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And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people send using their services. The big difference of course is that digital services are m

And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people send using their services. The big difference of course is that digital services are much closer in effect to being a broadcast service, and the costs are much much lower than phones or snail mail. So to say that these policies are exceptionalism is bending the truth, when in fact it is a faulty, leaky, middle ground between old world information transmission systems; private (phones), semi public (snail mail, think spam, political pamphlets), and public (mainstream media). We live in an imperfect world and this is yet another example. The pendulum will nevertheless swing the other way for a while.

wang_li 10y ago
>And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people send using their services. Phone companies and postal services don't directly profit from the contents of conversations, letters, and packages. Google, Facebook, and so on, directly profit from the content, not from providing the service.
- fraserharris 10y ago
  Counter: if your phone service was free, but you had to listen to a pre-call ad every time you answer the phone, do you think the phone company is now liable for damages caused by the content of the call?
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    You mean from all the broken windows from having chucked my phone because of the crappy ads?
- ucaetano 10y ago
  They don't profit from the content, they profit from the service of providing the content (ads). Bloomberg is one that profits from the content.
- tankenmate 10y ago
  Yes, this is entirely true, hence why it is a leaky analogy. And yes, a growing number of people are upset. But the genie can't be put back in the bottle; there will almost certainly be some push back, and possibly some regulation that the, us, techies won't like. But the internet tries very hard to route around issues, be they technical, social, regulatory. There will always be a dark underbelly because the net was created by, and is used by us humans. You'll never be able to protect everyone. Just like every other protection issue; regulation, light or heavy, comes in waves. Humans, collectively, are notoriously bad at risk management, exigent threats always seem worse and distant ones in the future are always discounted.
- DannyBee 10y ago
  "Phone companies and postal services don't directly profit from the contents of conversations, letters, and packages." Uh, outside of the postal service, they absolutely do. Do you believe your phone company is not selling data about who you call? They also track websites, etc, you visit when you use their mobile data networks.
- caseysoftware 10y ago
  I think that's a broken comparison. In both cases, the networks benefit from the fact that data/information/voice/messages are flowing over them.. almost some sort of effect. ;) I don't think the content is the important part in either case but the fact that the platform is the place to distribute it.
- cestith 10y ago
  Oh, but so near in the past were the days that the phone company made more money the more time you spent on a dialed call. They absolutely had an interest in helping you connect and send your message. Phone companies also sold Yellow Page ads. Print shops typically have a waiver that you own what you're paying them to print and that you're not publishing illegal content. Then they take that content, print it, and send it to you to mail out or otherwise distribute. In extreme cases they can see up front that you're lying, and will refuse the job. However, FedEx Kinkos in most cases is not liable for the speech you pay them to replicate.
anigbrowl 10y ago
I'd add only that all the ground is faulty and leaky. Law is in many ways the application of logic to largely arbitrary social norms qua premises.
aeturnum 10y ago
> digital services are much closer in effect to being a broadcast service One of the points from the article is that many of these players (e.g. facebook, uber, etc) are not simple broadcast services, but select content from an available pool for users. It seems like 2010 Facebook, with its simple feed algorithm, can much more credibly claim to be an impartial carrier of content a'la the postal service. I wonder if the influence of a platform on content selection will become legally important for regulation.
- Natsu 10y ago
  It ultimately comes down to who makes the rules and who the companies have to answer to in the end, I think. Though I must say that the article had a rather odd way of stating that, with their use of the word 'sovereignty' in this sentence: > Governments and courts are chipping away at the sovereignty of internet firms, and public opinion is pushing them to police themselves better.
234dd57d2c8dba 10y ago
Yes, well the phone company isn't listening in on what you're saying and deciding if it's "fake news" or not and disconnecting you if it is "fake news". Facebook has no one to blame but themselves for going into the role of "internet police" and giving up their safe harbour provision. You can't have it both ways, you can't be an open platform under the protections of safe harbour and a curated feed with censorship.
- lacksconfidence 10y ago
  Isn't safe harbor something else? safe harbor explicitly refers to the DMCA but this article seems to be about an older provision of the Communications Decency Act
  - cgriswald 10y ago
    A safe harbor is a law or part of a law that provides immunity from liability or makes legal behavior that could otherwise be considered criminal in certain circumstances. The safe harbors of the DMCA are one example.
- devwastaken 10y ago
  Actually, postal companies do filter packages and mail. If you write 'obscene' writing on the outside, USPS will keep the package, and not give it to the end address even if requested. IdubbzTV, a youtube channel that features 'fanmail' videos of an obscene nature has had a lot of problems with that.
  - rosser 10y ago
    That's still materially different from choosing whether to deliver the package based on its contents, and it's that behavior that jeopardizes Facebook's "safe harbor" status.
Shivetya 10y ago
Well I tend to think they also have deeper pockets and are more concerned with public perception than phone and mail are. Some of it has to do with the fact people don't see them as indispensable so they have to not be to belligerent standing up for themselves.
yabatopia 10y ago
But digital services do actively censor posts, even if your post is perfectly legal. Postal services do not destroy letters with pictures of nipples in it, just try to post an image of a female breast on Facebook. If they can censor nipples, they can actively filter hate speech or abusive posts just fine. Claimining it's too difficult to monitor posts pro–actively was probably true in 2005, but not anymore. Right now, platforms like Facebook are eating cake and having it too.
- jbuzbee 10y ago
  they can actively filter hate speech or abusive posts just fine And how, pray tell, do you identify "hate speech"? Who's the judge? You're going to get a different answer in Iran than you do in Switzerland. Not to mention the obvious, that the answer to to speech you don't like, is more speech, not censorship.
  - bgw 10y ago
    Disregarding context in a narrow focus image, how can you differentiate between male and female nipples?
    - yorwba 10y ago
      Look at the curvature of the surrounding skin. I bet even a CNN could learn it.
    - stevekemp 10y ago
      Take a look at the following instagram account, where somebody is posting pictures that are delightfully ambiguous: https://www.instagram.com/genderless_nipples/ https://www.instagram.com/genderless_nipples/ This has been written up on a few news-sites, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/genderless-nipples-generates-50000-followers-on-instagram https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/genderless-nip...
  - Sacho 10y ago
    Well, parent's argument is that Facebook is already deciding which speech they don't like, so they're already doing some kind of identification. The question then becomes, can government compel them to change that definition to meet laws and regulations that the govt. wants to enforce? Companies already cater to national laws, e.g. Twitter censoring accounts in Turkey on the behest of their government.
edblarney 10y ago
"And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people send using their services. " Postal service does not read your mail, phone companies (are not supposed to) listen in on your calls. 'Internet companies' deal directly with the content of the material. Notice that 'email hosts' are not the issue here. It's Google/FB/Twitter etc.. Not taking any position on the issue, but this is a rathe salient difference.
MR4D 10y ago
I would argue that companies like Twitter, which exercise substantial censorship, are incurring substantial liability in doing so. The price of free speech is high, and I think that some of the big firms are about to find that out. The effect on users could turn out for the better, but I'm not holding my breath.

wang_li 10y ago

>And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people send using their services. Phone companies and postal services don't directly profit from the contents of conversations, letters, and packages. Google, Facebook, and so on, directly profit from the content, not from providing the service.

fraserharris 10y ago
Counter: if your phone service was free, but you had to listen to a pre-call ad every time you answer the phone, do you think the phone company is now liable for damages caused by the content of the call?
- JustSomeNobody 10y ago
  You mean from all the broken windows from having chucked my phone because of the crappy ads?
ucaetano 10y ago
They don't profit from the content, they profit from the service of providing the content (ads). Bloomberg is one that profits from the content.
tankenmate 10y ago
Yes, this is entirely true, hence why it is a leaky analogy. And yes, a growing number of people are upset. But the genie can't be put back in the bottle; there will almost certainly be some push back, and possibly some regulation that the, us, techies won't like. But the internet tries very hard to route around issues, be they technical, social, regulatory. There will always be a dark underbelly because the net was created by, and is used by us humans. You'll never be able to protect everyone. Just like every other protection issue; regulation, light or heavy, comes in waves. Humans, collectively, are notoriously bad at risk management, exigent threats always seem worse and distant ones in the future are always discounted.
DannyBee 10y ago
"Phone companies and postal services don't directly profit from the contents of conversations, letters, and packages." Uh, outside of the postal service, they absolutely do. Do you believe your phone company is not selling data about who you call? They also track websites, etc, you visit when you use their mobile data networks.
caseysoftware 10y ago
I think that's a broken comparison. In both cases, the networks benefit from the fact that data/information/voice/messages are flowing over them.. almost some sort of effect. ;) I don't think the content is the important part in either case but the fact that the platform is the place to distribute it.
cestith 10y ago
Oh, but so near in the past were the days that the phone company made more money the more time you spent on a dialed call. They absolutely had an interest in helping you connect and send your message. Phone companies also sold Yellow Page ads. Print shops typically have a waiver that you own what you're paying them to print and that you're not publishing illegal content. Then they take that content, print it, and send it to you to mail out or otherwise distribute. In extreme cases they can see up front that you're lying, and will refuse the job. However, FedEx Kinkos in most cases is not liable for the speech you pay them to replicate.

anigbrowl 10y ago

I'd add only that all the ground is faulty and leaky. Law is in many ways the application of logic to largely arbitrary social norms qua premises.

aeturnum 10y ago

> digital services are much closer in effect to being a broadcast service One of the points from the article is that many of these players (e.g. facebook, uber, etc) are not simple broadcast services, but select content from an available pool for users. It seems like 2010 Facebook, with its simple feed algorithm, can much more credibly claim to be an impartial carrier of content a'la the postal service. I wonder if the influence of a platform on content selection will become legally important for regulation.

Natsu 10y ago
It ultimately comes down to who makes the rules and who the companies have to answer to in the end, I think. Though I must say that the article had a rather odd way of stating that, with their use of the word 'sovereignty' in this sentence: > Governments and courts are chipping away at the sovereignty of internet firms, and public opinion is pushing them to police themselves better.

234dd57d2c8dba 10y ago

Yes, well the phone company isn't listening in on what you're saying and deciding if it's "fake news" or not and disconnecting you if it is "fake news". Facebook has no one to blame but themselves for going into the role of "internet police" and giving up their safe harbour provision. You can't have it both ways, you can't be an open platform under the protections of safe harbour and a curated feed with censorship.

lacksconfidence 10y ago
Isn't safe harbor something else? safe harbor explicitly refers to the DMCA but this article seems to be about an older provision of the Communications Decency Act
- cgriswald 10y ago
  A safe harbor is a law or part of a law that provides immunity from liability or makes legal behavior that could otherwise be considered criminal in certain circumstances. The safe harbors of the DMCA are one example.
devwastaken 10y ago
Actually, postal companies do filter packages and mail. If you write 'obscene' writing on the outside, USPS will keep the package, and not give it to the end address even if requested. IdubbzTV, a youtube channel that features 'fanmail' videos of an obscene nature has had a lot of problems with that.
- rosser 10y ago
  That's still materially different from choosing whether to deliver the package based on its contents, and it's that behavior that jeopardizes Facebook's "safe harbor" status.

Shivetya 10y ago

Well I tend to think they also have deeper pockets and are more concerned with public perception than phone and mail are. Some of it has to do with the fact people don't see them as indispensable so they have to not be to belligerent standing up for themselves.

yabatopia 10y ago

But digital services do actively censor posts, even if your post is perfectly legal. Postal services do not destroy letters with pictures of nipples in it, just try to post an image of a female breast on Facebook. If they can censor nipples, they can actively filter hate speech or abusive posts just fine. Claimining it's too difficult to monitor posts pro–actively was probably true in 2005, but not anymore. Right now, platforms like Facebook are eating cake and having it too.

jbuzbee 10y ago
they can actively filter hate speech or abusive posts just fine And how, pray tell, do you identify "hate speech"? Who's the judge? You're going to get a different answer in Iran than you do in Switzerland. Not to mention the obvious, that the answer to to speech you don't like, is more speech, not censorship.
- bgw 10y ago
  Disregarding context in a narrow focus image, how can you differentiate between male and female nipples?
  - yorwba 10y ago
    Look at the curvature of the surrounding skin. I bet even a CNN could learn it.
  - stevekemp 10y ago
    Take a look at the following instagram account, where somebody is posting pictures that are delightfully ambiguous: https://www.instagram.com/genderless_nipples/ https://www.instagram.com/genderless_nipples/ This has been written up on a few news-sites, for example: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/genderless-nipples-generates-50000-followers-on-instagram https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/19/genderless-nip...
- Sacho 10y ago
  Well, parent's argument is that Facebook is already deciding which speech they don't like, so they're already doing some kind of identification. The question then becomes, can government compel them to change that definition to meet laws and regulations that the govt. wants to enforce? Companies already cater to national laws, e.g. Twitter censoring accounts in Turkey on the behest of their government.

edblarney 10y ago

"And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people send using their services. " Postal service does not read your mail, phone companies (are not supposed to) listen in on your calls. 'Internet companies' deal directly with the content of the material. Notice that 'email hosts' are not the issue here. It's Google/FB/Twitter etc.. Not taking any position on the issue, but this is a rathe salient difference.

MR4D 10y ago

I would argue that companies like Twitter, which exercise substantial censorship, are incurring substantial liability in doing so. The price of free speech is high, and I think that some of the big firms are about to find that out. The effect on users could turn out for the better, but I'm not holding my breath.