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230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

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Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#21

Post by marcinzm »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

Regulation of this sort generally just helps the incumbent players create a better moat around themselves. They can pay for the AI and humans to moderate things while newcomers can't. So it's question of trading of user benefit against giving even more power to Big Tech.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#22

Post by seibelj »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

Uhh... disagree? Even a 5 person startup should be responsible for every single thing their users post? Or do you want some arbitrary line of employees above which it’s illegal and below which it’s fine?

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#23

Post by ori_b »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

Do you think that any blog with a comments section should be legally responsible for spammers posting on it?

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#24

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ori_b wrote: post #23
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

Do you think that any blog with a comments section should be legally responsible for spammers posting on it?

No, and they wouldn't be by any informed understanding of the law. That's not how the law has ever worked in any developed society.

Generally, law has both the concept of intent and reasonableness. As such, a company that inadequately polices malicious and abusive content because that content is wildly profitable (hi Google and Facebook), we should have the legal ability to fine these companies into oblivion, because their behavior is not reasonable and the intent behind it can be divined from their records.

Meanwhile, if you an individual with a blog, see someone making a bad comment on your blog and you ban the person, the law would recognize that as a pretty reasonable moderation practice.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#25

Post by ocdtrekkie »

marcinzm wrote: post #21
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

Regulation of this sort generally just helps the incumbent players create a better moat around themselves. They can pay for the AI and humans to moderate things while newcomers can't. So it's question of trading of user benefit against giving even more power to Big Tech.

This is the standard scream of incumbent players when they want to discourage regulation. It both ignores the fact that what's "reasonable" for an incumbent monopoly and a small startup are different, and that the law generally accounts for scale.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#26

Post by ptudan »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

I can understand companies not being protected from profiting off of ads that come before viral lies (facebook, youtube), especially when the companies have a hand in spreading them with algorithms promoting addiction.

But if they're not promoting the content, and aren't profiting from it in a different way than other content, we can't hold them responsible. These providers create platforms. Would you hold CVS responsible for selling me the tape/sharpie/poster board to make a racist sign?

If I create a twitter clone, post it online, and it somehow blows up overnight with child porn and terrorism, why do I deserve to be punished?

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#27

Post by ocdtrekkie »

seibelj wrote: post #22
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

Uhh... disagree? Even a 5 person startup should be responsible for every single thing their users post? Or do you want some arbitrary line of employees above which it’s illegal and below which it’s fine?

I'll refer you to my response here, on why people claiming that's the alternative isn't really accurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815922

But no, there shouldn't be an arbitrary line. Judges can make fair determinations on when a company is or is not doing a reasonable job controlling abuse on their platform, and the profit motivations behind those decisions.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#28

Post by ajconway »

ape4 wrote: post #18
eximius wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contact Discovery is not seen as privacy invasive, I guess. It says, X has Signal, but that's it. So I see how it is, strictly speaking, broadcasting 'private' information, but it is hard to care terribly. I'm far more concerned by the privacy of my conversations than the fact I at one point installed signal.

But it means they have slurped all your contacts. How are they stored? Who are they shared with? etc

It's really not a secret https://signal.org/blog/secure-value-recovery/

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#29

Post by ocdtrekkie »

ptudan wrote: post #26
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #15

EARN IT is pretty disingenuous in how it is designed, of course, but I am all for making it harder and harder to retain Section 230 immunity: It's a mistake that we allow it in the first place. We should indeed continue to erode the eligibility for Section 230 to the point that either the limitations of remaining eligible for immunity makes it easy for competitors to produce better offerings without immunity, or that…

I can understand companies not being protected from profiting off of ads that come before viral lies (facebook, youtube), especially when the companies have a hand in spreading them with algorithms promoting addiction. But if they're not promoting the content, and aren't profiting from it in a different way than other content, we can't hold them responsible. These providers create platforms. Would you hold CVS respon…

"Would you hold CVS responsible for selling me the tape/sharpie/poster board to make a racist sign?"

No, but I'd hold CVS responsible for displaying the sign in their stores.

"But if they're not promoting the content, and aren't profiting from it in a different way than other content, we can't hold them responsible."

That's the biggest issue Section 230 fails to account for: These companies are profiting off it. When Google or Facebook take down content, they still keep the profits they got from advertising it. Some of the most long-running ads on high traffic search terms on Google distribute malware, and they refuse to delist them due to the amount of money they make. Facebook refuses to restrict blatant lies on political ads because those political ads make it a huge amount of money.

Section 230 is a failure because Section 230 removes any financial incentive for platforms to moderate responsibility. If we were to replace Section 230, rather than removing it entirely, we would need a solution that makes it inherently expensive to host bad content, such that platforms are strongly incentivized to hire qualified staff to moderate and manage content.

If I report harmful content on Twitter or Facebook or Google, we need a system that ensures I receive a non-automated, competent response, and that the company is legally responsible for the decision they just made, such that they can't pawn it off on an algorithm or someone making 5 cents an hour.

Re: 230, or not 230? That is the EARN IT question

#30

Post by dublinben »

AndyMcConachie wrote: post #9
seemslegit wrote: post #2

Is signal still demonstrating their commitment to my privacy by notifying everyone with my number in their phone contacts who is also on signal when I join ?

Why is this downvoted?

It's off topic of the submitted article.
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