it doesn't conflict with the views of the elites.

>people being placed in prison due to their speech, the students having their visas revoked and all activists that have been killed by the government

Let's address your points:

2) There's nothing illegal or wrong with student visas being revoked with reason. You break the law, your visa gets revoked, it's that simple. It's part of the terms and conditions of immigrating on a visa in any civilized country with a rule of law (barring Germany maybe). Have the students on a visa tried, you know, studying, instead of breaking laws? I myself never struggled to not break the laws where I travel to foreign countries. I don't see where the issues lie.

1) Who is being put in prison just for speech? Is that speech consisting of throwing rocks at police by any chance?

3) Which activists did the government kill?

Those are all some wild accusations that require citations form some reliable sources in order to be taken seriously.

>americans really live in a different planet. you only have freedom of speech when your speech is irrelevant or when it doesn't conflict with the views of the elites.

Let's put freedom of speech to a test. If you're in Germany, go on X, go to the profile of chancellor Friedrich Merz and call him a "corrupt politician and traitor of the people" and also say how a certain group of illegal immigrants responsible for majority of terror attacks doesn't belong in Germany. Then let's see how far your freedom of speech goes in Germany. Post a link here with the comment as proof when you're done. Otherwise, please refrain from criticizing other nations speech laws since you're throwing rocks at a stone castle from a glass house.

My point with this is there's no perfect freedom of speech, but myself I'd much rather the unrestricted freedom of speech of the world's oldest democracy, rather than the government controlled speech of Germany or the UK.

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

#108

Post by matheusmoreira »

owebmaster wrote: post #104
matheusmoreira wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Occupying the government buildings is essentially the standard brazilian protest. It's happened many times before and will happen again. This "storming" amounted to little more than a protest. If only that had been enough to fix things. I watched those judges censor political speech as "fake news" throughout the entire 2022 election. Then they showboated in public about how they had been personally responsible for th…

> only that had been enough to fix things. Exactly! You, just like the people that was there and now are in jail, wanted that to "fix things", or calling it for the right name, a coup. It didn't work well.

I don't blame them at all. Who are you supposed to turn to when the supreme court starts censoring you? There's no one else above them.

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

#109

Post by ryandrake »

ty6853 wrote: post #103
ryandrake wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the postal system and telephone system, which are in theory (and I think most of us believe) content-neutral. You can say whatever you want over these channels, and, as far as we know, the USPS and phone company don't investigate the content and block naughty thoughts, nor are they held liable if we say naughty things or conspire to commit a crime over their channels. Newspapers, magazines, and TV are at the…

The USPS does investigate content. You can draw a swastika and a machinegun for sale on your regular mail envelope and it will show up in informed delivery, but as black and white. If you try to get it displayed more prominently in an advertising campaign, it violates their second set of 'guidelines' that stop what you can put in the more prominent colored advertising image. They use this mechanism in a matter differ…

Surely this curation by the USPS doesn't extend to content inside of envelopes, though! I guess my overall point is that Social Media and forums are "opening the envelope" and making moderation decisions based on what they find inside.

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

#110

Post by timbit42 »

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…

They should be liable for manipulating the feed. Show everything the person is following and nothing else, and show it in chronological order.
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