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> An alternative approach would be exemptions for non-profit sites. Another alternative would be "leave this problem alone, it's working just fine". Site opera

> An alternative approach would be exemptions for non-profit sites. Another alternative would be "leave this problem alone, it's working just fine". Site operators can and should have the ability to ban anyone or remove any content, for any reason or no reason, and doing so does not mean they should be liable for everything they might have missed. (In practice, "liable for everything they might have missed" is equivalent to "unable to operate" for anything but the most massive sites that could theoretically afford an army of moderators, and it'd have a chilling effect even there.) Destroying the concept of moderation does not make the world better. The liability shield is the whole reason Section 230 exists: to make it possible to have enjoyable communities online, without incurring so much liability that you have to shut them all down for fear of getting prosecuted. If you want unmoderated communities, they exist. Go use them. Stop trying to destroy the concept of moderated communities.(Removing the liability shield would be tantamount to destroying such communities.) Some people want the audience of moderated communities, but they don't want the standards of those communities. There's a reason unmoderated communities have fewer (and different) users.

the8472 6y ago
> Site operators can and should have the ability to ban anyone or remove any content, for any reason or no reason. If a major fraction of human communication, especially during lockdowns, is facilitated by social networks then they are fulfilling a utility role. So being in the position of dictating what millions of people will talk about is at least questionable. > for anything but the most massive sites that could theoretically afford an army of moderators Ok, I have not considered this angle and it is indeed concerning. > Destroying the concept of moderation does not make the world better. That may be the goal of the FCC, but I for one did not say that I am in support of destroying moderation. Quite the opposite, I was thinking how it could be made to work while providing more open communication platforms and putting more control in the hands of the users rather than the companies.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  > If a major fraction of human communication, especially during lockdowns, is facilitated by social networks then they are fulfilling a utility role. Removing the ability of those sites to moderate will not make them better. (Even if it did by some metric, that still wouldn't be acceptable; what constitutes "better" is entirely up to the site owner to determine. But it's even less reasonable given that it wouldn't have the intended effect, unless the intended effect is to cause harm.) Having many users should not suddenly mean you don't own the site, nor should it mean that you cannot moderate the site as you see fit. "We came up with a new algorithm to automatically detect spam" should not need to come with "and several years later we managed to get the government to say we're allowed to use it without incurring liability". >> for anything but the most massive sites that could theoretically afford an army of moderators > Ok, I have not considered this angle and it is indeed concerning. That angle is why Section 230 was created in the first place, and why it should remain intact. > That may be the goal of the FCC, but I for one did not say that I am in support of destroying moderation. Removing the liability shield for sites that moderate will destroy either the site or the moderation, and either way the usefulness of the site comes to an end. > Quite the opposite, I was thinking how it could be made to work while providing more open communication platforms and putting more control in the hands of the users rather than the companies. Make a new network that puts control in the hands of the users in the way you envision, and test it to see how well it works. Or join one of the existing efforts already working on that. This isn't a legislative problem; it certainly shouldn't have a legislative non-solution masquerading as a solution. I think most people's experience with moderation puts more weight on any encounters they've had with being moderated, and little to no weight (except perhaps in the abstract) on the volume of what they don't see. Moderation, when done well, is close to invisible; I think as a side effect of that, people underestimate its value in contributing to their good experiences.
  - the8472 6y ago
    > Having many users should not suddenly mean you don't own the site You continue to own it, but that does not mean you can do arbitrary things to your users. That's precisely how things work for utilities. You can do whatever with your private road or power generator. But if you're providing essential services to the masses then eventually universal service, non-discrimination and neutrality rules come into play. If doctors coordinate their covid response over facebook groups, elon musk makes stock-affecting announcement over twitter and the police sends out warnings via twitter than they're taking on the role of a public communication provider. You could argue that it's a free service and you're not a customer as you're with a utility. But on the other hand you're paying with your data and attention. > Removing the liability shield for sites that moderate will destroy either the site or the moderation, and either way the usefulness of the site comes to an end. You're assuming that there is no way to adapt to the new rules. Separation of platform services and moderation would be one. Would it work? Maybe not and you could be right and communities would be destroyed. Or maybe it would result in more Bloggers, Wordpresses and Signals. > Make a new network that puts control in the hands of the users in the way you envision, and test it to see how well it works. Regulation is a valid approach though? I'm not saying that the FCC is intending to do good here, just that I can can imagine a hypothetical well-intentioned version of what they're doing. > That angle is why Section 230 was created in the first place, and why it should remain intact. Let me rephrase, I find it concerning that it could specifically empower the entrenched players while harming the smaller ones. Requiring an army of moderators when you want to create a global communication platform on the one hand but impose your preferred corporate image (and be it just to remain attractive to advertisiers) on all participants then I am not feeling all that sympathetic. And this isn't just about communication in the narrow sense. The controversy around the apple app store is in a similar vein. On the one hand they pretend that they act as a simple market facilitator, a platform. On the other hand they categorically ban certain categories of legal software because it goes against their corporate interests. Forcing them to choose between platform and publisher could result in either a smaller, carefully curated official apple store + sideloading or larger, more open default app store. Either outcome seems desirable to me.
juniper_strong 6y ago
>> "leave this problem alone, it's working just fine" You have the major internet networks 3 weeks before an election banning speech because if they allowed it it might hurt their preferred political candidate. I mean they can claim otherwise, but they don't apply the criteria they use in this instance to instances where the speech is done by their political party. It is clear what is going on here. Maybe that is working fine for you, it isn't working fine for me. The ask of companies under section 230 is that they be allowed to publish libel, publish slander, publish copyright violations, publish content that violates laws against discrimination, publish threats of violence, publish posts by terrorists coordinating their attacks, publish all this with no liability whatsoever. That is a huge ask. The question is, what do we get back for allowing them that privilege? Increasingly, in my opinion, we get negative value back for that. It's not working just fine for me, it's time to amend section 230 so that the law advances the policies it advocates or abolish it altogether and let internet content providers live by the same rules that print content providers have lived by.
- JoshTriplett 6y ago
  The world you propose gives more power to large site operators, not less, because they're the only ones that could possibly afford the requisite moderation resources. The world you propose does not have functional real-time public communication, because nobody could risk the liability of allowing the posting of content they haven't checked yet. The world you propose is one in which nobody could take the risk of running a community online. The world you propose is one in which the site you're making this comment on cannot exist in a functional way. The world you propose has more governmental restraint on speech, not less; that restraint comes in the form of "we're not actually telling you that you can't administrate your site, but if do something we don't like, we'll just stand back and let you get prosecuted out of existence for the actions of your users". That's just regulation of speech by an indirect means. > The ask of companies under section 230 is that they be allowed to publish No. "publish" is a distortion promoted by people trying to use the repeal of Section 230 as a weapon. To the extent liability should exist for speech at all, companies should absolutely be liable for what they publish. They should not be liable for what their users publish. Without that distinction, the Internet cannot exist as a medium for any kind of user-generated content. Centralized services providing curated content would fare just fine, but anything that allows users to interact or contribute would die. > The question is, what do we get back for allowing them that privilege? A functional Internet. Websites that contains content supplied by others, that aren't "anything goes" cesspools. An Internet that helps people interact in a read-write manner, not just consume content in a read-only manner.

the8472 6y ago

> Site operators can and should have the ability to ban anyone or remove any content, for any reason or no reason. If a major fraction of human communication, especially during lockdowns, is facilitated by social networks then they are fulfilling a utility role. So being in the position of dictating what millions of people will talk about is at least questionable. > for anything but the most massive sites that could theoretically afford an army of moderators Ok, I have not considered this angle and it is indeed concerning. > Destroying the concept of moderation does not make the world better. That may be the goal of the FCC, but I for one did not say that I am in support of destroying moderation. Quite the opposite, I was thinking how it could be made to work while providing more open communication platforms and putting more control in the hands of the users rather than the companies.

JoshTriplett 6y ago
> If a major fraction of human communication, especially during lockdowns, is facilitated by social networks then they are fulfilling a utility role. Removing the ability of those sites to moderate will not make them better. (Even if it did by some metric, that still wouldn't be acceptable; what constitutes "better" is entirely up to the site owner to determine. But it's even less reasonable given that it wouldn't have the intended effect, unless the intended effect is to cause harm.) Having many users should not suddenly mean you don't own the site, nor should it mean that you cannot moderate the site as you see fit. "We came up with a new algorithm to automatically detect spam" should not need to come with "and several years later we managed to get the government to say we're allowed to use it without incurring liability". >> for anything but the most massive sites that could theoretically afford an army of moderators > Ok, I have not considered this angle and it is indeed concerning. That angle is why Section 230 was created in the first place, and why it should remain intact. > That may be the goal of the FCC, but I for one did not say that I am in support of destroying moderation. Removing the liability shield for sites that moderate will destroy either the site or the moderation, and either way the usefulness of the site comes to an end. > Quite the opposite, I was thinking how it could be made to work while providing more open communication platforms and putting more control in the hands of the users rather than the companies. Make a new network that puts control in the hands of the users in the way you envision, and test it to see how well it works. Or join one of the existing efforts already working on that. This isn't a legislative problem; it certainly shouldn't have a legislative non-solution masquerading as a solution. I think most people's experience with moderation puts more weight on any encounters they've had with being moderated, and little to no weight (except perhaps in the abstract) on the volume of what they don't see. Moderation, when done well, is close to invisible; I think as a side effect of that, people underestimate its value in contributing to their good experiences.
- the8472 6y ago
  > Having many users should not suddenly mean you don't own the site You continue to own it, but that does not mean you can do arbitrary things to your users. That's precisely how things work for utilities. You can do whatever with your private road or power generator. But if you're providing essential services to the masses then eventually universal service, non-discrimination and neutrality rules come into play. If doctors coordinate their covid response over facebook groups, elon musk makes stock-affecting announcement over twitter and the police sends out warnings via twitter than they're taking on the role of a public communication provider. You could argue that it's a free service and you're not a customer as you're with a utility. But on the other hand you're paying with your data and attention. > Removing the liability shield for sites that moderate will destroy either the site or the moderation, and either way the usefulness of the site comes to an end. You're assuming that there is no way to adapt to the new rules. Separation of platform services and moderation would be one. Would it work? Maybe not and you could be right and communities would be destroyed. Or maybe it would result in more Bloggers, Wordpresses and Signals. > Make a new network that puts control in the hands of the users in the way you envision, and test it to see how well it works. Regulation is a valid approach though? I'm not saying that the FCC is intending to do good here, just that I can can imagine a hypothetical well-intentioned version of what they're doing. > That angle is why Section 230 was created in the first place, and why it should remain intact. Let me rephrase, I find it concerning that it could specifically empower the entrenched players while harming the smaller ones. Requiring an army of moderators when you want to create a global communication platform on the one hand but impose your preferred corporate image (and be it just to remain attractive to advertisiers) on all participants then I am not feeling all that sympathetic. And this isn't just about communication in the narrow sense. The controversy around the apple app store is in a similar vein. On the one hand they pretend that they act as a simple market facilitator, a platform. On the other hand they categorically ban certain categories of legal software because it goes against their corporate interests. Forcing them to choose between platform and publisher could result in either a smaller, carefully curated official apple store + sideloading or larger, more open default app store. Either outcome seems desirable to me.

juniper_strong 6y ago

>> "leave this problem alone, it's working just fine" You have the major internet networks 3 weeks before an election banning speech because if they allowed it it might hurt their preferred political candidate. I mean they can claim otherwise, but they don't apply the criteria they use in this instance to instances where the speech is done by their political party. It is clear what is going on here. Maybe that is working fine for you, it isn't working fine for me. The ask of companies under section 230 is that they be allowed to publish libel, publish slander, publish copyright violations, publish content that violates laws against discrimination, publish threats of violence, publish posts by terrorists coordinating their attacks, publish all this with no liability whatsoever. That is a huge ask. The question is, what do we get back for allowing them that privilege? Increasingly, in my opinion, we get negative value back for that. It's not working just fine for me, it's time to amend section 230 so that the law advances the policies it advocates or abolish it altogether and let internet content providers live by the same rules that print content providers have lived by.

JoshTriplett 6y ago
The world you propose gives more power to large site operators, not less, because they're the only ones that could possibly afford the requisite moderation resources. The world you propose does not have functional real-time public communication, because nobody could risk the liability of allowing the posting of content they haven't checked yet. The world you propose is one in which nobody could take the risk of running a community online. The world you propose is one in which the site you're making this comment on cannot exist in a functional way. The world you propose has more governmental restraint on speech, not less; that restraint comes in the form of "we're not actually telling you that you can't administrate your site, but if do something we don't like, we'll just stand back and let you get prosecuted out of existence for the actions of your users". That's just regulation of speech by an indirect means. > The ask of companies under section 230 is that they be allowed to publish No. "publish" is a distortion promoted by people trying to use the repeal of Section 230 as a weapon. To the extent liability should exist for speech at all, companies should absolutely be liable for what they publish. They should not be liable for what their users publish. Without that distinction, the Internet cannot exist as a medium for any kind of user-generated content. Centralized services providing curated content would fare just fine, but anything that allows users to interact or contribute would die. > The question is, what do we get back for allowing them that privilege? A functional Internet. Websites that contains content supplied by others, that aren't "anything goes" cesspools. An Internet that helps people interact in a read-write manner, not just consume content in a read-only manner.