This is essentially putting penalties in place if social media companies use dark patterns in their algorithms behind the scenes. Long term, this is good for everyone.
DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
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Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Enlight us. For example, calling for the murders of specific people based on their political views or races don’t fall under the first. And social medias allow the spread of some of these messages with no consequences at the moment.
So if I sent a note with the content you just described to everyone I know via UPS and you define this content as a crime, then UPS should be held liable in facilitating this crime? So therefore UPS needs to inspect the content of every package that it delivers to avoid culpability in crimes like this? Or somehow UPS is different from a social media entity. Then what legally is a social media entity? These are intere…
If the UPS was already opening the mail of everyone to add its own pamphlets when you discuss x or y, yes they should be responsible for facilitating crime that they know of then.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#63Phrases like "has an objectively
reasonable belief" give me chills and is RIPE for abuse.
Also, modifying the language of Civil Liability to include good faith efforts for language that could be deemed "unlawful" is .... sneaky, and again, ripe for abuse.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#64[deleted]
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think you understand the first amendment.
Enlight us. For example, calling for the murders of specific people based on their political views or races don’t fall under the first. And social medias allow the spread of some of these messages with no consequences at the moment.
The First Amendment does protect that though. As long as the speech isn't intended to incite imminent lawless action, calling for murders is absolutely protected.
E.g. "We should go harm X" is arguably illegal, since it's an immediate call to action.
However, "It'd be great if X died" or "All Y should die" are certainly protected.
In the same vein, this is why "Punch a Nazi" is totally legal: assault is illegal, but you're not immediately inciting a lawless action. "Let's go punch that Nazi", less so.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#66It looks like this makes service providers liable for illegal content if they do not keep logs for 1 year? Am I reading that correctly?
It’s not just illegal content , it includes “facilitation” of any illegal activity. The logs are only required when law enforcement notifies you of the activity. But if they think you know about the activity and are consciously promoting it, they don’t even need to notify you. My guess is they will probably revise this part.
After hosting militia organization and planning pages, would Facebook be liable for the Kenosha shootings under this legislation?
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#67An interesting tidbit I found after some digging:
"Carve-Out for Actors Who Purposefully Blind Themselves and Law Enforcement to Illicit Material" The recommendations suggest that sec. 230 protections not be extended to platforms that intentionally structure themselves in a way to make giving information to law enforcement difficult or impossible. This probably bodes poorly for private by design forums with aggressive log flushing policies (I'm specifically thinking of things like 4chan, which claims to permanently and irrevocably delete data aggressively).
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#68I think that’s fine to ask social medias to choose between being a publisher or a platform. It’s perfectly fine to push your point of view online as it’s protected by the first. But you should bare consequences for the cases not protected by the first.
I think that most of them should remain platforms, but that recommendation algorithms should be treated as publishers. So a reverse chronological feed would be protected by 230, while publishers would be liable for the contents in an algorithmic feed. People can subscribe to whatever sketchy content they want, but it won't be pushed to people that didn't ask for it.
Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#69The changes to the existing “Good Samaritan” section basically do what they said they were going to do: change it so that the section about providers not being publishers and the section about liability for blocking are independent, and clarify what “good faith” in blocking means. Basically the standard for civil immunity is slightly higher for blocking content than providing content. This is weird and still a big ch…
Can you explain more why the section is particularly disastrous? I agree that it's a dumb name.
The section: (1) “BAD SAMARITAN” CARVE-OUT. Subsection
(c)(1) shall not apply in any criminal prosecution under
State law or any State or Federal civil action brought
against an interactive computer service provider if, at
the time of the facts giving rise to the prosecution or
action, the service provider acted purposefully with the
conscious object to promote, solicit, or facilitate
material or activity by another information content
provider that the service provider knew or had reason to
believe would violate Federal criminal law, if knowingly
disseminated or engaged in.Re: DOJ unveils proposed Section 230 legislation
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Enlight us. For example, calling for the murders of specific people based on their political views or races don’t fall under the first. And social medias allow the spread of some of these messages with no consequences at the moment.
That's not exactly true. "Speech is not protected by the First Amendment if the speaker intends to incite a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely." Someone randomly spouting off that people of a race or ideology should be wiped out doesn't always/exactly pass this legal test.
Great point. Visit any US neo-Nazi website and you’ll see language that one could argue is “threatening to a specific group”. But unless it’s “hey, everyone gather at 5 pm on Main St so we can start shooting people”, it’s still protected language.