5 ms·

I regret to inform you that you have been terribly misled about section 230 and you should read this https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hell

• syshum 6y ago
  Yes I have read that many times, and I regret to inform you that you have been terribly misled about section 230 further in no way does your link refute my position at all. Not only is TechDirt take factually incorrect on the history of Section 230, I am talking about REFORMS to Section 230 to make it CLEAR what the section should mean, which IMO should be legal speech, not simply allow the platforms to set their own moderation standards The Ninth Circuit has as stated the intent of Section 230 was "Congress wanted to encourage the unfettered and unregulated development of free speech on the Internet, and to promote the development of e-commerce" The clear purpose of section 230 is promote not impede free speech. TechDirt on the whole has taken very pro-censorship stances provided it is "mah private companies" doing the censorship This is not inline with the actual facts of law, nor it is inline with how we as a society should be progressing I know it may come as a shock but people can have differing opinions from TechDirt....
  • armada651 6y ago
    You can definitely have different opinions on what you think the law should say, but you're misrepresenting what section 230 is for. I can't find that Ninth Circuit rulling you're referring to. The closest I can find is Barnes v. Yahoo! where the court ruled a company can't be compelled under the CDA to ban someone. In that ruling the Ninth circuit said that congress wanted to “promote the free exchange of information and ideas over the Internet and to encourage voluntary monitoring for offensive or obscene material.”. I can't find a ruling that says the intention of section 230 was to enforce unfettered free speech. Rather as I understand it section 230 is there to protect companies who want to publish a myriad of opinions by clarifying that it is the user who is liable for what they say, not the company that runs the website
    • syshum 6y ago
      >>I can't find that Ninth Circuit rulling you're referring to. Batzel v. Smith [1][2] >>Rather as I understand it section 230 is there to protect companies who want to publish a myriad of opinions by clarifying that it is the user who is liable for what they say, not the company that runs the website The 2 congressmen that created the law are on record talking about how they did not want speech on the internet to be stifled because of legal liabilities if they moderated some content, the primary justification/rhetoric at the time like most laws designed to allow censorship/moderation was "think of the children, children might see some boobs or franks and be scared for life" "The broad language of Section 230’s protection reflects the intent to protect the industry and its users’ ability to communicate freely." [1] It was not conceived at the time of the Sections passage the internet companies would start to bann their "users" or "customers" from the service for political speech, such a thing was really unheard of during that time in American History, it just was not done. Times have changed, the law needs to be updated to reflect the original intent of the law which was and is to expand not limit speech [1]https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2019/08/correcting-the-record-on-section-230s-legislative-history-guest-blog-post.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2019/08/correcting-the... [2]https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16376502179767104974&q=%22batzel+v.+smith%22&hl=en&as_sdt=6,47 https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=163765021797671...
      • armada651 6y ago
        > Times have changed, the law needs to be updated to reflect the original intent of the law which was and is to expand not limit speech Section 230 is not limiting speech, these companies would've had the right to delete people's posts and ban users with or without section 230. The intent was to encourage free speech by telling companies: "Don't worry, you won't be held liable for posts from your users, but you do have a responsibility to moderate". Which you can argue they weren't liable for in the first place, because they only provided the platform not the speech. You can definitely argue for an expansion of section 230 into a new "opinion neutrality" law, but it is not the true intent of section 230 that you make it out to be.
  • npunt 6y ago
    Forgive me, the focus you put on 'platforms v publishers' is reminiscent of the uninformed section 230 discussions happening everywhere right now, which are exhausting. Afaict section 230 isn't a special provision granted by society, it is a legal clarification of existing rights of speech & assembly that has the effect of limiting certain types of frivolous lawsuits. Clarifications seem materially different than government granting a corporation a local monopoly. The latter should definitely have strings attached, but the former? Now you could argue that the basis for the decision to grant utilities local monopolies is rooted in similar natural monopoly circumstances (economies of scale and resource limitations) as that of mainstream social networks (physical infra & space in former, network effects in latter), and I'd probably agree, but that would be an entirely different focus than section 230 reform. You're also advocating for a very black & white solution (platform v publisher, based on a choice about moderation), but there's a lot of specifics lacking such that its hard to determine if that's even a good idea. My immediate reaction is: online communities are extremely varied in both operation and medium (design, algorithms, what 'speech' even is, etc), and anyone who has had the experience of building and operating communities would see 'all legal speech should be published' as frankly a laughable premise. It raises far more questions than it answers, and likely just kicks the hard work of how products are designed over to lawyers who will definitely get it wrong. My hunch is we're barking up the wrong tree with 230, and the underlying issue is too much power concentrated in too few entities. They have too much control over too many people's experiences, and when they use that power people confuse it with censorship. If we focused on the issue of natural monopolies arising from network effects, we might come to very different solutions, like decentralization with standard protocols for social graph interoperability.
    • syshum 6y ago
      >>My hunch is we're barking up the wrong tree with 230, and the underlying issue is too much power concentrated in too few entities. I tend to agree there, my focus on 230 is simply because that seems to be only avenue open for reform at the moment, it is not the best tool to solve the problem, but it is a tool Ultimately I think the root of the problem comes down to 2 flaws in the foundation of the legal system 1. Data ownership: We have incorrectly applied ownership rights to the companies that collect the data, instead of allowing people to own the data about themselves. This has had wide ramifications on how social media companies have been formed and monetized, as well as in criminal law 2. Failing in contract law to properly designate the current slate of "Terms of Service" and "Acceptable Use" agreements as Unconscionable Contracts, these contracts are soo one-sided that if put in to use for anything other then "Information services" they would be tossed out of court and be unenforceable. Companies should be required to have better, enforceable agreements with their users, that provide CLEAR and OBJECTIVE statement on what the service can be used for, that the process for ending the relationship is, and what the recourse is for the customer (i.e appeal, data portability, etc). Today they have none of that, and are so steeped in self serving legal verbiage with absolutely zero considerations for the user, this type of contract / agreement should not be allowed in a fair and just legal system.