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You don't see the Internet breaking in your scenarios yet in all three the extra liability on the part of the host completely changes the calculus of even bothe

You don't see the Internet breaking in your scenarios yet in all three the extra liability on the part of the host completely changes the calculus of even bothering with the endeavor. You may not want to start a Quora competitor but someone else likely does. The needless extra liability either breaks the business model entirely or makes it too expensive for a new player to break in. So the extra liability just locks in the big players. You're also far too focused on sites you seem to dislike. Making hosts liable for user content will also affect every single industry forum, mailing list, or chat system. A flame war on a Linux distros mailing list could very easily get that distro sued out of existence just defending itself. Even an innocent error on a wiki could open up a bunch of volunteers to legal liability. The core problem that you're ignoring or not seeing is user content doesn't need to be libelous or illegal to end up in court. There's legal trolls that sue people for stupid or frivolous shit all the time. Simply defending yourself costs money which is something a Linux distro or a fan maintained wiki don't tend to have in abundance. It's hard enough to sue some mailing list member or wiki contributor that it tends to only happen with legitimate issues. But if the bar is lowered that hosts become liable for user content the legal trolls will descend. It's not just the legal trolls with civil suits, there will be plenty of DAs and AGs looking for easy wins (to score political points) that will go after sites for stupid reasons. Sites that can't afford some moderation service or liability insurance will just avoid user generated content. They'll also remove existing content, you know - scrub it from their site, because there's no way of knowing it won't attract a lawsuit. You assume defamatory content gets tagged by the poster as "#defamatory" and it's then immediately obvious. Stack Overflow might take down an obvious troll post but what about a post pointing out a bug in a software product? If some developer became sufficiently upset they could sue SO because someone pointed out a major bug in their software. A completely above board discussion of a bug could easily be seen by the developer as defamatory. Just responding to a suit would cost SO money let alone actually defending themselves. There's a wide gulf between dealing with obviously offensive/malicious content and being under constant threat of legal action no matter how good your moderation. If you don't publish anyone else's content you're fine. I don't give a shit about you. Maybe your personally published content is worthwhile, maybe it's complete shit. I don't know or care. But I do know there's some YouTube channels I really enjoy that wouldn't exist without YouTube as a platform. I have also benefited a great deal from Wikipedia among several other wikis that would not be able to operate if they were constantly threatened in court. I've definitely benefitted from product reviews, restaurant reviews, and OpenStreetMap contributions. All of that content I know has been worthwhile and I would much rather it exist and the platforms that enable it to exist.

reggieband 6y ago
I don't think we're going to find common understanding on this but I appreciate you taking the time to at least think about the actual consequences. I happen to disagree with your assessments. > The needless extra liability either breaks the business model We can agree, I hope, that if I had a shared image host then I should at least pay the cost to ensure no child pornography, snuff or whatever other common horrible images we can agree on are removed. I hope we can both agree that such expense might be impossible for some business models but that such expense isn't needless. We can probably also agree that Section 230 likely won't protect me from 3 letter government agencies insisting I remove classified content, even if my own morals would allow such content. So yes, I'm asking for /extra/ liability but we can disagree on what is or is not needless. > You're also far too focused on sites you seem to dislike It may seem that way since I am arguing that Section 230 may be the seed from which they grew. I'm arguing that allowing single entities to re-publish volumes of content beyond their means to moderate may be bad at it's core. Perhaps we should limit everyones ability to post unlimited and unmoderated content. That includes me. So I can't just put a blank billboard in front of my house, allow anyone to write any slanderous thing on it and then shrug and say "Section 230" when the neighbors complain. On the topic of Stack Overflow, I wonder if they have taken down clearly false and libelous claims. Same with Wikipedia. I doubt either have a clean record either way. > But I do know there's some YouTube channels I really enjoy that wouldn't exist without YouTube as a platform. I want to take the time to descend into my own hyperbole just for rhetorical effect. Lots of the world was made better in small ways by tremendously horrific practices. I love Youtube and I watch it every single day. Careers have been born on it and a small number of millionaires. Does that mean that a single company controlling something like 90% of the personally created videos on the Internet is a good thing? For every Youtuber you like, how many of sufficient value have been buried by Youtube's algorithm? Have you ever read the "Wikipedia has cancer" post [1]? When you really look deeply at what we think we are protecting ... are you sure it is what you think it is? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills as the nerds of the world seem to be cheering on the bullies as they steal, repackage and profit off of the user generated content of others. And when someone suggests that as a price they should at least be held responsible for the worst of the content they republish then everyone acts shocked, like how can these billionaires possibly manage all that. What I'm saying is: if they can't manage it then they should stop. And if you can't figure out how to do it then you shouldn't even start. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

reggieband 6y ago

I don't think we're going to find common understanding on this but I appreciate you taking the time to at least think about the actual consequences. I happen to disagree with your assessments. > The needless extra liability either breaks the business model We can agree, I hope, that if I had a shared image host then I should at least pay the cost to ensure no child pornography, snuff or whatever other common horrible images we can agree on are removed. I hope we can both agree that such expense might be impossible for some business models but that such expense isn't needless. We can probably also agree that Section 230 likely won't protect me from 3 letter government agencies insisting I remove classified content, even if my own morals would allow such content. So yes, I'm asking for /extra/ liability but we can disagree on what is or is not needless. > You're also far too focused on sites you seem to dislike It may seem that way since I am arguing that Section 230 may be the seed from which they grew. I'm arguing that allowing single entities to re-publish volumes of content beyond their means to moderate may be bad at it's core. Perhaps we should limit everyones ability to post unlimited and unmoderated content. That includes me. So I can't just put a blank billboard in front of my house, allow anyone to write any slanderous thing on it and then shrug and say "Section 230" when the neighbors complain. On the topic of Stack Overflow, I wonder if they have taken down clearly false and libelous claims. Same with Wikipedia. I doubt either have a clean record either way. > But I do know there's some YouTube channels I really enjoy that wouldn't exist without YouTube as a platform. I want to take the time to descend into my own hyperbole just for rhetorical effect. Lots of the world was made better in small ways by tremendously horrific practices. I love Youtube and I watch it every single day. Careers have been born on it and a small number of millionaires. Does that mean that a single company controlling something like 90% of the personally created videos on the Internet is a good thing? For every Youtuber you like, how many of sufficient value have been buried by Youtube's algorithm? Have you ever read the "Wikipedia has cancer" post [1]? When you really look deeply at what we think we are protecting ... are you sure it is what you think it is? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills as the nerds of the world seem to be cheering on the bullies as they steal, repackage and profit off of the user generated content of others. And when someone suggests that as a price they should at least be held responsible for the worst of the content they republish then everyone acts shocked, like how can these billionaires possibly manage all that. What I'm saying is: if they can't manage it then they should stop. And if you can't figure out how to do it then you shouldn't even start. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_Cancer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...