13 ms·

What requires them to be impartial?

by Talanes 6y ago

2019-nCoV 6y ago
Open a history book.
- Talanes 6y ago
  A history book would seem an odd place to find legislation.
  - 2019-nCoV 6y ago
    A great place to see what lies ahead for a divisive society
    - pasquinelli 6y ago
      What is a divisive society?
      - Avicebron 6y ago
        A society that can't agree on what a divisive society is. In all seriousness, when actors with influence on public thought are having public arguments about politics, social roles, virus response plans. Now you can argue society has always been divisive, but instead of an Athenian public square with have platforms with millions of people getting involved. Amplified divisiveness.
        heromal 6y ago
        You just described a modern society...
moralestapia 6y ago
It's not a "requirement" but by policing/editing content (other than what is explicitly illegal) you open yourself to a whole new set of obligations/liabilities that no one really wants to deal with. IANAL but an example could be: Someone posts a pirate ebook on their facebook profile. They can hide behind the "yeah but it was the user" harbor. vs. Someone posts a pirate ebook on a facebook profile, facebook staff thinks it's cool and puts it on a special themed section called "Pirate picks from today". They will be in trouble.
- zem 6y ago
  they didn't police anything; the guy's tweet got posted without any sort of gatekeeping they didn't edit anything; it was very clear what he posted and it was his exact words as written. there weren't even any dark ui patterns to make it look like the fact check was part of what he said.
  - moralestapia 6y ago
    I don't know about "they" and "the guy". I was just explaining why, in general, content providers prefer to stay of trouble ...
  - mc32 6y ago
    Maybe they’ll do the same for their advertisers too? Maybe they’ll fact check UBI? Etc...
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      That would be their right, yes.
- gpm 6y ago
  1. You're generally wrong except in some special cases 2. Twitter already automatically adds posts to special themed sections called "What's happening", so even if you were right there is no added liability. 3. Adding fact checking is not adding things to special themed sections, so this is off topic.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  The legal obligations that platforms be neutral in order to not be liable for content on their website is a complete and utter fabrication in the public’s mind, and has no basis in US law.
  - wahern 6y ago
    It's not a complete fabrication, though to be sure the present debate has been painstakingly engineered over several years by multiple political factions. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which immunized from tort liability "interactive computer service[s]", was passed in response to a 1995 NY state court case that found Prodigy liable for statements posted on a forum by one of its users. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod.... The test the judge employed in that case was the degree to which Prodigy exercised editorial control over user-posted content, and in that case the judge found Prodigy exercised such sufficient editorial control that the discretion it effectively exercised in failing to remove the statement made Prodigy liable. If Section 230 was revoked then that test of editorial control would presumably become the law in many if not most U.S. states as, AFAIU, the test wasn't created out of whole cloth, but rooted in well-established precedent. Some states might go another way but I doubt it; categorical, bright line limitations on liability are an unusual feature of judge-made law (which emphasizes fairness in the context of the particular parties, with less weight given to hypotheticals about society-wide impacts) and are typically created by statute. Other jurisdictions seem to have ended up applying very similar rules as the NY court, and even supposed Section 230 analogs (e.g. EU Directive 2000/31/EC) seem more like the NY rule in practical effect than Section 230's strong, categorical protections. Manifest editorial control seems like a sensible test for deciding when a failure to remove constitutes negligence; sensible, at least, if you're going to depart from strong Section 230-like protections. But I would expect significant variance in the degree of control required to be exhibited absent a national rule. In any event, massive sites like Twitter and Facebook might be faced with some stark choices--go all-in on censorship, or take a completely hands-off approach a la Usenet.

What requires them to be impartial?

2019-nCoV 6y ago

Open a history book.

Talanes 6y ago
A history book would seem an odd place to find legislation.
- 2019-nCoV 6y ago
  A great place to see what lies ahead for a divisive society
  - pasquinelli 6y ago
    What is a divisive society?
    - Avicebron 6y ago
      A society that can't agree on what a divisive society is. In all seriousness, when actors with influence on public thought are having public arguments about politics, social roles, virus response plans. Now you can argue society has always been divisive, but instead of an Athenian public square with have platforms with millions of people getting involved. Amplified divisiveness.
      - heromal 6y ago
        You just described a modern society...

moralestapia 6y ago

It's not a "requirement" but by policing/editing content (other than what is explicitly illegal) you open yourself to a whole new set of obligations/liabilities that no one really wants to deal with. IANAL but an example could be: Someone posts a pirate ebook on their facebook profile. They can hide behind the "yeah but it was the user" harbor. vs. Someone posts a pirate ebook on a facebook profile, facebook staff thinks it's cool and puts it on a special themed section called "Pirate picks from today". They will be in trouble.

zem 6y ago
they didn't police anything; the guy's tweet got posted without any sort of gatekeeping they didn't edit anything; it was very clear what he posted and it was his exact words as written. there weren't even any dark ui patterns to make it look like the fact check was part of what he said.
- moralestapia 6y ago
  I don't know about "they" and "the guy". I was just explaining why, in general, content providers prefer to stay of trouble ...
- mc32 6y ago
  Maybe they’ll do the same for their advertisers too? Maybe they’ll fact check UBI? Etc...
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    That would be their right, yes.
gpm 6y ago
1. You're generally wrong except in some special cases 2. Twitter already automatically adds posts to special themed sections called "What's happening", so even if you were right there is no added liability. 3. Adding fact checking is not adding things to special themed sections, so this is off topic.
ashtonkem 6y ago
The legal obligations that platforms be neutral in order to not be liable for content on their website is a complete and utter fabrication in the public’s mind, and has no basis in US law.
- wahern 6y ago
  It's not a complete fabrication, though to be sure the present debate has been painstakingly engineered over several years by multiple political factions. Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, which immunized from tort liability "interactive computer service[s]", was passed in response to a 1995 NY state court case that found Prodigy liable for statements posted on a forum by one of its users. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod.... The test the judge employed in that case was the degree to which Prodigy exercised editorial control over user-posted content, and in that case the judge found Prodigy exercised such sufficient editorial control that the discretion it effectively exercised in failing to remove the statement made Prodigy liable. If Section 230 was revoked then that test of editorial control would presumably become the law in many if not most U.S. states as, AFAIU, the test wasn't created out of whole cloth, but rooted in well-established precedent. Some states might go another way but I doubt it; categorical, bright line limitations on liability are an unusual feature of judge-made law (which emphasizes fairness in the context of the particular parties, with less weight given to hypotheticals about society-wide impacts) and are typically created by statute. Other jurisdictions seem to have ended up applying very similar rules as the NY court, and even supposed Section 230 analogs (e.g. EU Directive 2000/31/EC) seem more like the NY rule in practical effect than Section 230's strong, categorical protections. Manifest editorial control seems like a sensible test for deciding when a failure to remove constitutes negligence; sensible, at least, if you're going to depart from strong Section 230-like protections. But I would expect significant variance in the degree of control required to be exhibited absent a national rule. In any event, massive sites like Twitter and Facebook might be faced with some stark choices--go all-in on censorship, or take a completely hands-off approach a la Usenet.