4 ms·
> new legislation that only allows section 230 protection if platforms implement a ton of moderation The proposals I've seen also tie it to algorithmic content
by rrrrrrrrrrrryan 5y ago
> new legislation that only allows section 230 protection if platforms implement a ton of moderation
The proposals I've seen also tie it to algorithmic content curation. The idea is that if a human is choosing what to put in front of my face (e.g. a newspaper editor), or an algorithm designed by a human (e.g. Facebook), then they should bear some responsibility for that content. If the New York Times publishes something illegal, they can be sued. If someone on Facebook posts something illegal, and Facebook chooses to amplify that content (via algorithm or otherwise), and Facebook hasn't made a good faith effort to moderate it, Facebook should probably be able to be sued as well.
Presumably, chronologically ordered content would be exempt from these new moderation guidelines, which gives the smaller platforms some space to play in. Personally, I'd love if our social media brought back dumb sorting and filtering: algorithmic recommendations are a new hell.
- BeFlatXIII 5y agoHow will platforms based on chronological ordering handle accounts that post wildly different amounts of stuff? If I log in for the first time in three weeks, I want to see the post from someone who last logged on two weeks ago more than the spam of the daily users.
- whateveracct 5y agotags and other filters
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago…that get used by 1/1000 of the users, at most. Purely chronological isn’t a good experience unless you’re a power user who cares enough to manage those things.
- cwkoss 5y agoEach source of content gets one slot. Display most recent, but allow scrolling left right to see more from same source. Or better yet - make the scoring algorithm something the user can customize themselves (ex. bestFriendUpvotes * 0.4 + otherFriendUpvotes * 0.2 + friendOfFriend upVotes * 0.2 + allSiteUpvote * 0.2), thus making it out of the site's control.
- pchristensen 5y agoI'm so happy to be seeing this. I've been saying for a couple years that "treat algorithmic feeds as editorial" and then all of the existing laws governing newspaper, TV, etc apply.
- thinkharderdev 5y agoWouldn't that rule also effectively ban HN and Reddit?
- Steltek 5y agoDefine "algorithmic curation". It could mean any of: - Chronological order - Round-robin per subscription/friend (per sibling comment here) - Upvote/downvote and vote weighting - Brigading, sock puppets, etc - Inlined advertisements - you may not like adtech but legality is a separate issue of debate - Locality, proximity - Content as it relates to time of day Only some of these contribute to echo chambers and manipulation. I think it would be difficult to write a straight forward description that does what you would want and extremely difficult for doing what most people would want.
- AlbertCory 5y agoI think it would be so fun if Congress actually wrote the algorithm. Would the law be in Python, Java, BASIC...? Probably in pseudo-code. For those humor-challenged among the readership, that was a joke. Not quite a joke: it would at least show them that just saying "algorithm" doesn't remove human judgment.