3 ms·

While I like the highway analogy, it only works if the places where "free speech" are being conducted are US owned , public infrastructure. A closer analogy wo

While I like the highway analogy, it only works if the places where "free speech" are being conducted are US owned , public infrastructure. A closer analogy would be private roads. If Amazon owned a series of private highways used solely for shipping goods, would we care if they stopped transporting items they didn't agree with on those Amazon owned highways? Forgive me if I'm repeating a common refrain here, but the words we say on Twitter, Parler, Facebook, and even HN aren't "free", spoken in a public place. They're owned by Twitter, Parler, Facebook and HN. Those companies can choose to do whatever they want, for better or worse.

chrischattin 6y ago
If that’s the case, they’re acting as publishers and should be liable for the content.
- buffington 6y ago
  I don't disagree. But right now, it doesn't matter if I disagree or not. US law makes it very clear what responsibilities and rights publishers have. Title 47 U.S. Code § 230 explicitly states that publishers are not liable for the content that their users post, with some minor exceptions related to sex trafficking. They are also allowed to restrict whatever they like, whether it's constitutionally protected or not.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Title 47 U.S. Code § 230 explicitly states that publishers are not liable for the content that their users post, with some minor exceptions related to sex trafficking. No, it doesn't. It states that online systems with user generated content (and other users on such systems) aren't treated as publishers of what their users post, with some major exceptions related to civil liability related to sex trafficking and all criminal liability regardless of subject matter. Civil liability not deriving from status as a “publisher” is also not on its face, affected, though some courts have also applied 230, controversially, to immunize against notice-based civil liability that would apply to them as distributors, even if they aren't considered publishers.
    - buffington 6y ago
      > No, it doesn't. To be accurate, it certainly does. > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. It also says other things that I neglected to state, most importantly, that section 230 does nothing to change criminal law, so it's also fair to call me out on that.
      - dragonwriter 6y ago
        > To be accurate, it certainly does. No, it doesn't say they won't be liable for user content, it says they won't be considered the publisher. There is liability for content that is tied to being a publisher, and there is liability that has other bases. On its face, 230 says nothing about liability on other bases (as noted in GP, some courts have also used it to provide immunity from liability as a distributor, but that is controversial and not stated in the text.)
        LinuxBender 6y ago
        230 does protect platforms from liability of what their user base posts. Having run forums and chat servers for a long time, I can attest to the experience of having to moderate content and having received legal complaints. There are two major factors that people are conflating in these discussions. There is the direct legal aspect of having illicit content. The platform is covered if they make an effort to remove illicit content AND they themselves are not encouraging the illegal behavior. So for example, if they have users that also have admin roles and make sub-forums that promote illegal behavior and they do not warn/ban the admins, they may eventually be outside the protection of section 230. Then there is the acceptable use policy of the hosting provider(s). dns, server, cdn, app store This is entirely outside of 230. If the provider gets enough complaints, they may eventually see your site as a risk and may choose to terminate your account in order to protect the image of their business. They do not want their reputation tarnished as it will affect their profits. I think that is totally fair. If you want to run a site that may likely provoke emotional response from the public, then in my opinion it would be best to find a hosting provider that accepts the risk in a contract. The contract should state what is expected of you and what you expect of them and what happens if the contract is to be terminated, such as off-boarding timelines. Smaller startups are at higher risk as they provider has less to lose by booting them off their infrastructure. Where I believe this issue has gone sideways is what the industry believes to be considered an appropriate method of moderation. The big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Apple are using automated systems to block or shadow-ban things they consider a risk to their company or their hosting providers. This leads to people fleeing those systems and going to the smaller startups that do not yet have these automated moderation and shadow-banning systems and that is what happened with Parler and a handful of other newer platforms that wanted to capture all the refuges of the big platforms. A similar thing is happening with that alternate to Youtube, but I can not remember what it is called. Bitchute? Another potential problem that may confuse the 230 discussion could be that many powerful politicians and corporate leaders use the big platforms like Twitter and Facebook. They and big lobbyists and investors may have some influence over the behavior of these platforms and may be able to tell them to squash the sites that do not follow the automated version of banning and shadow-banning. Does that create echo chambers? Is that what is happening here? Not sure. If so, I predict it will push many people under ground and that is probably not great for agents that would like to keep an eye on certain people.
- CarelessExpert 6y ago
  > If that’s the case, they’re acting as publishers and should be liable for the content. I'm afraid you're misinformed. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello... > > If you said "Once a company like that starts moderating content, it's no longer a platform, but a publisher" > I regret to inform you that you are wrong. I know that you've likely heard this from someone else -- perhaps even someone respected -- but it's just not true. The law says no such thing. Again, I encourage you to read it. The law does distinguish between "interactive computer services" and "information content providers," but that is not, as some imply, a fancy legalistic ways of saying "platform" or "publisher." There is no "certification" or "decision" that a website needs to make to get 230 protections. It protects all websites and all users of websites when there is content posted on the sites by someone else. > To be a bit more explicit: at no point in any court case regarding Section 230 is there a need to determine whether or not a particular website is a "platform" or a "publisher." What matters is solely the content in question. If that content is created by someone else, the website hosting it cannot be sued over it. Edit: BTW, I'd suggest reading that whole article. Section 230 has been misrepresented by politicians and the media fairly regularly, and this piece does a nice job of laying out the current state of the law and its interpretation and application.
  - 1234letshaveatw 6y ago
    Aren't you being a bit pedantic? The statement was an opinion, not a legal argument
    - CarelessExpert 6y ago
      I didn't read the comment as an opinion. What they wrote is a common misunderstanding of section 230 that, these days, is being promulgated by defenders of Parler.
matt-attack 6y ago
Honestly my road analogy was more about reflecting on the notion of limits on free speech in general. It was not meant to be compared to the specific issue of AWS & Twitter. It was meant to draw our attention to the fact that we wholeheartedly endorse many systems (e.g. roads) that absolutely facilitate immoral and criminal activity. And that's ok to do. Thus I claim that it's similarly ok to endorse absolutely free speech without limits, despite the immoral & illegal activity that it might incite. Roads encourage bank-robbers. Honestly who would rob a bank if you could only flee on foot? It's ok though that it encourages and facilitates bank robbers. We should not close the roads because of it. We need to be OK that certain things (free speech) can have huge negative effects and criminal elements.
- didibus 6y ago
  Generally speaking, there's two ways to determine a truth, either from experimentation and results, or from first principles. From the experimentation side of things, you have Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (I'm probably missing some) where they impose restrictions on free speech while still having mostly free speech rights. You can even include the US as well, since it does have restrictions, they're just more relaxed, and seem to only be enforced if financial damage can be proven from libel. Now very broadly looking at that list, it seems that countries that take a most speech is free (especially speech that criticizes the government and ruling class), but some speech is restricted (especially hate related speech, speech that imply violence to others, speech that targets minority groups, and diffamation and libel speech) seem to work pretty well in practice. At least, those countries have had stable social and economic environments, and seem to allow for good opportunity to its citizen and give them a good standard of living in general. So from the experimentation side of "truth seeking", it seems to me I'm not seeing an argument for absolutely all speech should be free always no matter the circumstances or the intent of the speech. Now, we don't have a good experiment example of "all speech goes" unfortunately. Maybe the US is the closest to it, and that seems to be causing quite a lot of social and economic instability for now at least. But I'd say it's too soon to conclude anything on that front. The other approach to "truth seeking" would be from first principle. The theory around free speech comes from the liberal progressive thinkers of the enlightenment. So turning to them for first principle makes sense. From my research into it (and I welcome you do your own), there seem to be no winning theory around it. All agree that speech against government should be free, but how far to take other speech in other circumstances is not clear. Also debatable if the government should be free to criticize groups of citizens or not, because that can enable top down propaganda and repression, which free speech is trying to protect against. Most theory seem to recognize the "risks" with unrestricted free speech, but some believe that the benefits of free speech against authoritarianism and majority's rule is worth it, while others think it is possible to draw a line that protects against this and mitigates the risk of unrestricted free speech. It seems some of the thinkers that are pro unrestricted free speech also assume the system provides people with an education that allows them to identify and rationalize fake and manipulative ideas and thoughts from legitimate ideas and thoughts. So the first principle outlook also seems inconclusive in my opinion. That personally leaves me to conclude that mostly free speech is good, and fully free speech might also be good but that's not yet been demonstrated to really know, with keeping in mind that this uncertainty about fully free speech could resolve in it being worse or better than mostly free speech.

chrischattin 6y ago

If that’s the case, they’re acting as publishers and should be liable for the content.

buffington 6y ago
I don't disagree. But right now, it doesn't matter if I disagree or not. US law makes it very clear what responsibilities and rights publishers have. Title 47 U.S. Code § 230 explicitly states that publishers are not liable for the content that their users post, with some minor exceptions related to sex trafficking. They are also allowed to restrict whatever they like, whether it's constitutionally protected or not.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Title 47 U.S. Code § 230 explicitly states that publishers are not liable for the content that their users post, with some minor exceptions related to sex trafficking. No, it doesn't. It states that online systems with user generated content (and other users on such systems) aren't treated as publishers of what their users post, with some major exceptions related to civil liability related to sex trafficking and all criminal liability regardless of subject matter. Civil liability not deriving from status as a “publisher” is also not on its face, affected, though some courts have also applied 230, controversially, to immunize against notice-based civil liability that would apply to them as distributors, even if they aren't considered publishers.
  - buffington 6y ago
    > No, it doesn't. To be accurate, it certainly does. > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. It also says other things that I neglected to state, most importantly, that section 230 does nothing to change criminal law, so it's also fair to call me out on that.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > To be accurate, it certainly does. No, it doesn't say they won't be liable for user content, it says they won't be considered the publisher. There is liability for content that is tied to being a publisher, and there is liability that has other bases. On its face, 230 says nothing about liability on other bases (as noted in GP, some courts have also used it to provide immunity from liability as a distributor, but that is controversial and not stated in the text.)
      - LinuxBender 6y ago
        230 does protect platforms from liability of what their user base posts. Having run forums and chat servers for a long time, I can attest to the experience of having to moderate content and having received legal complaints. There are two major factors that people are conflating in these discussions. There is the direct legal aspect of having illicit content. The platform is covered if they make an effort to remove illicit content AND they themselves are not encouraging the illegal behavior. So for example, if they have users that also have admin roles and make sub-forums that promote illegal behavior and they do not warn/ban the admins, they may eventually be outside the protection of section 230. Then there is the acceptable use policy of the hosting provider(s). dns, server, cdn, app store This is entirely outside of 230. If the provider gets enough complaints, they may eventually see your site as a risk and may choose to terminate your account in order to protect the image of their business. They do not want their reputation tarnished as it will affect their profits. I think that is totally fair. If you want to run a site that may likely provoke emotional response from the public, then in my opinion it would be best to find a hosting provider that accepts the risk in a contract. The contract should state what is expected of you and what you expect of them and what happens if the contract is to be terminated, such as off-boarding timelines. Smaller startups are at higher risk as they provider has less to lose by booting them off their infrastructure. Where I believe this issue has gone sideways is what the industry believes to be considered an appropriate method of moderation. The big platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Apple are using automated systems to block or shadow-ban things they consider a risk to their company or their hosting providers. This leads to people fleeing those systems and going to the smaller startups that do not yet have these automated moderation and shadow-banning systems and that is what happened with Parler and a handful of other newer platforms that wanted to capture all the refuges of the big platforms. A similar thing is happening with that alternate to Youtube, but I can not remember what it is called. Bitchute? Another potential problem that may confuse the 230 discussion could be that many powerful politicians and corporate leaders use the big platforms like Twitter and Facebook. They and big lobbyists and investors may have some influence over the behavior of these platforms and may be able to tell them to squash the sites that do not follow the automated version of banning and shadow-banning. Does that create echo chambers? Is that what is happening here? Not sure. If so, I predict it will push many people under ground and that is probably not great for agents that would like to keep an eye on certain people.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
> If that’s the case, they’re acting as publishers and should be liable for the content. I'm afraid you're misinformed. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello... > > If you said "Once a company like that starts moderating content, it's no longer a platform, but a publisher" > I regret to inform you that you are wrong. I know that you've likely heard this from someone else -- perhaps even someone respected -- but it's just not true. The law says no such thing. Again, I encourage you to read it. The law does distinguish between "interactive computer services" and "information content providers," but that is not, as some imply, a fancy legalistic ways of saying "platform" or "publisher." There is no "certification" or "decision" that a website needs to make to get 230 protections. It protects all websites and all users of websites when there is content posted on the sites by someone else. > To be a bit more explicit: at no point in any court case regarding Section 230 is there a need to determine whether or not a particular website is a "platform" or a "publisher." What matters is solely the content in question. If that content is created by someone else, the website hosting it cannot be sued over it. Edit: BTW, I'd suggest reading that whole article. Section 230 has been misrepresented by politicians and the media fairly regularly, and this piece does a nice job of laying out the current state of the law and its interpretation and application.
- 1234letshaveatw 6y ago
  Aren't you being a bit pedantic? The statement was an opinion, not a legal argument
  - CarelessExpert 6y ago
    I didn't read the comment as an opinion. What they wrote is a common misunderstanding of section 230 that, these days, is being promulgated by defenders of Parler.

matt-attack 6y ago

Honestly my road analogy was more about reflecting on the notion of limits on free speech in general. It was not meant to be compared to the specific issue of AWS & Twitter. It was meant to draw our attention to the fact that we wholeheartedly endorse many systems (e.g. roads) that absolutely facilitate immoral and criminal activity. And that's ok to do. Thus I claim that it's similarly ok to endorse absolutely free speech without limits, despite the immoral & illegal activity that it might incite. Roads encourage bank-robbers. Honestly who would rob a bank if you could only flee on foot? It's ok though that it encourages and facilitates bank robbers. We should not close the roads because of it. We need to be OK that certain things (free speech) can have huge negative effects and criminal elements.

didibus 6y ago
Generally speaking, there's two ways to determine a truth, either from experimentation and results, or from first principles. From the experimentation side of things, you have Canada, Australia, Denmark, France, Germany, India, South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (I'm probably missing some) where they impose restrictions on free speech while still having mostly free speech rights. You can even include the US as well, since it does have restrictions, they're just more relaxed, and seem to only be enforced if financial damage can be proven from libel. Now very broadly looking at that list, it seems that countries that take a most speech is free (especially speech that criticizes the government and ruling class), but some speech is restricted (especially hate related speech, speech that imply violence to others, speech that targets minority groups, and diffamation and libel speech) seem to work pretty well in practice. At least, those countries have had stable social and economic environments, and seem to allow for good opportunity to its citizen and give them a good standard of living in general. So from the experimentation side of "truth seeking", it seems to me I'm not seeing an argument for absolutely all speech should be free always no matter the circumstances or the intent of the speech. Now, we don't have a good experiment example of "all speech goes" unfortunately. Maybe the US is the closest to it, and that seems to be causing quite a lot of social and economic instability for now at least. But I'd say it's too soon to conclude anything on that front. The other approach to "truth seeking" would be from first principle. The theory around free speech comes from the liberal progressive thinkers of the enlightenment. So turning to them for first principle makes sense. From my research into it (and I welcome you do your own), there seem to be no winning theory around it. All agree that speech against government should be free, but how far to take other speech in other circumstances is not clear. Also debatable if the government should be free to criticize groups of citizens or not, because that can enable top down propaganda and repression, which free speech is trying to protect against. Most theory seem to recognize the "risks" with unrestricted free speech, but some believe that the benefits of free speech against authoritarianism and majority's rule is worth it, while others think it is possible to draw a line that protects against this and mitigates the risk of unrestricted free speech. It seems some of the thinkers that are pro unrestricted free speech also assume the system provides people with an education that allows them to identify and rationalize fake and manipulative ideas and thoughts from legitimate ideas and thoughts. So the first principle outlook also seems inconclusive in my opinion. That personally leaves me to conclude that mostly free speech is good, and fully free speech might also be good but that's not yet been demonstrated to really know, with keeping in mind that this uncertainty about fully free speech could resolve in it being worse or better than mostly free speech.