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Uhh... disagree? Even a 5 person startup should be responsible for every single thing their users post? Or do you want some arbitrary line of employees above wh

Uhh... disagree? Even a 5 person startup should be responsible for every single thing their users post? Or do you want some arbitrary line of employees above which it’s illegal and below which it’s fine?

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
I'll refer you to my response here, on why people claiming that's the alternative isn't really accurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815922 But no, there shouldn't be an arbitrary line. Judges can make fair determinations on when a company is or is not doing a reasonable job controlling abuse on their platform, and the profit motivations behind those decisions.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  The fact that you think this is going to get decided by a judge is at the root of your misunderstanding. Nobody can afford to be defending the thousands of cases that would be brought against platforms over user-generated content if there wasn't a simple knock-out rule to get them dismissed. It doesn't matter if you're doing something reasonable, somebody would argue that you're not because there's still enough chance they might win and get awarded millions of dollars. And even if you win you still had to spend a million dollars on lawyers to prove it to a judge, and then someone else files a new lawsuit next week. So the platforms can't just be right, they have to be so far away from the line of wrongness that they can get claims against them dismissed out of hand. But since it's inherently a trade off between false positives and false negatives, getting right up next to the line without crossing it is what you really want (that's the middle ground), and then that's off the table. Which leaves avoiding liability by not moderating at all or avoiding liability by moderating hyper-aggressively beyond all reason, since those are the two options to keep it from needing to be decided by a judge (which is the thing that bankrupts you).

ocdtrekkie 7y ago

I'll refer you to my response here, on why people claiming that's the alternative isn't really accurate: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815922 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22815922 But no, there shouldn't be an arbitrary line. Judges can make fair determinations on when a company is or is not doing a reasonable job controlling abuse on their platform, and the profit motivations behind those decisions.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
The fact that you think this is going to get decided by a judge is at the root of your misunderstanding. Nobody can afford to be defending the thousands of cases that would be brought against platforms over user-generated content if there wasn't a simple knock-out rule to get them dismissed. It doesn't matter if you're doing something reasonable, somebody would argue that you're not because there's still enough chance they might win and get awarded millions of dollars. And even if you win you still had to spend a million dollars on lawyers to prove it to a judge, and then someone else files a new lawsuit next week. So the platforms can't just be right, they have to be so far away from the line of wrongness that they can get claims against them dismissed out of hand. But since it's inherently a trade off between false positives and false negatives, getting right up next to the line without crossing it is what you really want (that's the middle ground), and then that's off the table. Which leaves avoiding liability by not moderating at all or avoiding liability by moderating hyper-aggressively beyond all reason, since those are the two options to keep it from needing to be decided by a judge (which is the thing that bankrupts you).