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How I would change Section 230? An unedited feed keeps you immune from editorial choices. You can allow a user to sort by likes, retweets or time. Anything else

How I would change Section 230? An unedited feed keeps you immune from editorial choices. You can allow a user to sort by likes, retweets or time. Anything else is considered publishing. One more thing. We can in fact read the things we want to read by using a “Where” clause. This functionality can be exposed as well and you can retain your Section 230 rights so long as no magic happens in the “Where” clause.

didibus 6y ago
> You can allow a user to sort by likes, retweets or time. Anything else is considered publishing. I think this is also editorial in nature. That's what I think Obama was referring too when he said "even without algorithms". Because even likes and retweets are a way to editorialize what people are most likely to see. It promotes what is popular, and that's often click bait sensational things (which are often inaccurate or worded in misleading ways). And it also makes them a target for abuse, in that you can create bot campaigns or use human farms to push things to the top by having them artificially retweeted and liked. Or to hide things if there are downvotes as well. Think about Hackernews, even it still needs moderation even though it only has upvotes/downvotes. Now I think they are more tame compared to algorithms and machine learning models, but you can still argue they are a form of editorialization. Sorted by date isn't editorial. Same for search by keyword. Filtered by category or tag or user or date and all those are not editorial in nature. And if you think back to Google, the big breakthrough for search was to consider the number of backlinks to some content. I think that be a great way to replace sort by likes and retweets. Basically, force a user to post something new that talks about another post and links to it. And then you could have a sort be "number of reference". As long as you force the new post to not only be a link to another one, like require some additional content to be there as well, so someone adds to the conversation, even if it's just: "This is a great read: link". I feel that create a much higher quality content. Edit: Okay, re-reading this, I'm thinking my last idea is a lot similar to retweet, since it's basically a new post that back links to some existing one. So most retweeted might be fine. And I'm thinking why that is. I think it's because by retweeting, you're not promoting existing content above others, you're creating more copies of the same content. In a way, it is very transparent as to how many people have the same voice about something. So it makes it clear that it is users who are being vocal about some topic, and not the platform using some metric to promote one thing over others. Where as with likes, it's not clear if it's a user trying to push something to the top, thus editorializing, or if they are just trying to also say the same thing. I don't know, need to think about it some more probably.
- Fjolsvith 6y ago
  >> You can allow a user to sort by likes, retweets or time. Anything else is considered publishing. >I think this is also editorial in nature. Ah, but the distinction is that the user is the one performing the editing, and not the platform.
  - didibus 6y ago
    > Ah, but the distinction is that the user is the one performing the editing, and not the platform Hum... The platform still ends up showing you pre-selected posts over others. But the editorializing work is being done by other users. I guess here it becomes a matter of responsibility. Since the platform is still the one publishing the content in an editorialized manner, I think you could argue they are still responsible for it. Where as something where when you visit the platform you'd just see a list of posts in most recent order. And then it be the user navigating that would need to make "editorial" decision, by filtering or searching through the content on their own. Now you could say it is truly the user doing the editorializing. I guess the distinction is, the user consuming content should be doing their own selection. If the platform selects things for you in any way, even if based on feedback from other users, it means as a user consuming content on it you are getting an editorial perspective.
- mucholove 6y ago
  To me, it feels entirely different if you—as a user are aware of what is popular because you have chosen to see it ranked as so. Will it be gamed? Yes. But you might be able to as a user suspect that people are trying to game the system with fake votes. What is undeniable though is that because you as a user are making a choice to see the popularity, you are much more cognizant that something might be at play. Popularity—despite its flaws—is still a good signal and a great place to begin critical thinking if you’re aware that you’re choosing to view it through the popularity lens.
  - didibus 6y ago
    I feel one could argue most of the algorithms are just showing what's most popular though. No? It's tricky I guess to draw a line. But maybe it doesn't need to. All it means to consider it editorializing is that the laws and regulations of being a publisher now applies to you, and maybe for all these centralized user content platforms it should? No matter their UX? That would mean those platforms would be liable for copyright, defamation, privacy, negligence and publicity issues that they publish, even if the content is written by their users. I'd consider platforms that just enable peer to peer type conversation, like email, text message, what's app, where you need to explicitly send your post to other people, could be exempt. Those are clearly communication platforms. But any platform that aggregates content into one place for you to consume top to bottom, feed like, etc. I feel could just be considered a publisher. For example, if there was a book company who told people: Send us 144 character long snippets, and we'll put them all in a book collection and publish them, they'd be considered a publisher. So maybe this is true of Twitter as well? What does the digital format change here? This to me wouldn't preclude the sharing of information on the internet, it just means a user who wants to publish something that a "publishing" platform refuses to publish would need to do so themselves, procure themselves a website and publish the content on it. And then search engine or other site aggregator could let users find the content. This would make the user personally liable to copyright, defamation, privacy, negligence and publicity issues off course, but that's what we want: some accountability. If you're telling lies, defaming, providing dangerous and negligent advice, infringing copyright, or advertising for a political party, you should be made accountable for it. In a weird way, the current social platforms are a loophole, the user isn't accountable, and the platform isn't, so its the wild west. Another option is, if you want to be a platform for publishing, I think you could have it that, take twitter, there is no public feed of feed, but users can use it to publish their own material to their followers. But as a user choosing to publish, Twitter would need to perform full KYC due diligence and make your information about how to reach you public. More similar to what a merchant on Amazon goes through. Then it be clear that if you follow X it is X that is publishing, not Twitter, and it is still possible to take X to court as Twitter has done a full diligence KYC and made available enough information to do so. Thus making an easy platform for "self-publishing" but not shielding the user's who use it to publish from accountability of what they publish.

didibus 6y ago

> You can allow a user to sort by likes, retweets or time. Anything else is considered publishing. I think this is also editorial in nature. That's what I think Obama was referring too when he said "even without algorithms". Because even likes and retweets are a way to editorialize what people are most likely to see. It promotes what is popular, and that's often click bait sensational things (which are often inaccurate or worded in misleading ways). And it also makes them a target for abuse, in that you can create bot campaigns or use human farms to push things to the top by having them artificially retweeted and liked. Or to hide things if there are downvotes as well. Think about Hackernews, even it still needs moderation even though it only has upvotes/downvotes. Now I think they are more tame compared to algorithms and machine learning models, but you can still argue they are a form of editorialization. Sorted by date isn't editorial. Same for search by keyword. Filtered by category or tag or user or date and all those are not editorial in nature. And if you think back to Google, the big breakthrough for search was to consider the number of backlinks to some content. I think that be a great way to replace sort by likes and retweets. Basically, force a user to post something new that talks about another post and links to it. And then you could have a sort be "number of reference". As long as you force the new post to not only be a link to another one, like require some additional content to be there as well, so someone adds to the conversation, even if it's just: "This is a great read: link". I feel that create a much higher quality content. Edit: Okay, re-reading this, I'm thinking my last idea is a lot similar to retweet, since it's basically a new post that back links to some existing one. So most retweeted might be fine. And I'm thinking why that is. I think it's because by retweeting, you're not promoting existing content above others, you're creating more copies of the same content. In a way, it is very transparent as to how many people have the same voice about something. So it makes it clear that it is users who are being vocal about some topic, and not the platform using some metric to promote one thing over others. Where as with likes, it's not clear if it's a user trying to push something to the top, thus editorializing, or if they are just trying to also say the same thing. I don't know, need to think about it some more probably.

Fjolsvith 6y ago
>> You can allow a user to sort by likes, retweets or time. Anything else is considered publishing. >I think this is also editorial in nature. Ah, but the distinction is that the user is the one performing the editing, and not the platform.
- didibus 6y ago
  > Ah, but the distinction is that the user is the one performing the editing, and not the platform Hum... The platform still ends up showing you pre-selected posts over others. But the editorializing work is being done by other users. I guess here it becomes a matter of responsibility. Since the platform is still the one publishing the content in an editorialized manner, I think you could argue they are still responsible for it. Where as something where when you visit the platform you'd just see a list of posts in most recent order. And then it be the user navigating that would need to make "editorial" decision, by filtering or searching through the content on their own. Now you could say it is truly the user doing the editorializing. I guess the distinction is, the user consuming content should be doing their own selection. If the platform selects things for you in any way, even if based on feedback from other users, it means as a user consuming content on it you are getting an editorial perspective.
mucholove 6y ago
To me, it feels entirely different if you—as a user are aware of what is popular because you have chosen to see it ranked as so. Will it be gamed? Yes. But you might be able to as a user suspect that people are trying to game the system with fake votes. What is undeniable though is that because you as a user are making a choice to see the popularity, you are much more cognizant that something might be at play. Popularity—despite its flaws—is still a good signal and a great place to begin critical thinking if you’re aware that you’re choosing to view it through the popularity lens.
- didibus 6y ago
  I feel one could argue most of the algorithms are just showing what's most popular though. No? It's tricky I guess to draw a line. But maybe it doesn't need to. All it means to consider it editorializing is that the laws and regulations of being a publisher now applies to you, and maybe for all these centralized user content platforms it should? No matter their UX? That would mean those platforms would be liable for copyright, defamation, privacy, negligence and publicity issues that they publish, even if the content is written by their users. I'd consider platforms that just enable peer to peer type conversation, like email, text message, what's app, where you need to explicitly send your post to other people, could be exempt. Those are clearly communication platforms. But any platform that aggregates content into one place for you to consume top to bottom, feed like, etc. I feel could just be considered a publisher. For example, if there was a book company who told people: Send us 144 character long snippets, and we'll put them all in a book collection and publish them, they'd be considered a publisher. So maybe this is true of Twitter as well? What does the digital format change here? This to me wouldn't preclude the sharing of information on the internet, it just means a user who wants to publish something that a "publishing" platform refuses to publish would need to do so themselves, procure themselves a website and publish the content on it. And then search engine or other site aggregator could let users find the content. This would make the user personally liable to copyright, defamation, privacy, negligence and publicity issues off course, but that's what we want: some accountability. If you're telling lies, defaming, providing dangerous and negligent advice, infringing copyright, or advertising for a political party, you should be made accountable for it. In a weird way, the current social platforms are a loophole, the user isn't accountable, and the platform isn't, so its the wild west. Another option is, if you want to be a platform for publishing, I think you could have it that, take twitter, there is no public feed of feed, but users can use it to publish their own material to their followers. But as a user choosing to publish, Twitter would need to perform full KYC due diligence and make your information about how to reach you public. More similar to what a merchant on Amazon goes through. Then it be clear that if you follow X it is X that is publishing, not Twitter, and it is still possible to take X to court as Twitter has done a full diligence KYC and made available enough information to do so. Thus making an easy platform for "self-publishing" but not shielding the user's who use it to publish from accountability of what they publish.