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Well, to be fair you have an even stronger argument against me in that code is really just text. I mean, I can create `libellous_rant.txt` and push it into a pu

Well, to be fair you have an even stronger argument against me in that code is really just text. I mean, I can create `libellous_rant.txt` and push it into a public Github repo. Since any file on a pubic github repo is viewable (even without setting it up as a site or whatever feature they have) that feels like they could be viewed as publishing that content. So Github couldn't even really force moderation of issues, they would have to moderate every single file in every single repo. But to address the specific concern you brought up, removing Section 230 wouldn't prevent someone submitting bugs/issues. It would just force the moderation of those posts before they were made publicly viewable. For small projects that receive 2 or 3 bug reports a week I doubt that would be the massive issue everyone here is wringing their hands over. It becomes a problem with scale - like 1000+ issues per day on a project ran by a single developer. But to be fair to my position - could such a developer even deal with that volume of issues even if the default behaviour was to make all posts public? I grant that moderation slows discussion. For example, if you were asleep and someone posted an issue then before you even had a chance to moderate some other non-admin user might answer the question. Maybe we lose that. More likely we find a way to work around it.

cbelton 6y ago
Your position seems to fundamentally ignore abuse potential by malicious actors. You don't like a particular project? Start spamming child porn and other problematic posts until the moderators just decide they're spending too much time moderating that repo and need to shut it down, even if the developer has done nothing wrong. I get your philosophical stance, and in some ways, I think it's healthy to question the fundamental assumptions about whether certain services should exist. But I also think you are willfully ignoring second and third order effects to continue this thought experiment where people are routinely showing that these secondary and* tertiary effects will be crippling to more than just social media companies. And again, social media companies will not go away with 230 repeal; they are some of the only entities with enough capital to handle increased litigation costs as a result of 230 repeal.
- reggieband 6y ago
  > Start spamming child porn and other problematic posts until the moderators just decide they're spending too much time moderating that repo and need to shut it down, even if the developer has done nothing wrong. How is that different from right now? Changing the default visibility of posted content from public to private doesn't change the ability of anyone to spam anything. You either have to clear out your moderation queue OR clear out your publicly visible forum after the fact. And isn't that better? By forcing moderation you are preventing that horrific content from being visible while you were asleep overnight. Right now the forum owner can just shrug it off "oops, I was asleep, not my problem". Without Section 230 that might not be permissible. > you are willfully ignoring second and third order effects to continue this thought experiment where people are routinely showing that these secondary and* tertiary effects will be crippling to more than just social media companies. In what ways has anyone show any secondary or tertiary effect that would be crippling? I would avoid allowing public comments on my blog? I would avoid creating a public discussion forum? I fail to see this as crippling. I think people are vastly overestimating the impact of re-publishing the content of others on their personal lives. Yes, it could cripple some potential businesses. But my point is: should those businesses exist? Let's really think about exactly what we are giving up, not this fear mongering "destroys the Internet". Let's be specific. What would we lose that cannot be replaced?
  - cbelton 6y ago
    Sorry for the late reply. On how it is different - some of the 230 proposals want to change the good faith prong such that it would be much easier to allege that a Company was "informed" about certain activity and didn't take it down swiftly enough. Right now, even with recent changes, 230 gives some of these platforms reasonable leeway to avoid liability for this attack absent willfully ignoring notice. As for second and third order effects, again, we have evidence from the past year of what will occur. The crackdown on personal ads, Tumblr, etc. all came as a result of changes to this law through FOSTA-SESTA. Those sites weren't all in violation of the law; they just made a determination that they cannot reasonably risk having to litigate what were previously not edge cases with the budgets they have. The result? A lot of Tumblr and other traffic ended up on...Twitter. And why? Because Twitter, unlike other smaller entities, can weather litigation and regulatory costs much better relative to smaller competitors. Far from crippling the most egregious actors, it actually EMPOWERED them. What you are talking about are just first order effects when you pontificate about people not just allowing things on a social media site. But as illustrated above, this will impact far more than just someone allowing comments or not. It can fundamentally reorient dynamics for all sites that allow for user content to be posted, and there are very strong likelihoods that it will lead to a greater concentration of power in incumbent social media companies, exacerbating the very issues you are most concerned about.
klyrs 6y ago
Okay, let's focus on the repo, then. Section 230 prevents github from being sued over a user posting a malicious PR to my repo. Successful moderation, in that case, would require github to employ people who are familiar enough with my code to understand the impact of the PR. This is completely untenable.

cbelton 6y ago

Your position seems to fundamentally ignore abuse potential by malicious actors. You don't like a particular project? Start spamming child porn and other problematic posts until the moderators just decide they're spending too much time moderating that repo and need to shut it down, even if the developer has done nothing wrong. I get your philosophical stance, and in some ways, I think it's healthy to question the fundamental assumptions about whether certain services should exist. But I also think you are willfully ignoring second and third order effects to continue this thought experiment where people are routinely showing that these secondary and* tertiary effects will be crippling to more than just social media companies. And again, social media companies will not go away with 230 repeal; they are some of the only entities with enough capital to handle increased litigation costs as a result of 230 repeal.

reggieband 6y ago
> Start spamming child porn and other problematic posts until the moderators just decide they're spending too much time moderating that repo and need to shut it down, even if the developer has done nothing wrong. How is that different from right now? Changing the default visibility of posted content from public to private doesn't change the ability of anyone to spam anything. You either have to clear out your moderation queue OR clear out your publicly visible forum after the fact. And isn't that better? By forcing moderation you are preventing that horrific content from being visible while you were asleep overnight. Right now the forum owner can just shrug it off "oops, I was asleep, not my problem". Without Section 230 that might not be permissible. > you are willfully ignoring second and third order effects to continue this thought experiment where people are routinely showing that these secondary and* tertiary effects will be crippling to more than just social media companies. In what ways has anyone show any secondary or tertiary effect that would be crippling? I would avoid allowing public comments on my blog? I would avoid creating a public discussion forum? I fail to see this as crippling. I think people are vastly overestimating the impact of re-publishing the content of others on their personal lives. Yes, it could cripple some potential businesses. But my point is: should those businesses exist? Let's really think about exactly what we are giving up, not this fear mongering "destroys the Internet". Let's be specific. What would we lose that cannot be replaced?
- cbelton 6y ago
  Sorry for the late reply. On how it is different - some of the 230 proposals want to change the good faith prong such that it would be much easier to allege that a Company was "informed" about certain activity and didn't take it down swiftly enough. Right now, even with recent changes, 230 gives some of these platforms reasonable leeway to avoid liability for this attack absent willfully ignoring notice. As for second and third order effects, again, we have evidence from the past year of what will occur. The crackdown on personal ads, Tumblr, etc. all came as a result of changes to this law through FOSTA-SESTA. Those sites weren't all in violation of the law; they just made a determination that they cannot reasonably risk having to litigate what were previously not edge cases with the budgets they have. The result? A lot of Tumblr and other traffic ended up on...Twitter. And why? Because Twitter, unlike other smaller entities, can weather litigation and regulatory costs much better relative to smaller competitors. Far from crippling the most egregious actors, it actually EMPOWERED them. What you are talking about are just first order effects when you pontificate about people not just allowing things on a social media site. But as illustrated above, this will impact far more than just someone allowing comments or not. It can fundamentally reorient dynamics for all sites that allow for user content to be posted, and there are very strong likelihoods that it will lead to a greater concentration of power in incumbent social media companies, exacerbating the very issues you are most concerned about.

klyrs 6y ago

Okay, let's focus on the repo, then. Section 230 prevents github from being sued over a user posting a malicious PR to my repo. Successful moderation, in that case, would require github to employ people who are familiar enough with my code to understand the impact of the PR. This is completely untenable.