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Making decisions like that is why we have courts. They are responsible for deciding whether a particular act was murder or self-defense, whether something is po

Making decisions like that is why we have courts. They are responsible for deciding whether a particular act was murder or self-defense, whether something is pornography or art, whether something is protected or forbidden by the Constitution, etc. They're far from perfect, but is it better to give the power to control digital communications to a few corporations?

kangaroozach 6y ago
The answer depends on whether you are a radical or not. A hate filled SJW as well as a brainwashed NPC actually believes the ends justifies the means and their stone cold hatred of their “perceived” political enemies justifies total censorship and control over our “digital” public forums.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. The site is overrun with this kind of thing at the moment, and we're banning accounts who do it. I'm not going to ban yours because it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of it, but please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the intended use of the site from now on.
modmans2nd 6y ago
Section 230 doesn’t give social media any more power than they have under the first amendment. It is simply a shield from nuisance lawsuits.
- leereeves 6y ago
  It does though. For example, it gives them the power to refuse to remove false information without being held responsible for it, which the first amendment does not give to publishers like the NYT.
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    That’s not true. The liability shield only covers content produced by other entities, e.g. tweets. Twitter is still liable for content it produces itself, such as fact checks and trend summaries. Likewise, the New York Times is liable for the articles published by its own writers, but it bears no liability for the comments section.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - Majromax 6y ago
      But the NYT can carry liability for letters to the editor published in its dead tree format -- see https://www.rcfp.org/supreme-court-will-not-hear-letter-editor-libel-case/ https://www.rcfp.org/supreme-court-will-not-hear-letter-edit... as an example of a local newspaper being held liable for letter-to-the-editor-published defamation. The CDA draws a bright line between content "authored" by a firm and content "made available." In practice, that line is fuzzy. As a hypothetical example, Twitter probably should face liability if it took a random tweet (say) accusing Bezos of pedophilia and made an editorial decision to promote that tweet to all its users, but it could still plausibly claim that it was just making the content available. It's a complicated topic, and I don't know where the best balance lies.
      - xxpor 6y ago
        The tweet promotion is an interesting point, but the letter to the editor is easier IMO. It's assumed that a human has read and selected the letter to the editor, which is why they'd have liability. For the promoted tweet, my first reaction would be to say, if a human affirmatively promoted it, they'd be liable. If it's pure algorithm, they wouldn't be if they took it down when served a notice.
        simonh 6y ago
        That’s not the current situation under Section 230. You can even re-tweet or forward content posted by someone else and not be liable. Only the original author is liable. This is sensible baca use otherwise all sorts of innocuous relaying, trending and categorisation activity normal of forums and social media that affect the scope and visibility of posts could trigger liability.

kangaroozach 6y ago

The answer depends on whether you are a radical or not. A hate filled SJW as well as a brainwashed NPC actually believes the ends justifies the means and their stone cold hatred of their “perceived” political enemies justifies total censorship and control over our “digital” public forums.

dang 6y ago
Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. The site is overrun with this kind of thing at the moment, and we're banning accounts who do it. I'm not going to ban yours because it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of it, but please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the intended use of the site from now on.

modmans2nd 6y ago

Section 230 doesn’t give social media any more power than they have under the first amendment. It is simply a shield from nuisance lawsuits.

leereeves 6y ago
It does though. For example, it gives them the power to refuse to remove false information without being held responsible for it, which the first amendment does not give to publishers like the NYT.
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  That’s not true. The liability shield only covers content produced by other entities, e.g. tweets. Twitter is still liable for content it produces itself, such as fact checks and trend summaries. Likewise, the New York Times is liable for the articles published by its own writers, but it bears no liability for the comments section.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Majromax 6y ago
    But the NYT can carry liability for letters to the editor published in its dead tree format -- see https://www.rcfp.org/supreme-court-will-not-hear-letter-editor-libel-case/ https://www.rcfp.org/supreme-court-will-not-hear-letter-edit... as an example of a local newspaper being held liable for letter-to-the-editor-published defamation. The CDA draws a bright line between content "authored" by a firm and content "made available." In practice, that line is fuzzy. As a hypothetical example, Twitter probably should face liability if it took a random tweet (say) accusing Bezos of pedophilia and made an editorial decision to promote that tweet to all its users, but it could still plausibly claim that it was just making the content available. It's a complicated topic, and I don't know where the best balance lies.
    - xxpor 6y ago
      The tweet promotion is an interesting point, but the letter to the editor is easier IMO. It's assumed that a human has read and selected the letter to the editor, which is why they'd have liability. For the promoted tweet, my first reaction would be to say, if a human affirmatively promoted it, they'd be liable. If it's pure algorithm, they wouldn't be if they took it down when served a notice.
      - simonh 6y ago
        That’s not the current situation under Section 230. You can even re-tweet or forward content posted by someone else and not be liable. Only the original author is liable. This is sensible baca use otherwise all sorts of innocuous relaying, trending and categorisation activity normal of forums and social media that affect the scope and visibility of posts could trigger liability.