Because to claim that a site isn't responsible for a user's content is fine, until the site starts editing, censoring or weighting certain points of view. I ha

Because to claim that a site isn't responsible for a user's content is fine, until the site starts editing, censoring or weighting certain points of view. I have a lot of sympathy for the idea that a neutral service should not automatically be responsible for the content it unknowingly transfers on behalf of a small minority of its users. This principle would support common carrier status for services like post delivery or phone networks. But I also think we have to be careful not to go too far. The potential damage caused by an online distribution network in terms of sharing material that should not be shared is many orders of magnitude greater in terms of potential reach and rate of distribution than the analogous damage caused by a postal or phone service. We shouldn't assume that a reasonable balance between responsibility and safe harbour in one context is necessarily still a good balance in a different context. Today's big IT businesses make staggering amounts of money from their online services. Some of those services, like YouTube, include significant amounts of illegal content, and sometimes that content was part of the main attraction that got the service established in the first place. I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that the operators of such services shouldn't get a complete pass on facilitating substantial amounts of illegal activity just because policing their services more effectively or at least providing enough resources to respond quickly when they are actively informed of a problem would be inconvenient or cost them money. The same goes for disruptive businesses like Airbnb and Uber. I have nothing against the disruption itself, where someone is using innovative business models that take advantage of modern technology to compete with established big players. However, I do have something against innovative business models that offer a certain advantage over incumbents only because they don't follow the same rules as everyone else. If some of those rules are no longer fit for purpose then they should be changed or removed appropriately, but then they should be changed or removed for everyone, too.