5 ms·

Do you think that any blog with a comments section should be legally responsible for spammers posting on it?

by ori_b 7y ago

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
No, and they wouldn't be by any informed understanding of the law. That's not how the law has ever worked in any developed society. Generally, law has both the concept of intent and reasonableness. As such, a company that inadequately polices malicious and abusive content because that content is wildly profitable (hi Google and Facebook), we should have the legal ability to fine these companies into oblivion, because their behavior is not reasonable and the intent behind it can be divined from their records. Meanwhile, if you an individual with a blog, see someone making a bad comment on your blog and you ban the person, the law would recognize that as a pretty reasonable moderation practice.
- root_axis 7y ago
  How would the law distinguish between reasonable moderation and unreasonable removal?
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    "Unreasonable removal" isn't actually much of a concern here under our current legal doctrine: As these companies are private entities, they can decide that they simply don't want this or that on their platform, and that can be as unreasonable as they like. Presumably, platforms which profit off user content have a financial incentive already to allow user content as much as they can, Section 230 only removes the financial incentive to remote bad content. Removing Section 230 will restore balance: Companies will still be motivated to keep as much non-abusive content as they can, but will face legal challenge if they fail to remove abusive content. (There's an argument to be made that Facebook and Google represent "public spaces" in the modern Internet era, but we currently have no legal precedent for applying first amendment rights to privately owned properties. Either we'd need a huge legal shift to apply the first amendment to private spaces or we'd need to nationalize online platforms.)
    - IAmEveryone 7y ago
      > Section 230 only removes the financial incentive to remote bad content. Please go read the actual law. It’s neither long nor complicated. Section 230 corrected a problem in other law that made it dangerous to even attempt to moderate content. Before it became law, websites basically had to choose between not moderating at all, or assuming liability for all content. Hell, I’ll just quote the relevant part in full: (2) Civil liability No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;
- danShumway 7y ago
  > No, and they wouldn't be by any informed understanding of the law. You are misinformed about the history of 230. 230 was proposed exactly because the law was interpreted the way you're saying it wouldn't be. From Wikipedia below, added emphasis mine: > This concern was raised by legal challenges against CompuServe and Prodigy, early service providers at this time. CompuServe stated they would not attempt to regulate what users posted on their services, while Prodigy had employed a team of moderators to validate content. Both faced legal challenges related to content posted by their users. In Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc., CompuServe was found not be at fault as, by its stance as allowing all content to go unmoderated, it was a distributor and thus not liable for libelous content posted by users. However, Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. found that as Prodigy had taken an editorial role with regard to customer content, it was a publisher and legally responsible for libel committed by customers. > [...] > United States Representative Christopher Cox (R-CA) had read an article about the two cases and felt the decisions were backwards. "It struck me that if that rule was going to take hold then the internet would become the Wild West and nobody would have any incentive to keep the internet civil", Cox stated. --- It's become increasingly popular for people to say that Section 230 was a mistake. Usually they support that with claims that concerns about its repeal are purely theoretical fearmongering, despite the fact that we literally have case president on the books right now about what the Internet would look like without Section 230, and how the existing laws were being interpreted. When people raise concerns that without Section 230 the Internet would be divided up into completely unmoderated platforms and aggressively curated gatekeepers, that's not fearmongering. It's history. Ironically, the only websites that wouldn't be affected by a repeal of Section 230 are the completely unmoderated hellholes we want to discourage online, because they have Compuserve's precedent and the 1st Ammendment to hide behind.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    But in a world where we feel it was backwards that moderators were punished and unmoderated platforms weren't... Congress decided "let's just make everyone immune" was the right way to go? And again, I think the examples here are missing the same concept that Section 230 fails to recognize: Profit, as I discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816016 It seems like the author of Section 230 failed to recognize we're in a capitalist society when this regulation was drafted. When platforms are taking a cut out of illegal activity, as Big Tech platforms do when they operate ad networks, courts would have to agree that any platform party, regardless of whether or not they currently moderate, should be held to some manner of responsibility. Right now, when an old lady clicks a Google search result for "mapquest", clicks the top link for "Maps Quest"[0] because Google ads aren't distinguishable from real search results to the untrained eye, is pushed to install a browser extension (from the Chrome Web Store) that hijacks her browser's new tab and search, injects malicious ads, and scrapes her private info to relay to an attacker, Google makes money. And is wholly protected by Section 230 for that activity and unable to be held responsible for refusing to delist the malicious ad. In what world is that the right legal position? [0] (This is a very real world example, I've done a lot of senior citizen tech support, and this is how 90% of them get owned.)
tigerstripe 7y ago
It would certainly change the face of the modern web. In the early 2000's, many blogs and news sites did not have comment sections. Maybe a service like a third-party Disqus would come out that would split the user-generated content from the actual sites (and source the content via P2P networking).
kevingadd 7y ago
The fact that your proposed scenario is scary / unpleasant / difficult does not automatically make the alternatives better, as we have learned over the last two decades. We need to seriously consider that perhaps these things are not actually simple unless you ignore the consequences.

Do you think that any blog with a comments section should be legally responsible for spammers posting on it?

by ori_b 7y ago

Do you think that any blog with a comments section should be legally responsible for spammers posting on it?

No, and they wouldn't be by any informed understanding of the law. That's not how the law has ever worked in any developed society. Generally, law has both the concept of intent and reasonableness. As such, a company that inadequately polices malicious and abusive content because that content is wildly profitable (hi Google and Facebook), we should have the legal ability to fine these companies into oblivion, because their behavior is not reasonable and the intent behind it can be divined from their records. Meanwhile, if you an individual with a blog, see someone making a bad comment on your blog and you ban the person, the law would recognize that as a pretty reasonable moderation practice.

root_axis 7y ago
How would the law distinguish between reasonable moderation and unreasonable removal?
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  "Unreasonable removal" isn't actually much of a concern here under our current legal doctrine: As these companies are private entities, they can decide that they simply don't want this or that on their platform, and that can be as unreasonable as they like. Presumably, platforms which profit off user content have a financial incentive already to allow user content as much as they can, Section 230 only removes the financial incentive to remote bad content. Removing Section 230 will restore balance: Companies will still be motivated to keep as much non-abusive content as they can, but will face legal challenge if they fail to remove abusive content. (There's an argument to be made that Facebook and Google represent "public spaces" in the modern Internet era, but we currently have no legal precedent for applying first amendment rights to privately owned properties. Either we'd need a huge legal shift to apply the first amendment to private spaces or we'd need to nationalize online platforms.)
  - IAmEveryone 7y ago
    > Section 230 only removes the financial incentive to remote bad content. Please go read the actual law. It’s neither long nor complicated. Section 230 corrected a problem in other law that made it dangerous to even attempt to moderate content. Before it became law, websites basically had to choose between not moderating at all, or assuming liability for all content. Hell, I’ll just quote the relevant part in full: (2) Civil liability No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of— (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected;
danShumway 7y ago
> No, and they wouldn't be by any informed understanding of the law. You are misinformed about the history of 230. 230 was proposed exactly because the law was interpreted the way you're saying it wouldn't be. From Wikipedia below, added emphasis mine: > This concern was raised by legal challenges against CompuServe and Prodigy, early service providers at this time. CompuServe stated they would not attempt to regulate what users posted on their services, while Prodigy had employed a team of moderators to validate content. Both faced legal challenges related to content posted by their users. In Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc., CompuServe was found not be at fault as, by its stance as allowing all content to go unmoderated, it was a distributor and thus not liable for libelous content posted by users. However, Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. found that as Prodigy had taken an editorial role with regard to customer content, it was a publisher and legally responsible for libel committed by customers. > [...] > United States Representative Christopher Cox (R-CA) had read an article about the two cases and felt the decisions were backwards. "It struck me that if that rule was going to take hold then the internet would become the Wild West and nobody would have any incentive to keep the internet civil", Cox stated. --- It's become increasingly popular for people to say that Section 230 was a mistake. Usually they support that with claims that concerns about its repeal are purely theoretical fearmongering, despite the fact that we literally have case president on the books right now about what the Internet would look like without Section 230, and how the existing laws were being interpreted. When people raise concerns that without Section 230 the Internet would be divided up into completely unmoderated platforms and aggressively curated gatekeepers, that's not fearmongering. It's history. Ironically, the only websites that wouldn't be affected by a repeal of Section 230 are the completely unmoderated hellholes we want to discourage online, because they have Compuserve's precedent and the 1st Ammendment to hide behind.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  But in a world where we feel it was backwards that moderators were punished and unmoderated platforms weren't... Congress decided "let's just make everyone immune" was the right way to go? And again, I think the examples here are missing the same concept that Section 230 fails to recognize: Profit, as I discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22816016 It seems like the author of Section 230 failed to recognize we're in a capitalist society when this regulation was drafted. When platforms are taking a cut out of illegal activity, as Big Tech platforms do when they operate ad networks, courts would have to agree that any platform party, regardless of whether or not they currently moderate, should be held to some manner of responsibility. Right now, when an old lady clicks a Google search result for "mapquest", clicks the top link for "Maps Quest"[0] because Google ads aren't distinguishable from real search results to the untrained eye, is pushed to install a browser extension (from the Chrome Web Store) that hijacks her browser's new tab and search, injects malicious ads, and scrapes her private info to relay to an attacker, Google makes money. And is wholly protected by Section 230 for that activity and unable to be held responsible for refusing to delist the malicious ad. In what world is that the right legal position? [0] (This is a very real world example, I've done a lot of senior citizen tech support, and this is how 90% of them get owned.)

tigerstripe 7y ago

It would certainly change the face of the modern web. In the early 2000's, many blogs and news sites did not have comment sections. Maybe a service like a third-party Disqus would come out that would split the user-generated content from the actual sites (and source the content via P2P networking).

kevingadd 7y ago

The fact that your proposed scenario is scary / unpleasant / difficult does not automatically make the alternatives better, as we have learned over the last two decades. We need to seriously consider that perhaps these things are not actually simple unless you ignore the consequences.