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Thanks for the reply. You're right to bring up trickier situations like Cloudflare where it's not a government-granted monopoly, but a large 'infrastructure' pr

Thanks for the reply. You're right to bring up trickier situations like Cloudflare where it's not a government-granted monopoly, but a large 'infrastructure' provider. I deliberately omitted those from my post since it's more contentious territory, even though I still draw the hard-line at "no special government grant to monopolize a market" -> "no requirement to be neutral". A few other thoughts: >> afaik, and simplified, if you have users post words and such to the web via your service, you are not on the hook legally as much if it was you yourself publishing content on your own closed service for example. Yep, that's my interpretation of Section 230 as well. >> I have had expensive counsel suggest that not-moderating content may be the best choice in order to not lose these protections in some cases. It astounds me that counsel would suggest that. Is there any case law to support this? That idea is the "misinformation" I'm specifically referring to. People are saying it without providing any support. As far as I can tell, Section 230 does not say this, and there is no judicial precedent to conclude it. At least insofar as systems where content is not individually approved before becoming available. >> it's just more complicated now (and with the sesta / fosta adding exemptions to the exemptions, it's even more complex ) For what it's worth, I believe SESTA/FOSTA to be unconstitutional, and eagarly await someone brave enough to challenge them. So I don't think those laws existing necessarily imply that this is any more nuanced a problem than before.

stevenicr 7y ago
>> It astounds me that counsel would suggest that. Is there any case law to support this? That idea is the "misinformation" I'm specifically referring to. It gets fuzzy as to whether it's the automated censoring of words, or if it's during the times when human moderators were blocking or approving ads - or some of the hybrid systems approaches, but you will see via this article in wired [1] that agencies specifically went after the moderation discussions to drum up legal criminal cases and civil suits based upon moderation practices. [1] - https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-feds/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-f... - long article, perhaps do a ctrl+f and find on page "soon issued a series of subpoenas, seeking internal documents that would reveal Backpage’s moderation practices." at this point in the process they also used these holes created in 230 to do asset forfeiture on several other platforms (discussed in same article). Counsel I heard this from is one of the more famous lawyers/attorneys in the country and was paying particular attention to the tactics being employed in these cases. - The advice was given at a time in the middle(ish) of the backpage drama, and before fosta was written / passed - among whatever other changes in and around the country that could affect the advice. Since then, several things have happened that may change the advice, or not.. fosta sesta came to be, I recall an article not too long ago where judges were reigning in civil asset forfeiture in many ways... FAANG assoc was against fosta, then changed their tune for at-this-moment-i-don't-know reasons. So the advice now may be different for different situations. For the moment I still think that somehow someone running a chan type software which has no way to moderate, or even a stock vbulletin / phpbb type thing can claim dumb pipe; 230 protection - yet places that actually do moderate, and from the wired article info it doesn't seem to matter if it's human or auto-erase bad words filters.. these practices can be twisted to create a shadow of doubt to bring troubles. >> I believe SESTA/FOSTA to be unconstitutional, and eagarly await someone brave enough to challenge them. I agree, and same. At a time when politics appear more important than constitutional protections, I think it would be wise for others big and small to be concerned about these things. Future upwardly-wanna-be mobile politicians can use these same attack methods against fbook and others not just as punishment and affordable fines, but as fodder to bring up their careers notoriety / free advertising, which can hurt a brand in ways that they may never recover from. It would not surprise me to see an article like this" https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-government-has-been-lying-about-backpage/ https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-governme... " with all the instances of backpage taken out and replaced with fbook when dems win, or with youtube if conservatives keep getting riled about it. Just outrageous / fictitious examples to consider.
- akersten 7y ago
  That's troubling. Thanks for taking the time to find that article. I guess the discussion is actually a two-parter: * Does moderation imply responsibility? * Does moderation require neutrality? From the Wired article, it seems like #1 here was a fulcrum in the case. I think this protection is slowly being eroded, sadly, with those new laws. #2 is kind of the topic-du-jour, where I'm seeing a lot of unfounded claims that it's true. It would surprise me incredibly if it were, but given how the law was twisted in case #1, wouldn't entirely be a shock to discover the same going on. I guess we'll have to wait for case law to really say for certain, but I still feel pretty confident that the government can't compel a platform to neutrally apply moderation/carry all speech - even though their actions in doing so may reveal their intentions in an ancillary case, e.g. the one you linked.

stevenicr 7y ago

>> It astounds me that counsel would suggest that. Is there any case law to support this? That idea is the "misinformation" I'm specifically referring to. It gets fuzzy as to whether it's the automated censoring of words, or if it's during the times when human moderators were blocking or approving ads - or some of the hybrid systems approaches, but you will see via this article in wired [1] that agencies specifically went after the moderation discussions to drum up legal criminal cases and civil suits based upon moderation practices. [1] - https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-feds/ https://www.wired.com/story/inside-backpage-vicious-battle-f... - long article, perhaps do a ctrl+f and find on page "soon issued a series of subpoenas, seeking internal documents that would reveal Backpage’s moderation practices." at this point in the process they also used these holes created in 230 to do asset forfeiture on several other platforms (discussed in same article). Counsel I heard this from is one of the more famous lawyers/attorneys in the country and was paying particular attention to the tactics being employed in these cases. - The advice was given at a time in the middle(ish) of the backpage drama, and before fosta was written / passed - among whatever other changes in and around the country that could affect the advice. Since then, several things have happened that may change the advice, or not.. fosta sesta came to be, I recall an article not too long ago where judges were reigning in civil asset forfeiture in many ways... FAANG assoc was against fosta, then changed their tune for at-this-moment-i-don't-know reasons. So the advice now may be different for different situations. For the moment I still think that somehow someone running a chan type software which has no way to moderate, or even a stock vbulletin / phpbb type thing can claim dumb pipe; 230 protection - yet places that actually do moderate, and from the wired article info it doesn't seem to matter if it's human or auto-erase bad words filters.. these practices can be twisted to create a shadow of doubt to bring troubles. >> I believe SESTA/FOSTA to be unconstitutional, and eagarly await someone brave enough to challenge them. I agree, and same. At a time when politics appear more important than constitutional protections, I think it would be wise for others big and small to be concerned about these things. Future upwardly-wanna-be mobile politicians can use these same attack methods against fbook and others not just as punishment and affordable fines, but as fodder to bring up their careers notoriety / free advertising, which can hurt a brand in ways that they may never recover from. It would not surprise me to see an article like this" https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-government-has-been-lying-about-backpage/ https://reason.com/2019/08/26/secret-memos-show-the-governme... " with all the instances of backpage taken out and replaced with fbook when dems win, or with youtube if conservatives keep getting riled about it. Just outrageous / fictitious examples to consider.

akersten 7y ago
That's troubling. Thanks for taking the time to find that article. I guess the discussion is actually a two-parter: * Does moderation imply responsibility? * Does moderation require neutrality? From the Wired article, it seems like #1 here was a fulcrum in the case. I think this protection is slowly being eroded, sadly, with those new laws. #2 is kind of the topic-du-jour, where I'm seeing a lot of unfounded claims that it's true. It would surprise me incredibly if it were, but given how the law was twisted in case #1, wouldn't entirely be a shock to discover the same going on. I guess we'll have to wait for case law to really say for certain, but I still feel pretty confident that the government can't compel a platform to neutrally apply moderation/carry all speech - even though their actions in doing so may reveal their intentions in an ancillary case, e.g. the one you linked.