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The podcast "Your Undivided Attention" gets into the tech and public policy of this. Basically, their suggestion is to modify Section 230 of the Communications

The podcast "Your Undivided Attention" gets into the tech and public policy of this. Basically, their suggestion is to modify Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, so that storage and retrieval is still a safe harbor for providers, but recommendation algorithms should be treated as editorial decisions and be open to the same liabilities that other communications media are exposed to. So a chronological feed of subscriptions to InfoWars, Stormfront, Plandemic, etc would be protected by law, but YouTube, FB, etc could be held liable for harm caused by content that they recommend. People retain their freedom to speak and publish, but they have no right to promotion or amplification.

contravariant 6y ago
That sounds interesting, I'll be sure to check it out, thanks.
joshuamorton 6y ago
But this favors one recommendation algorithm (time based) over others. What makes ordering by time non-editorial?
- Supermancho 6y ago
  > recommendation algorithm (time based) Can't any choice (not being purely audio, why the title is only in X languages, etc) can be considered editorial, for any TV news show or book? It isn't constructive to construe FIFO as editorial when it is the common way to experience and share events. Since content creators ostensibly retain control of what is published, they could ideally rearrange their content in their feed by re-pub or out of order publishing anyway.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    > Can't any choice (not being purely audio, why the title is only in X languages, etc) can be considered editorial, for any TV news show or book? Yes exactly. > It isn't constructive to construe FIFO as editorial when it is the common way to experience and share events. In what context? > Since content creators ostensibly retain control of what is published, they could ideally rearrange their content in their feed by re-pub or out of order publishing anyway. This sounds horrendous. You want to encourage content creators to spam you with content so that they're always at the top of your "feed"?
    - jexah 6y ago
      > In what context? Any episodic context, like 99 percent of the media we consume. TV show episodes happen in a specific order of events, movies are constructed of scenes in a specific order, community growth around a channel is built around common experiences already shared, even looking at history channels, if a story spans multiple videos requiring multiple media releases, when each video relies on information provided from another, the content creator would have to be daft to release them in the reverse, or worse, a random order, when everybody is waiting to find out what happens next. From my perspective, it seems like the only videos that are viable outside of this context are long-form videos (1hr+) or viral trash.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        > Any episodic context, like 99 percent of the media we consume. But you're suggesting a single "timeline" for all content. So you get one stream of every show on every channel in order. That's not the usual way we watch episodic content. Hell since the invention of the VCR, we mostly just watch the specific stuff we want, not everything in I ur bundle. You seem to be conflicting the content made by a single entity with the aggregator. For an aggregator, why does time name more sense than any other view (like say clustered by creator, or as is common today ordered based on presumed interest)?
        jexah 6y ago
        I want to experience media in the format and order in which the creator of the media wants it to be watched. The episodic content that I watch, I watch because I have faith in the creators of it that the next one will be of the same calibre as the previous. Not faith in the publishers. 99% of the time, this is in the order or is released. There are exceptions, which is why we have the concept of creator-defined playlists. To present the content to the user in an order which is not defined by the creator is at the publisher's discretion, and the publisher should therefore take responsibility for presenting it that way. WRT conflating aggregators and creators, any decision the publisher makes, they should take responsibility for, such as promoting some content and hiding others.
    - 6y ago
- Zak 6y ago
  Laws don't have to be philosophically pure. A law can define or describe what counts as an editorial algorithm and what does not, and it could exclude simple sorting while including the complicated thing Youtube does to keep you watching. What might be harder is to distinguish sophisticated search algorithms from recommendation algorithms. There's some overlap, but I'm inclined to think that the two are mostly different kinds of things, especially if the search results aren't personalized to the user.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    Indeed, but (at least in the US), you can't really do that without running afoul of the first amendment, presenting content is just a form of speech. Government restrictions on speech are the thing that everyone's afraid of, right?
    - Zak 6y ago
      Currently, platform immunity means the platform can't be sued or criminally charged because a user hosts something for which the user can be. The proposed change would expose the operator of an editorial algorithm to liability for the algorithm recommending things that are already illegal. I don't think the concern with rolling back platform immunity is government restrictions on free speech, exactly. In the US, the first amendment provides the same protections it always has. Instead, concerns include that the risk of liability will hamper innovation, that only companies with a lot of resources will be able to take the risk, and that companies will overreact with their own proactive censorship to stay well clear of areas with potential liability. We've seen the latter with FOSTA/SESTA weakening platform immunity, which is arguably what its creators intended, but I suspect not what everyone in congress who voted for it expected.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        Right, but the "platform immunity" thing applies equally to all platforms. You're instead proposing to extend immunity to some platforms and not others based on how they choose to recommend things. If you (like I do) believe that recommendation is a form of speech, this creates government favored classes of speech. To word it differently: "Platforms that recommend/aggregate speech in government sanctioned ways are protected from liability, while those that do not are not". That's, while not open and shut perhaps, certainly spooky.
ColanR 6y ago
> recommendation algorithms should be treated as editorial decisions That's actually a great comparison. I wonder if it will ever gain traction.
jexah 6y ago
I really love the sound of this idea.

contravariant 6y ago

That sounds interesting, I'll be sure to check it out, thanks.

joshuamorton 6y ago

But this favors one recommendation algorithm (time based) over others. What makes ordering by time non-editorial?

Supermancho 6y ago
> recommendation algorithm (time based) Can't any choice (not being purely audio, why the title is only in X languages, etc) can be considered editorial, for any TV news show or book? It isn't constructive to construe FIFO as editorial when it is the common way to experience and share events. Since content creators ostensibly retain control of what is published, they could ideally rearrange their content in their feed by re-pub or out of order publishing anyway.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > Can't any choice (not being purely audio, why the title is only in X languages, etc) can be considered editorial, for any TV news show or book? Yes exactly. > It isn't constructive to construe FIFO as editorial when it is the common way to experience and share events. In what context? > Since content creators ostensibly retain control of what is published, they could ideally rearrange their content in their feed by re-pub or out of order publishing anyway. This sounds horrendous. You want to encourage content creators to spam you with content so that they're always at the top of your "feed"?
  - jexah 6y ago
    > In what context? Any episodic context, like 99 percent of the media we consume. TV show episodes happen in a specific order of events, movies are constructed of scenes in a specific order, community growth around a channel is built around common experiences already shared, even looking at history channels, if a story spans multiple videos requiring multiple media releases, when each video relies on information provided from another, the content creator would have to be daft to release them in the reverse, or worse, a random order, when everybody is waiting to find out what happens next. From my perspective, it seems like the only videos that are viable outside of this context are long-form videos (1hr+) or viral trash.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      > Any episodic context, like 99 percent of the media we consume. But you're suggesting a single "timeline" for all content. So you get one stream of every show on every channel in order. That's not the usual way we watch episodic content. Hell since the invention of the VCR, we mostly just watch the specific stuff we want, not everything in I ur bundle. You seem to be conflicting the content made by a single entity with the aggregator. For an aggregator, why does time name more sense than any other view (like say clustered by creator, or as is common today ordered based on presumed interest)?
      - jexah 6y ago
        I want to experience media in the format and order in which the creator of the media wants it to be watched. The episodic content that I watch, I watch because I have faith in the creators of it that the next one will be of the same calibre as the previous. Not faith in the publishers. 99% of the time, this is in the order or is released. There are exceptions, which is why we have the concept of creator-defined playlists. To present the content to the user in an order which is not defined by the creator is at the publisher's discretion, and the publisher should therefore take responsibility for presenting it that way. WRT conflating aggregators and creators, any decision the publisher makes, they should take responsibility for, such as promoting some content and hiding others.
  - 6y ago
Zak 6y ago
Laws don't have to be philosophically pure. A law can define or describe what counts as an editorial algorithm and what does not, and it could exclude simple sorting while including the complicated thing Youtube does to keep you watching. What might be harder is to distinguish sophisticated search algorithms from recommendation algorithms. There's some overlap, but I'm inclined to think that the two are mostly different kinds of things, especially if the search results aren't personalized to the user.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  Indeed, but (at least in the US), you can't really do that without running afoul of the first amendment, presenting content is just a form of speech. Government restrictions on speech are the thing that everyone's afraid of, right?
  - Zak 6y ago
    Currently, platform immunity means the platform can't be sued or criminally charged because a user hosts something for which the user can be. The proposed change would expose the operator of an editorial algorithm to liability for the algorithm recommending things that are already illegal. I don't think the concern with rolling back platform immunity is government restrictions on free speech, exactly. In the US, the first amendment provides the same protections it always has. Instead, concerns include that the risk of liability will hamper innovation, that only companies with a lot of resources will be able to take the risk, and that companies will overreact with their own proactive censorship to stay well clear of areas with potential liability. We've seen the latter with FOSTA/SESTA weakening platform immunity, which is arguably what its creators intended, but I suspect not what everyone in congress who voted for it expected.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Right, but the "platform immunity" thing applies equally to all platforms. You're instead proposing to extend immunity to some platforms and not others based on how they choose to recommend things. If you (like I do) believe that recommendation is a form of speech, this creates government favored classes of speech. To word it differently: "Platforms that recommend/aggregate speech in government sanctioned ways are protected from liability, while those that do not are not". That's, while not open and shut perhaps, certainly spooky.

ColanR 6y ago

> recommendation algorithms should be treated as editorial decisions That's actually a great comparison. I wonder if it will ever gain traction.

jexah 6y ago

I really love the sound of this idea.