6 ms·

Ajit Pai, FCC drops Section 230 plan

75 points by hundchenkatze 6y ago

bsradcliffe 6y ago
Fuck Ajit, the piece of shit. Good riddance.
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Please don't fulminate
  - kgwxd 6y ago
    What kind of smart aleck, wise guy, braggart, windbag, smarty-pants, know-it-all, uses the word "fulminate"?
    - m00x 6y ago
      Please don't fulminate.
threatofrain 6y ago
> Despite that, Pai did not criticize Facebook and Twitter for restricting Trump this week. When asked if he "agree[s] with Facebook and Twitter's decision to pull the president off of social media," > Pai responded, "Given the circumstances we saw yesterday, I'm not going to second-guess those decisions."
pochamago 6y ago
I've generally liked the policies Pai has pushed through in his tenure, and I'm really relieved to see him pulling the rug out from under this.
- trianglem 6y ago
  So you like the repeal of net neutrality?
  - tenebrisalietum 6y ago
    Some people believe that having a choice between 128Mbit/sec DSL and a cable company that does everything it can to bundle services and make you pay for stuff you don't want is enough competition to ensure companies don't misbehave.
    - dstick 6y ago
      I’m paying €32 / mnth for 1000/1000 fibre in an urban, but not mega city urban, area of the Netherlands. Internet access should be a commodity like electricity and gas by now. It’s become that important.
  - pochamago 6y ago
    Yes, I was not a fan of Title 2 or how it was used, and I think things have been fine to better since it was repealed
    - trianglem 6y ago
      So you had a right taken away and replaced with the “benevolence” of corporations and you’re happy with this? You gained nothing, you only lost things.
      - fat_pikachu 6y ago
        Speaking as someone who use to work for R&D within the industry (in the resource allocation space), the OIO (the name for the FCC's implementation of net neutrality) injected a significant amount of regulatory uncertainty into our work resulting in dried up funding from certain sources. The rules themselves were expansive and went well beyond the existing status quo in a number of different ways. As an example, the OIO had lots of carve-outs for what they termed "specialized services" in the text; however, what would be considered a specialized service in the future was ambiguous as the definition wasn't governed by any principled approach. Some of my colleagues more familiar with regulatory policy said it would be a minimum of 10 years before we even began to get a clearer picture of how the rules would work in practice. To give a concrete example, we're essentially in year 6 of Net Neutrality in the EU and we still have no clear guidance on how certain important aspects of 5G (such as network slicing) will interact with it. (source: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9017846 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9017846)
snowwrestler 6y ago
This was never going to go anywhere. The same companies who supported and appreciated Pai’s net neutrality ruling (big ISPs) are all content companies now too, and they benefit as much as Facebook and Twitter from Section 230. Unlike net neutrality, which split the business community between network owners and application companies, I can’t think of a category of business that benefits from repeal or weakening of Section 230. IMO it’s a purely performative policy discussion.
- munificent 6y ago
  I don't disagree with you but it makes me sad that we accept it as axiomatic that any law change is completely untenable unless it financially benefits some business sector.
  - snowwrestler 6y ago
    I don’t think that is true in general; labor and environmental law stand as two huge counterexamples. What I’m saying is that Pai specifically is one of the regulators motivated this way.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
CivBase 6y ago
I have many disagreements with Ajit Pai, but I think this is a smooth move. I think there needs to be some regulation on content moderation policies for the platforms which are becoming increasingly entrenched as the new public square. But even just the last few days have proven it's a difficult subject on which there is little public consensus. I haven't read up on Section 230, but I'd rather them not rush a solution out the door in the final hours of the current administration.
ryan29 6y ago
I want to point out there really are two sides to Section 230. On one hand, it's absolutely crucial to have it if we want most of the online communications tools we've become accustomed to to exist. On the other hand I think some companies, like Facebook specifically, have massively abused the protections of Section 230 to benefit themselves at the expense of the general public. When you're to the point of hiring psychologists to manipulate your users into "engagement" regardless of the impact to mental health and public discourse, I think that's the point where everyone needs to recognize that _something_ needs to be done in terms of regulation. When regulation _does_ happen, I hope lawmakers around the world give no consideration to the impact on Facebook just as Facebook's given no consideration to the negatives they're creating for society. Let them fail if necessary IMO. And finally, the best middle-ground I've seen for Section 230 was here on Hacker News. I don't remember which user said it, so I'm sorry I can't attribute it, but the idea was solid. Things like reverse chronological data feeds that a user is specifically asking for should be protected under Section 230. Things like recommendation and engagement algorithms should be considered publishing and platforms should be liable for that content since they're surfacing it and putting it in peoples' faces. I've paraphrased that, but I really hope the general idea gains traction. I've been very anti-censorship my whole life, but there's no denying that social media can have a severe, negative impact if the platforms are susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, so I think it's time to talk about moderation.
- BitwiseFool 6y ago
  I would love a "Choose your algorithm" law for content recommendations. The default would be chronological order, and you can opt in to whatever other algorithms these platforms offer.
  - btown 6y ago
    It would be hard to limit algorithmic internal promotion without limiting algorithmic external promotion, including the entire ad bidding ecosystem. And perhaps that’s a good thing - in addition to Facebook taking responsibility for Facebook links its non-opt-in algorithms promote, it should take responsibility for ad content. There are arguments that this could disadvantage smaller businesses in advertising. That’s a secondary concern to the deprogramming of a radicalized populace.
djsumdog 6y ago
Removing Section 230 would be horrific because it would prevent anyone else from being able to make competing platforms to those that have the massive ability to moderate everything. However, the platforms are too large to be allowed to moderate whatever the hell they want as they are now, while slurping up all our personal information and data. I think we need real reform, and people need to leave the big platforms and find better alternatives. I wrote about this last month: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/is-meaningful-section-230-reform-possible/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/is-meaningful-section-230...

75 points by hundchenkatze 6y ago

bsradcliffe 6y ago

Fuck Ajit, the piece of shit. Good riddance.

tenebrisalietum 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Please don't fulminate
- kgwxd 6y ago
  What kind of smart aleck, wise guy, braggart, windbag, smarty-pants, know-it-all, uses the word "fulminate"?
  - m00x 6y ago
    Please don't fulminate.

threatofrain 6y ago

> Despite that, Pai did not criticize Facebook and Twitter for restricting Trump this week. When asked if he "agree[s] with Facebook and Twitter's decision to pull the president off of social media," > Pai responded, "Given the circumstances we saw yesterday, I'm not going to second-guess those decisions."

pochamago 6y ago

I've generally liked the policies Pai has pushed through in his tenure, and I'm really relieved to see him pulling the rug out from under this.

trianglem 6y ago
So you like the repeal of net neutrality?
- tenebrisalietum 6y ago
  Some people believe that having a choice between 128Mbit/sec DSL and a cable company that does everything it can to bundle services and make you pay for stuff you don't want is enough competition to ensure companies don't misbehave.
  - dstick 6y ago
    I’m paying €32 / mnth for 1000/1000 fibre in an urban, but not mega city urban, area of the Netherlands. Internet access should be a commodity like electricity and gas by now. It’s become that important.
- pochamago 6y ago
  Yes, I was not a fan of Title 2 or how it was used, and I think things have been fine to better since it was repealed
  - trianglem 6y ago
    So you had a right taken away and replaced with the “benevolence” of corporations and you’re happy with this? You gained nothing, you only lost things.
    - fat_pikachu 6y ago
      Speaking as someone who use to work for R&D within the industry (in the resource allocation space), the OIO (the name for the FCC's implementation of net neutrality) injected a significant amount of regulatory uncertainty into our work resulting in dried up funding from certain sources. The rules themselves were expansive and went well beyond the existing status quo in a number of different ways. As an example, the OIO had lots of carve-outs for what they termed "specialized services" in the text; however, what would be considered a specialized service in the future was ambiguous as the definition wasn't governed by any principled approach. Some of my colleagues more familiar with regulatory policy said it would be a minimum of 10 years before we even began to get a clearer picture of how the rules would work in practice. To give a concrete example, we're essentially in year 6 of Net Neutrality in the EU and we still have no clear guidance on how certain important aspects of 5G (such as network slicing) will interact with it. (source: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9017846 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9017846)

snowwrestler 6y ago

This was never going to go anywhere. The same companies who supported and appreciated Pai’s net neutrality ruling (big ISPs) are all content companies now too, and they benefit as much as Facebook and Twitter from Section 230. Unlike net neutrality, which split the business community between network owners and application companies, I can’t think of a category of business that benefits from repeal or weakening of Section 230. IMO it’s a purely performative policy discussion.

munificent 6y ago
I don't disagree with you but it makes me sad that we accept it as axiomatic that any law change is completely untenable unless it financially benefits some business sector.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  I don’t think that is true in general; labor and environmental law stand as two huge counterexamples. What I’m saying is that Pai specifically is one of the regulators motivated this way.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

CivBase 6y ago

I have many disagreements with Ajit Pai, but I think this is a smooth move. I think there needs to be some regulation on content moderation policies for the platforms which are becoming increasingly entrenched as the new public square. But even just the last few days have proven it's a difficult subject on which there is little public consensus. I haven't read up on Section 230, but I'd rather them not rush a solution out the door in the final hours of the current administration.

ryan29 6y ago

I want to point out there really are two sides to Section 230. On one hand, it's absolutely crucial to have it if we want most of the online communications tools we've become accustomed to to exist. On the other hand I think some companies, like Facebook specifically, have massively abused the protections of Section 230 to benefit themselves at the expense of the general public. When you're to the point of hiring psychologists to manipulate your users into "engagement" regardless of the impact to mental health and public discourse, I think that's the point where everyone needs to recognize that _something_ needs to be done in terms of regulation. When regulation _does_ happen, I hope lawmakers around the world give no consideration to the impact on Facebook just as Facebook's given no consideration to the negatives they're creating for society. Let them fail if necessary IMO. And finally, the best middle-ground I've seen for Section 230 was here on Hacker News. I don't remember which user said it, so I'm sorry I can't attribute it, but the idea was solid. Things like reverse chronological data feeds that a user is specifically asking for should be protected under Section 230. Things like recommendation and engagement algorithms should be considered publishing and platforms should be liable for that content since they're surfacing it and putting it in peoples' faces. I've paraphrased that, but I really hope the general idea gains traction. I've been very anti-censorship my whole life, but there's no denying that social media can have a severe, negative impact if the platforms are susceptible to propaganda and misinformation, so I think it's time to talk about moderation.

BitwiseFool 6y ago
I would love a "Choose your algorithm" law for content recommendations. The default would be chronological order, and you can opt in to whatever other algorithms these platforms offer.
- btown 6y ago
  It would be hard to limit algorithmic internal promotion without limiting algorithmic external promotion, including the entire ad bidding ecosystem. And perhaps that’s a good thing - in addition to Facebook taking responsibility for Facebook links its non-opt-in algorithms promote, it should take responsibility for ad content. There are arguments that this could disadvantage smaller businesses in advertising. That’s a secondary concern to the deprogramming of a radicalized populace.

djsumdog 6y ago

Removing Section 230 would be horrific because it would prevent anyone else from being able to make competing platforms to those that have the massive ability to moderate everything. However, the platforms are too large to be allowed to moderate whatever the hell they want as they are now, while slurping up all our personal information and data. I think we need real reform, and people need to leave the big platforms and find better alternatives. I wrote about this last month: https://battlepenguin.com/politics/is-meaningful-section-230-reform-possible/ https://battlepenguin.com/politics/is-meaningful-section-230...