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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

#41

Post by IAmEveryone »

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…

> suggesting that without it companies would be inherently violating the law any time one of their users violated the law,

Well, that’s almost literally what immunity means in this case. I’ve read that post of yours you linked downthread, and you’re basically just saying “courts will be wise enough and make reasonable decisions”.

I’m somewhat sympathetic to some expansion of liability. Revenge porn, for example, shouldn’t exist. That’s real harm being done every day to real people. And the tube sites are not just unwilling to spend money on moderating uploads. They obviously know that a large percentage of uploads are made without full consent, and that content represents a significant chunk of their revenue.

BUT Sec 230 is specifically aimed to indemnify websites that do try to moderate content. Before Sec 230 there was a brief period of time where that theory everyone on the internet believes in even though it is completely stupid was actually true, namely that the act of moderating some content somehow creates an obligation to moderate all content.

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

#42

Post by BubRoss »

TechBro8615 wrote: post #17
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 ?

Telegram does the same thing. In fact, so does Instagram, which I find most egregious, since it asks for your number for 2FA purposes then notifies anyone who has your number saved that you’ve joined. Every coach, recruiter, drug dealer or one night stand I’ve had in my life doesn’t need to know when I sign up to Instagram. Some of them might not have even had my real name until they got that notification. IMO this s…

That's almost worse than having no volume control in their interface, even for their desktop site.

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

#43

Post by propinquity »

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

The Signal App, which is open source, periodically sends truncated cryptographically hashed phone numbers to the Signal server, which is also open source. The server does not store the truncated hashes that the app sends to the server. So, they only temporarily have partial hashes which they do not store or share with anyone.

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

#44

Post by IAmEveryone »

saferalt wrote: post #37
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does it "generally account for scale"? Citation needed. The GDPR has a fine structure of up to 4% of world-wide turnover or €20 million. Whichever is HIGHER. That means for any company doing less than say, €20 million in revenue and found to be non-compliant, GDPR gives the legal authority to fine them out of existence. I only mention GDPR as a specific example because of the familiarity here, but the general pattern…

You’re conveniently ignoring that the percentage-based fine structure in itself is almost literally “accounting for scale”.

The minimum (of the maximum) set by the “whichever is higher” clause is needed to remain effective with non- and low-revenue entities. Something like Clearview (universal face recognition but startup with little revenue) would otherwise be free to ignore the law.

If your small company does enough damage to warrant a 20 million fine, it probably deserves to die. These fines also aren’t assessed arbitrarily: there’s a specific list of factors to take into account, and all decisions are subject to judicial review under the established principles of proportionality.

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

#45

Post by ocdtrekkie »

dfee wrote: post #39
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

this is an interesting counter-counter-argument i've not seen before. does discussion of this sort of derivative behavior exist elsewhere? i.e. is there an established narrative of incumbents pushing against regulatory capture, or examples of this behavior?

It's just a general behavioral trend I (and plenty of others) have noticed in arguments against regulation coming from monopolies. When a big tech company claims a regulation it dislikes would hurt newer players from competing with it, you have to ask... why are they so opposed then?

Is it out of the goodness of their hearts that large companies complain about regulation hurting small businesses? Or is it because the regulation will cost them a ton of money they'd rather keep in the bank, and they know they already have enough market capture to continue to obliterate small businesses either way?

When someone says that regulations on large companies will actually hurt small businesses, the first thing you should do, is look who is claiming that, and see where they get their funding from. It's almost always a think tank funded by the biggest player in the market being discussed.

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

#46

Post by IAmEveryone »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #40
danShumway wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, and they wouldn't be by any informed understanding of the law. You are misinformed about the history of 230. 230 was proposed exactly because the law was interpreted the way you're saying it wouldn't be. From Wikipedia below, added emphasis mine: > This concern was raised by legal challenges against CompuServe and Prodigy, early service providers at this time. CompuServe stated they would not attempt to regulat…

But in a world where we feel it was backwards that moderators were punished and unmoderated platforms weren't... Congress decided "let's just make everyone immune" was the right way to go? And again, I think the examples here are missing the same concept that Section 230 fails to recognize: Profit, as I discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816016 It seems like the author of Section 230 failed to rec…

That example has absolutely nothing to do with Sec 230. Google’s ad design is all on Google. If it were illegal, Sec 230 wouldn’t protect them. And while Google might be protected against liability for Mapquest’s business practices, Mapquest isn’t. If their behavior is harmful and illegal, they are liable.

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

#47

Post by akersten »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #29
ptudan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 . Whe…

> Section 230 is a failure because Section 230 removes any financial incentive for platforms to moderate responsibility.

What in the world does "moderate responsibility" mean? It's their site, they get to decide what goes on it as long as it's legal. If it's not legal, it has to be removed anyway!

> 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.

Yeah okay, fight for that then. This legislation isn't that.

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

#48

Post by novok »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #25
marcinzm wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The GDPR does not explicitly account for scale in practice, but pretends you're a $300 million dollar business, with the resources to do proper GDPR compliance, which is why the response of many small businesses is to stop serving europeans. And these businesses had nothing to do with privacy invasion, such as classes you pay for, paid note taking apps an so on.

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

#49

Post by ocdtrekkie »

IAmEveryone wrote: post #46
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in a world where we feel it was backwards that moderators were punished and unmoderated platforms weren't... Congress decided "let's just make everyone immune" was the right way to go? And again, I think the examples here are missing the same concept that Section 230 fails to recognize: Profit, as I discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816016 It seems like the author of Section 230 failed to rec…

That example has absolutely nothing to do with Sec 230. Google’s ad design is all on Google. If it were illegal, Sec 230 wouldn’t protect them. And while Google might be protected against liability for Mapquest’s business practices, Mapquest isn’t. If their behavior is harmful and illegal, they are liable.

MapQuest did nothing wrong in this example. The problem is the fake sites that are taking the top spot in search results above the legitimate MapQuest link when you search Google for MapQuest, and Google refuses to delist them. And of course, Google lets people buy ads for other companies' trademarks, which is a whole different ball of issues.

(MapQuest is a popular one for malicious sites to pretend to be because most of the people searching for it are seniors... they heard about it twenty years ago and then never moved on from searching for it when they want directions somewhere.)

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

#50

Post by ftvy »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #29
ptudan wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 . Whe…

Begs the question: who defines "bad content"?
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