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Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

wsj.com

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Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#41

Post by seemslegit »

Communitivity wrote: post #25
seemslegit wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I suppose you have done research on the Irish legal system, its liability protections for 3rd party content providers, its jurisprudence on hate speech, defamation and libel ? (hint: it's part of the EU)

I have not, and never claimed I did. I said it looks good on paper. A number of sources have said it is startup friendly. If the EU's laws are so burdensome, why is there a thriving startup ecosystem in the EU? I have read about EU's stances on hate speech, defamation, and libel (though I wouldn't call that hobby reading research), and I am fine with their stances. I think we could use more hate speech protection, wh…

> If the EU's laws are so burdensome, why is there a thriving startup ecosystem in the EU? I have read about EU's stances on hate speech, defamation, and libel (though I wouldn't call that hobby reading research), and I am fine with their stances.

There is nothing particularly thriving about it. There are just a lot of them because it costs almost nothing to incorporate a company and 'startup' sounds cooler than a 'small consulting business' or a 'software house'.

Can you name many EU startups that IPOd or got acquired for an impressive amount during the last decade or were even considered "unicorns" at any point by anyone other than themselves ?

In any case, Section 230 isn't about startups per se but specifically about 3rd party content providers - know any such companies that are EU-based ?

> I think we could use more hate speech protection, when I see reports that as much as 60% of the tweets in the current U.S. political conversations are done by biased bots.

Have you considered the possibility of those reports being disseminated by biased bots ?

> And no, I am firmly against EARN IT and the other 230 attacks. We need internet legislation that is thoughtful, created by technical SME staffers and constitutional law SME staffers, not broad-brush legislation pandering to votes, FUD, or special interests.

You sound confused. How do you expect those hate speech protections to materialize if not by modifying or cancelling Section 230 ? I mean there's always the option of cancelling the 1st amendment - no one seems to like that pesky thing anyway today.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#42

Post by bilbo0s »

throwawaygh wrote: post #28

I'm generally sympathetic to the idea that Section 230 protections should come with some sort of obligation to allow free speech. However, the actual policy proposals for replacing Section 230 are all outright dystopian. Josh Hawley, in particular, is NOT a free speech advocate. His problem with Facebook/Tiwtter is perceived liberal bias, and the alternatives to Section 230 that he suggests are 100% about wrestling e…

I don't have a good proposal really, but I agree that "politically appointed board" is exactly the worst thing we could have. That's the point where true free speech advocates will have suffered total defeat.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#43

Post by akersten »

throwaway_USD wrote: post #38
akersten wrote: post #24

Can someone who supports "let's hold internet platforms responsible for what their users do on their platform" explain how that's any different than "let's hold gun manufacturers responsible for what users do with their guns?" I fail to see a difference between the two, and think both are untenable fantasies.

>"let's hold gun manufacturers responsible for what users do with their guns?" I fail to see a difference between the two, and think both are untenable fantasies. Sometimes the arms dealers (sellers not manufacture) are liable for the actions of the gun owners. There is no shortage of cases, I searched Walmart (because Walmart scale), but some examples: 1. Walmart Settles Lawsuit for Selling Gun Used in Murder by Neo…

> Sellers of guns and ammunition assumed they were protected from liability by the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act.

On that angle, why are the folks arguing "a few big tech companies have had immunity for too long, they have too much influence," not also arguing "a few gun manufacturers have had immunity for too long and have too much influence?" To me, providing a tool to kill and facing no consequence is a lot more influence than Twitter enforcing their terms of service.

To be clear, I don't think weapons companies should be responsible for what people do with their products. I certainly don't think tech companies should be responsible for what people do with their products, either.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#44

Post by bcrosby95 »

Be careful of what you ask for.

Section 230 exists because the courts punished Prodigy because they tried to moderate their forums but did it imperfectly, but didn't punish CompuServe because they let anything go. The idea is to allow imperfect moderation in addition to both zero and perfect moderation.

The internet without section 230 isn't a bastion of internet freedom. It's 4chan and 8chan. It's a shithole.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#45

Post by 0134340 »

belltaco wrote: post #35
arkades wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't see the difference between "let's hold companies responsible for what people do as part of utilizing their services, while utilizing their services" and "let's hold companies responsible for what people do with an item they have purchased once entirely out of the supervision of that company, without any possible oversight or control"? I can't hold a skateboard co. responsible for what people do with skatebo…

By that logic you would hold the phone company responsible for calls and texts happening over their network.

Someone correct me if wrong but I think phone co's can get away with it as they're deemed an information carrier instead of a host. Besides, calls and texts are rather benign, it's visual media that tends to attract the most calls for censorship, not to also mention that real-time censorship of text and voice would be infeasible but much more viable for an information/media host.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#46

Post by tw04 »

A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #10
scarface74 wrote: post #5

And this is all because the President got mad at Twitter on the right and the left always think more government is the answer. This is what happens when you get government involvement in tech.

No. Nothing is ever this simple. Even cursory search would show that this is an ongoing saga linked to LEOs displeasure with encryption. I am not a fan of Trump personally, but no reason to let it cloud your judgment.

It literally is about Trump being angry that Twitter fact checked his outright lies about mail-in voting.

There are absolutely other powers that stand to benefit, or are pushing the agenda as well, but to claim it's not a result of Trump's hissy fit is ridiculous.

https://deadline.com/2020/05/donald-trump-twitter-social-med...

The executive order was signed by exactly one individual who was completely open about why he was signing it.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#47

Post by arkades »

0134340 wrote: post #45
belltaco wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that logic you would hold the phone company responsible for calls and texts happening over their network.

Someone correct me if wrong but I think phone co's can get away with it as they're deemed an information carrier instead of a host. Besides, calls and texts are rather benign, it's visual media that tends to attract the most calls for censorship, not to also mention that real-time censorship of text and voice would be infeasible but much more viable for an information/media host.

And phone companies don't play an editorial role in determining what calls you get to hear, and who hears yours. Newspapers are responsible, even when they're publishing someone else's submission to them.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#48

Post by nothisisamerica »

save_ferris wrote: post #12
scarface74 wrote: post #5

And this is all because the President got mad at Twitter on the right and the left always think more government is the answer. This is what happens when you get government involvement in tech.

Why isn't the market holding Facebook accountable for the numerous transgressions we've seen coming out of that company over the last several years? Because people don't understand or care how the money is made, which fundamentally undermines the argument that the market is always right. From broad, repeated invasions of online privacy to numerous scandals involving state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, Facebook…

Facebook was fined $5,000,000,000 by the FTC for what the president's chief executive of campaign's company (Cambridge Analytics) did: they used military info ops on American people in an election.

And now they want editorial control over publicly owned information services?

Why don't they (the installed alt-right) go claim that the government deserves editorial control of the papers as well?

Clearly that's the issue needing attention here; not obstructing an obstruction investigation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook–Cambridge_Analytica_d... and up a bit further: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCL_Group

The current administration just gave away $500,000,000,000 of taxpayers' money and now won't even release the list of who took the money?

And you think that the problem is Facebook's editorial transparency and lack of accountability?

Kindly review https://usaspending.gov and tell me where our money is going

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#49

Post by vorpalhex »

akersten wrote: post #29
vnchr wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Internet platforms maintain control over their system whereas gun manufacturers give away control to gun buyers. The gun manufacturer ceases to maintain control and cannot be assigned responsibility after the sale of the good.

So if a gun manufacturer did keep control over their gun, like with an electronic targeting system making decisions on behalf of the user[0], by the control argument, wouldn't they then have a responsibility to make sure it's used appropriately? [0]: https://www.tracking-point.com/ (Yeah it's an aftermarket product, but for argument's sake, let's say it was 1st party)

You really misunderstand the tracking-point platform. It's a holdover system to calculate windage and drop on a moving target locally on the system, not some kind of visual analysis engine that does target determination.

It provides "Hey, you need this much windage" not a shoot/no-shoot decision. It's also entirely on-system so the customer owns it, it's not running somewhere in the cloud.

Re: Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections

#50

Post by vorpalhex »

tw04 wrote: post #46
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Nothing is ever this simple. Even cursory search would show that this is an ongoing saga linked to LEOs displeasure with encryption. I am not a fan of Trump personally, but no reason to let it cloud your judgment.

It literally is about Trump being angry that Twitter fact checked his outright lies about mail-in voting. There are absolutely other powers that stand to benefit, or are pushing the agenda as well, but to claim it's not a result of Trump's hissy fit is ridiculous. https://deadline.com/2020/05/donald-trump-twitter-social-med... The executive order was signed by exactly one individual who was completely open about why…

This was being proposed by Barr and co a few months ago, the current Twitter debacle (A tweetacle? Tweetgate?) just happens to be an excellent case to push it forward with support.

Before that it was proposed repeatedly by several Democrats, especially during the Birther nonsense.

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