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You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

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Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#71

Post by topkai22 »

ricardo81 wrote: post #46
topkai22 wrote: post #10

I was struck by a thought while reading the article- are the feeds of social media companies actually protected under section 230? My Facebook feed is more than just a simple serving of my friends content, it’s a work in and of itself (like a collection of essays). It seems like a stretch given that the law states that they can’t be considered the publisher of “information” provided by others, but possible as these s…

>liable for Think 10-15 years ago looking at the concept of these centralised platforms it'd pretty obvious any kind of arbitration would not be scalable and therefore there wouldn't be. I mean, the business model depends on it. I'm not a fan of them being arbiters of truth, also not a fan of there being 10's of thousands of blatant copyright infractions on their platforms daily which they monetise. I don't think the…

I think there needs to be a distinction between information seeking and passive interaction. If I go onto twitter and go to DPRK News (https://twitter.com/DPRK_News , quite a good parody account) it's clear that DPRK News is the publisher of all the information and twitter is the hoster. I'm seeking the information in the DPRK News feed.

When I'm just flipping through twitter's infinite scroll then I'm not really seeking anything in particular than twitter is acting like a traditional editor- choosing the content I see. It's a different activity.

I think platforms that choose content on behalf of the user need to have a different set of obligations than those that serve content based on user requests, an those obligations go up with scale. It's one thing to have a fake story or illegal content be seen by 100 friends, its another to feed it to 100,000 people.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#72

Post by lovecg »

rubatuga wrote: post #33
lovecg wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a general anxiety of a big company taking a way a big chunk of your life on a whim. It’s not fun to be banned by Google or Amazon. I’m not doing anything wrong to get banned, but that seems backwards somehow. (“don’t break the law and you have nothing to worry about” gives off the same creepy vibe). It’s a similar feeling when driving next to cop while doing nothing wrong or dealing with a government bureaucr…

This is probably not the response you wanted, but I think it's an argument for decentralized and federated services, along with self-hosting.

I admittedly don’t know much about this space, but there must be a reason these solutions didn’t take off (I don’t know whether it’s fundamental scaling issues, lack of a centralized group driving product design, or just lack of user interest as existing solutions are “good enough” + network effects). But if the market is failing to select for these approaches it seems that the only way forward is to shape the market rules somewhat. Outright banning everything centralized seems heavy-handed to me, so it might be that the only practical outcome is less centralization we have now, but not none.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#73

Post by heavyset_go »

awb wrote: post #4

> if you're in a real rush, just read Section (c)(1), which is only 26 words, and is the part that basically every single court decision (and there have been many) has relied on. > (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information…

> Wouldn't repealing Section 230 mean more censorship and restrictions as the liability would be too great to be on the hook for what some random account might decide to publish, no?

Yes, no one is going to run a service that hosts user created content if doing so means that they can be raided by the FBI in the middle of the night should a user find it funny to upload illegal content to a company's servers.

Only entities that can throw millions or billions of dollars at censoring illegal content would take on the risk of hosting user uploaded content on their own servers.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#74

Post by ricardo81 »

topkai22 wrote: post #71
ricardo81 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>liable for Think 10-15 years ago looking at the concept of these centralised platforms it'd pretty obvious any kind of arbitration would not be scalable and therefore there wouldn't be. I mean, the business model depends on it. I'm not a fan of them being arbiters of truth, also not a fan of there being 10's of thousands of blatant copyright infractions on their platforms daily which they monetise. I don't think the…

I think there needs to be a distinction between information seeking and passive interaction. If I go onto twitter and go to DPRK News ( https://twitter.com/DPRK_News , quite a good parody account) it's clear that DPRK News is the publisher of all the information and twitter is the hoster. I'm seeking the information in the DPRK News feed. When I'm just flipping through twitter's infinite scroll then I'm not really se…

Agreed. I'd also add it's important how you discover DPRK News in the first place e.g. if it was recommended somehow via the platform.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#75

Post by libraryatnight »

awb wrote: post #4

> if you're in a real rush, just read Section (c)(1), which is only 26 words, and is the part that basically every single court decision (and there have been many) has relied on. > (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information…

yes, that's what shut down craigslist personals.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#76

Post by ehnto »

awb wrote: post #4

> if you're in a real rush, just read Section (c)(1), which is only 26 words, and is the part that basically every single court decision (and there have been many) has relied on. > (c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information…

> Wouldn't repealing Section 230 mean more censorship and restrictions as the liability would be too great to be on the hook for what some random account might decide to publish, no?

I can't tell you what it means for US law, as I don't know what laws surround this. I can tell you that the lack of safe harbor laws has stopped me from making certain technology products in my country though, as the risk is too great.

Give people an upload mechanism and inevitably it will receive material that could land you in jail. Maybe it comes from users, maybe it comes from bots, it doesn't matter. If you're on the hook, it's a no brainer to not get involved if there are no laws protecting your platform from liability.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#77

Post by Acrobatic_Road »

TameAntelope wrote: post #70
NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today we had 4 tech billionaires/CEOs telling us what politicians we’re allowed to hear from or talk about. That’s not OK.

What part of being banned from Twitter prevents someone from being heard? Also, who is getting banned for talking about the politicians? #2, #7, and #8 (obliquely) on trending right now are about the main politician who was banned...

I don't care about Trump getting banned from twitter. I care about the coordinated takedown of parler by google, apple and soon amazon. Section 230 is supposed to protect free speech on the internet by shielding platforms of legal liability for user generated content. But if a few tech monopolies can just kick a platform off the internet because they don't like its user generated content then what the hell is the point? Section 230 is only useful if you still have a platform to a protect.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#78

Post by kennywinker »

h_anna_h wrote: post #52
kennywinker wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What law would that be? Internet service providers must provide their service to everyone? Great, now it’s illegal to kick people off your minecraft server and the new york times MUST publish my op-ed. Twitter gave orange-julius cesar a platform, they can take it away.

Isn't it already illegal to kick people off your minecraft server if it is due certain characteristics (such as sexuality)?

I am not a lawyer, but I think it depends on if a minecraft server is the kind of space covered by non discrimination laws - seems a bit dubious to me as it feels more like a community gathering place (where you can have e.g. women-only spaces), but i suspect its not been tested ever.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#79

Post by zerocrates »

NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #64
zerocrates wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The snark isn't directed so much at people who want repeal (though techdirt pretty clearly would disagree with them on that point also) but rather at the very large contingent of people who express with total conviction that the law right now draws lines between neutral "platforms" who are protected and biased "publishers" who are not, when the law in fact does the exact opposite.

> when the law in fact does the exact opposite Yes. That’s exactly the problem people who want it repealed are pointing out: the current law offers broad blanket protection to social media companies to moderate content however they want, even if their moderation practices are highly editorial and partisan, akin to traditional publishers. Techdirt seems to think people don’t understand that the law doesn’t distinguish…

There are an enormous number of people who say things like, "by doing X, Twitter (replace as needed) is no longer a platform and loses its protection."

Not in the sense of, that's how it ought to be or that a change in the law will bring it about, but under a belief that that's how things already are.

The balance has shifted a bit as calls for its repeal have become louder, so "repeal 230" is now a much more common response to disliked moderation actions, but you still don't have to look far to find people saying that a ban or notice or whatever "violates section 230."

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#80

Post by EE84M3i »

TameAntelope wrote: post #69
Meekro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, repealing section 230 would result in more censorship, not less. But I think "repeal section 230" has been shorthand slogan for a more detailed set of proposals (much like "defund the police" doesn't mean $0 budgets for all law enforcement). For example, see the DoJ's proposal to amend and clarify section 230 [1] [2]. Among other changes, they suggest limiting the extent to which a platform can moderate…

For what it's worth, "Defund the police" does literally mean "reduce funding to what we currently refer to as the police force" whereas "repeal section 230" couldn't (in your interpretation) literally mean "strike section 230 from the US code". The reality is what this article outlines towards the end; this is already covered by the 1st Amendment in large part, Section 230 does the bulk of its work in simplifying cou…

>For what it's worth, "Defund the police" does literally mean "reduce funding to what we currently refer to as the police force"

I think the relevant part is that one definition of "defund" is (from Google answer box/featured snippet, only provided definition):

>prevent from continuing to receive funds.

So some people upon first hearing the phrase "defund the police" understand it to mean "prevent the police from continuing to receive funds". Without any qualification, this is naturally understood to mean "all funds", which is not the concrete policy proposal behind (what seems to be most uses of) the phrase.

I myself had this understanding of the phrase "defund the police" when I first heard it (which is not something that I would support) but I do support most of the concrete policy proposals behind the "defund the police" movement that involve reallocating funds from the police to social services and other programs. I would be hesitatant to use the phrase myself though, because this interpretation seems quite common among people not "extremely online".

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