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The US Supreme Court doesn’t understand the internet

110 points by mikece 4y ago

mikece 4y ago
Alternate link: https://archive.ph/qHVIX https://archive.ph/qHVIX
Veen 4y ago
It seems to me the difference in this case is that it complains about content promotion, not content publishing. The issue is that YouTube's algorithms promoted extremist content to people who were prone to extremist behavior. That's not quite the same as simply hosting extremist content uploaded by users. As it says on the Supreme Court site: "Issue: Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider, or only limits the liability of interactive computer services when they engage in traditional editorial functions (such as deciding whether to display or withdraw) with regard to such information." https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gonzalez-v-google-llc/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gonzalez-v-googl...
- circuit10 4y ago
  How could they fix that? If it was that easy to reliably identify illegal/extremist content and prevent it from being recommended they’d just take it down
  - Zak 4y ago
    The obvious options if targeted recommendations are found not to be protected is to only use them with curated content (Netflix) or not use them (reddit).
    - circuit10 4y ago
      That will completely destroy the experience of using YouTube for many people, the reason I like it is because I can see really niche content that has a really small target audience. With curated recommendations I wouldn't discover that type of thing at all, which would be bad for both me and the creators, and with no recommendations it would be even harder to find it. Reddit does target recommendations, by the way, though maybe it's just based on what subreddits you joined so maybe that isn't the same thing as the user chose to receive it (I'm not trying to imply that YouTube should work how specially I want it to, just using myself as an example of what I think many people use it for)
- eli 4y ago
  Google decides what emails go in the gmail inbox vs spam folder vs rejected outright. Should they be legally responsible if an offensive email lands in your inbox?
  - prepend 4y ago
    I don’t think spam filtering is promoting content as it is removing material. I think they would be liable if they took emails that weren’t addressed to you and showed them in your inbox and it did some harm. Or if they showed an ad that did some harm.
    - eli 4y ago
      I would challenge you to craft a legal opinion around 230 that excludes Youtube recommending harmful content from protection but not Google placing harmful content in the "Priority Inbox".
      - freejazz 4y ago
        There isn't difficulty there. Lawyers aren't having problems navigating this language. Obtuse techies who obsess over edge-cases definitions are having difficulty. No one reasonable would describe the SPAM filtering as a recommendation algorithm and to suggest otherwise is either outright ignorant or just facially disingenuous. The law doesn't care what can be argued to be a promotion algorithm based upon some HN-poster's obtuse reliance upon a specific word, the law deals with reasonability as a standard all the time.
        eli 4y ago
        Navigating what language? The law today I agree is pretty clear. This is speculation on a ruling that doesn't yet exist that could change all that. Your suggestion is that there would be a carve out for spam filtering? Or that Google deciding what goes in "Promotions" and what goes in "Priority Inbox" isn't a recommendation?
        4y ago
PaulHoule 4y ago
Has it ever?
mikece 4y ago
I suspect Section 230 will need to be revamped or at least more thoroughly defined. Some interpretations suggest that any editorial action by a platform (aside from those required by law) changes them from being a common carrier to a publisher with all of the liability that goes with it. It only makes sense that there should be an intermediate zone where a platform provider can engage in editorialism/content restriction without falling under the liability of being a publisher.
- Retric 4y ago
  The problem isn’t the definition it’s that companies want the common carrier status without actually acting like one. The phone company doesn’t editorialize and we would think it insane if they started doing so.
  - pwinnski 4y ago
    The phone company doesn't fill your line 24/7 with unsolicited and illegal content, either, which any unmoderated comment section does.
  - eli 4y ago
    You would want Hacker News or any other forum to be legally responsible for comments posted by users?
    - hrunt 4y ago
      No, I would not want HN legally responsible for comments posted by users. Hacker News does not directly promote content (aside from prioritizing content based on non-content factors [age, voting, etc.]). It does moderate, but that is not the same as promotion. The crux of the argument in this case is that the plaintiffs want Google held liable for promoting content, not hosting it. The difficulty the Supreme Court seems to have is understanding what the boundaries are between promoting content and simply delivering a usable view of content choices to consumers, and whether Congress intended for that difference to matter with regards to Section 230. Is Hacker News default feed that promotes highly-upvoted, newer stories to the front of the list and example of HN promoting those stories? If so, should HN be held liable if that algorithm pushes content that harms others?
mmcconnell1618 4y ago
I wonder if making platforms liable for providing the identity of content producers is a fair balance between providing the platform immunity and allowing those potentially harmed by content to pursue the content creator if needed.
- XorNot 4y ago
  How is mandating cyberstalking access going to solve anything?
  - mmcconnell1618 4y ago
    One of the first challenges was the Zeran v. American Online case where a business owner was harmed but was never able to compel AOL to provide the identity of the person creating the harmful content. Forcing platforms to provide identity information in pursuit of legal action would allow action against the formally anonymous poster. As it stands today, an anonymous person (or botnet) can post whatever they want with no fear they will be exposed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeran_v._America_Online,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeran_v._America_Online,_Inc.
    - pessimizer 4y ago
      > As it stands today, an anonymous person (or botnet) can post whatever they want with no fear they will be exposed. This is also how is has stood throughout American history. The foundation of the US was built on anonymous/pseudonymous pamphlets and secret communications between the "Founding Fathers."
- bryan_w 4y ago
  I think it's an interesting idea to explore. I think if a platform makes a good faith effort to know their users that it would be able to defer liability onto them. Ideally this would be coupled with a privacy aware proof of identity system but perhaps that's asking for too much. Sites could still allow anonymous communication, but it would need to vet it first and assume liability. You can't go out in public in a mask and say "John Smith eats worms" (when he doesn't) and not have any repercussions.
causi 4y ago
Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider Should it? This feels a lot like a "have your cake and eat it too" situation. Either you're a neutral party or you are not. Being a trillion-dollar company doesn't exempt you from that. Letting a computer make the decisions instead of a person doesn't exempt you either. Youtube would be in no danger if all it was doing was keyword-matching with recommended videos. Instead it created profit by designing its algorithm to maximize engagement by any means necessary, especially via outrage and bandwagoning. What the fuck did they expect to happen when they created a money engine that runs on human emotional intensity?
- ladyattis 4y ago
  The thing is that the law as written allows them to do just that. If they don't like your content on YouTube, they can punt it instantly. And it can be for ANY REASON. And that's not even including their first amendment right to refuse distributing or listing your content.
  - causi 4y ago
    If they don't like your content on YouTube, they can punt it instantly. And it can be for ANY REASON Certainly. But Section 230, at least from my reading, does not protect them for the promotion of content. I could be wrong about that. The Supreme Court will decide. Personally I'd find it delightful if the rage-engine got smashed with a legal hammer and my Youtube recommendations were as useful as they were fifteen years ago.
    - eli 4y ago
      Wouldn't that also make it incredibly difficult for a new startup to invent a better and less harmful recommendation system?
      - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
Hacktrick 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20230222164232/https://www.wired.com/story/the-supreme-court-section-230-the-internet/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230222164232/https://www.wired...
coffeeblack 4y ago
230 would be okay if the user had the ability to choose the algorithm that determines what content that user sees. That was one of the early ideas for Twitter when Musk took over. Could even have external, independent “filter providers”. Then the user a chose what bubble they want to live in. Or none at all, if they are brave enough to see opposing opinions. But if the web site decides the algorithm for the user, well, then the web site is the same as a newspaper or TV channel.
- koboll 4y ago
  The problem is that with modern ML-based recommendation systems there is not really an "algorithm" at all. Which is probably the reason that particular promise from Musk never actually went anywhere.
- jabroni_salad 4y ago
  given the rate at which youtube takes in new videos (millions per day), I think you would be supremely lucky to see anything even resembling "an opinion" in a truly unfiltered list.
cebu 4y ago
just a series of tubes
shadowgovt 4y ago
FWIW, the Supreme Court doesn't need to understand the Internet to do its job. A judge's job is to understand the law. It is the job of the lawyers to bring facts and argumentation before the judges to pursuade them that the law should be interpreted one way or the other. The expertise is expected to live with the lawyers, not the judges (and the ability to find expert witnesses and spin up on the details of what they're advocating is a lawyer skill).
- kube-system 4y ago
  Yes, this is the most frustrating thing about these kind of article titles. Justice Kagan isn't saying "we have no clue what we're doing" she's saying, "I'm not sure you're in the right place"
- corbulo 4y ago
  It's really grounded in an anti-adversarial process ideology. Pre-empting it and demanding there should only be one side dictating what is and isn't true. Thats probably overanalyzing a narrative piece for their owners but its what this accumulates to at scale.
tristor 4y ago
The reality is that most people, EVEN technical people, don't actually understand the Internet. The only people I consistently have conversed with who understand the Internet are technology advocates that have a deep background in Internet networking. Even on HN, most people believe many things about how the Internet works, at the networking layer, at the application layer, and socioculturally, that are not true, and provably not true, but widely believed. A true headline would be "Hardly anyone who isn't at least a double CCIE with ~15 years of experience in web policy understands the Internet." Most technical people don't understand DNS, and it's one of the most basic and core technologies to how the Internet works today. The courts definitely don't understand DNS. The vast majority don't understand BGP, and it's literally the basis for how Internet networking works. Many don't understand the Web as a tech stack, outside possibly the basics of website design. Even people who develop web applications don't understand the Web as a tech stack. It's actually a major concern for me, because the promise that future generations would be "digital natives" with deep technology understanding didn't come to fruition. The knowledge of how all of this infrastructure actually works is dying off, and very few people are interested in learning it, and the entire global economy is now built on the Internet in a myriad of ways. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/ except extrapolate from open source software to literally all essential technologies the world runs on.
- automatoney 4y ago
  > Even on HN, most people believe many things about how the Internet works, at the networking layer, at the application layer, and socioculturally, that are not true, and provably not true, but widely believed. Could you debunk some of the most common/biggest false beliefs you encounter? I'm curious to see which traps I fall into.
  - tristor 4y ago
    There's so many I'm not sure where to begin. A few simple ones that most people believe about networking on the Internet that aren't true are: 1. Routing paths are primarily decided by path distance as the metric. 2. IP ownership is authenticated and therefore the global route table is deterministic and stable. 3. DNS traffic is always over UDP/53 4. DNS is controlled by the network. Related, split horizon DNS is reliable. 5. Domain registrars and the root nameservers are required to be contacted in order to get a DNS response for a given public domain. As a corollary, seizing domains or blocking DNS at the root is a sufficient method to block access to a site. Secondary corollary, a correctly configured and valid public domain is reachable from anywhere on the Internet that can make a DNS query. A lot of these are true in /some cases/, or in the general case, but not in the corner cases. A lot of policy and court decisions about the Internet assume the happy path or the common case when dealing with situations where motivated actors may take actions outside the happy path to work around that court order. It is entirely possible to bypass public DNS to resolve a public IP on the Internet as long as it routable, regardless of what registrars or public (and root) nameservers say. (see: Pirate Bay and their shenanigans, also see Tor resolvers, see non-authoritative DNS resolvers, see host file sharing, see alternate roots, etc.) A lot of policies within organizations, including those set by network admins, are based on a belief that systems in their network obey the things provided by their network, when in fact the client controls nearly everything about how it decides to interact with a network, and the network can only provide configuration as a suggestion or recommendation. There are very limited options for enforcing policy at the network level. There is no guarantee that any given client on your network is actually utilizing your local DNS resolvers or successfully will resolve split horizon DNS. A lot of configurations in the world are based on trust in systems which are inherently designed in an untrustworthy manner, or which require additional configuration and technology to provide an external basis for trust. This has had consequences with far-reaching impact and will continue to do (see BGP hijacking). DNS, except when using newer protocols and taking extra measures to authenticate responses, is easily intercepted and hijacked. It is entirely possible to capture queries and inject non-authoritative responses, including responses which claim to be authoritative at any point in the path the query traverses. This is actually commonplace in some regions of the world (see: China). DNS that is authenticated and encrypted doesn't traverse UDP/53.
rayiner 4y ago
The Wired article’s title is frustrating. I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court does “understand the internet.” The judge I clerked for wrote the original decision that struck down most of the CDA except Section 230, which the Supreme Court later affirmed. If you go read that decision, it’s got a pretty accurate description of the internet: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0612decision.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/we... (see Findings of Fact). For example it talks about routing: > “The Internet uses ‘packet switching’ communication protocols that allow individual messages to be subdivided into smaller ‘packets’ that are then sent independently to the destination, and are then automatically reassembled by the receiving computer. While all packets of a given message often travel along the same path to the destination, if computers along the route become overloaded, the packets can be re-routed to less loaded computers.” And that was back in the 1990s. What people seem to really mean when they say “the Supreme Court doesn’t understand X” is that the Supreme Court doesn’t share the values they associate with X. That’s almost certainly the case. From the Supreme Court’s view, the internet is just another part of the national economy. They don’t understand or care about the distinct cultural values of people in that sector.
- glitchc 4y ago
  Hear hear! Sounds like Wired is a mouthpiece for Big Tech.
  - wil421 4y ago
    Wired has been in the same camp as the Verge, IGN, Mac Rumors, and so on for a while now. They are closer to a tabloid than what Wired Magazine once was. Not sure who they are a mouthpiece for but they certainly don’t mind being one.
    - corbulo 4y ago
      They're owned by Conde Nast, who also owns Reddit.
  - kridsdale1 4y ago
boh 4y ago
The article doesn't really explain what it is about the internet that isn't being understood. Even if these companies have been identified under the general "tech" category by investment firms, they're essentially media companies and there's no reason why they should be exempt from the regulations of other media companies. The idea that somehow first amendment rights will somehow be overtly compromised by adding extra responsibilities for internet companies would require us to ignore the censorship these companies have been willfully prompting in the past decade.
karmelapple 4y ago
If I start a TV network on basic cable and let anyone submit a video that will be broadcast live on air in real time, that network will likely be broadcasting user-submitted material that would not be allowed to be shown on TV during the daytime per FCC decency standards. How is YouTube different than this? Or Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media that is free to see once you have an internet connection?
- kjksf 4y ago
  Here's the difference: TV network made a deal with the government (FCC): they got a monopoly access to a limited resource (spectrum). In exchange they agreed to limitations set by FCC, like decency standards. Limitations that go beyond what the law, as created by congress, requires. YouTube or Facebook didn't make a similar deal with FCC because they use unconstrained resource (internet bandwidth). Furthermore congress did the right thing and created a law explicitly calling out this scenario and made internet companies not liable for user generated content. Why did they do it? Because without that there would be madness.
migf 4y ago
I think the Supreme Court has a real out here to say, "Fuck, we dunno" and rule to change nothing and suggest that Congress remedy the situation through new laws. That's ideologically consistent and the right move. I would be astonished if they don't do that here.
- kube-system 4y ago
  A lot of news outlets are just posting the funny part of Kagan's quote and not the rest of the context... but it sounds like that's exactly what she was saying. > "We're a court. We really don't know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet," Kagan said of her colleagues, eliciting a laugh from the courtroom gallery. "There's a lot of uncertainty going the way you would have us go, in part, just because of the difficulty of drawing lines in this area and just because of the fact that, once we go with you, all of a sudden we're finding that Google isn't protected. And maybe Congress should want that system, but isn't that something for Congress to do, not the court?" https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-wrestles-immunity-social-media-companies/story?id=97364834 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-wrestles-immun...
- shagie 4y ago
  https://wapo.st/3lWw2Rg https://wapo.st/3lWw2Rg > Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said one could question why Congress provided such immunity when passing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. But she drew laughter when she wondered how far the Supreme Court should go in cutting back such protection. > “We’re a court. We really don’t know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet,” Kagan said. > Kavanaugh said Congress knows that lower courts have interpreted the protections broadly. “Isn’t it better ... to put the burden on Congress to change that, and they can consider the implications and make these predictive judgments?” he asked Stewart. --- Justice Kagan's exchange for that segment is on page 45 https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/21-1333_p8k0.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr... JUSTICE KAGAN: Yeah, so I don't think that a court did it over there, and I think that that's my concern, is I can imagine a world where you're right that none of this stuff gets protection. And, you know, every other industry has to internalize the costs of its conduct. Why is it that the tech industry gets a pass? A little bit unclear. On the other hand, I mean, we're a court. We really don't know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the Internet. (Laughter.) JUSTICE KAGAN: And I don't have to -- I don't have to accept all Ms. Blatt's "the sky is falling" stuff to accept something about, boy, there is a lot of uncertainty about going the way you would have us go, in part, just because of the difficulty of drawing lines in this area and just because of the fact that, once we go with you, all of a sudden we're finding that Google isn't protected. And maybe Congress should want that system, but isn't that something for Congress to do, not the Court?
swatcoder 4y ago
To look for an upside to the worst case scenario, the biggest win from a deep challenge to Section 230 protections would be a return to a smaller and more mindfully curated web. Many of the problems from social media are rooted in the idea of having such enormous hoards of content that the only way to trawl through it is with automated algorithms. This was great when it worked, but the content pool seems to grow faster than algorithm design can accomodate and will only get worse as AI content generators mature. It suggests that there are possibly as few as two futures: 1. The internet is a wasteland of content pollution and the automated tools for sorting and sifting through it are overwhelmed with toxic waste. 2. The internet returns to a network of trust where people are individually, but only marginally, accountable for what they share with others and this accountability engenders thoughtful curation at a manageable scale. It might be that modern equivalents of web rings, curated directories, group chats, and member forums supplant "Internet Scale" search engines and social media networks. It would be an adjustment, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.
- kmeisthax 4y ago
  In scenario #2 the toxic waste still exists. Unmoderated forums are protected against liability even if CDA 230 is repealed. So 4chan will still be around. Furthermore, distributing liability among your users is not a great idea. What will happen is that extortion enterprises will be created to sue people on our hypothetical old-web-of-trust. We know this because BitTorrent allowed Prenda Law to make porn, share it themselves to dox users[0], and then sue the people who downloaded or watched it. This scheme worked because copyright lawsuits are expensive to defend against, and defamation is no different. So everyone just quickly settled, which is why it took years for judges to catch onto this particular fraudster. The only thing that keeps you from being sued for watching an infringing YouTube video is DMCA 512, which works almost[1] identically to CDA 230. Because it's a large centralized service, it's a juicier target, and people with legitimate copyright grievances can get things taken down from them. So nobody bothers to try and sue individual viewers. Your #2 scenario only works if the Supreme Court is merciful and only kills recommendation systems. If CDA 230 is struck down entirely, you won't get to run a network-of-trust version of the web, because just hosting a public web server will require signing an indemnification agreement and posting a very large bond. In this scenario the Internet becomes more like cable, or perhaps a games console. [0] Normally an IP address is not dox; but a lawyer and an out-of-order DMCA subpoena can turn it into dox. [1] 512 adds a notice-and-takedown regime because Hollywood wanted censorship powers over the Internet.
stillsleepy 4y ago
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not2b 4y ago
Based on reporting of the oral arguments, it seems to show that the Supreme Court understands that they don't understand (other than Alito, perhaps), are worried about breaking the whole thing, and will probably do nothing and issue a ruling saying that if changes are needed it's Congress's job to do it. See for example https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/brett-kavanaugh-google-case-scotus-section-230.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/brett-kavanaugh-...
russellbeattie 4y ago
A legitimate result from this lawsuit would be to simply force internet companies to be more responsive. The family in question did everything they could to alert Google to the extreme content, and were completely ignored. I think anyone who has had their user ID mistakenly flagged, or app removed, or content stolen can relate to the unresponsiveness of internet companies to legitimate user complaints. It's what is driving the sense of arrogance people get from these companies, who act as though they are untouchable. There needs to be some accountability. The "slippery slope" or "chilling effect" arguments are valid, but the scale has tipped too far so that individuals being harmed by these companies have little to no recourse. These companies make billions of dollars in profit and much of that is because they underfund customer support, or simply ignore it all together. It's like any consumer product safety issue. It's expensive, but should be a required cost of doing business, like product recalls or EPA pollution regulations.
jenkstom 4y ago
I'm done with wired magazine. They no longer produce content, they produce drama. That article about how there's no point in identifying evil people because there's no evidence supporting it was massively harmful to people in abusive relationships who are trying to sort out why they are suffering so much and what evil really is. From the comments below this one apparently is clickbait. I'm done.
taskqa 4y ago
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pyuser583 4y ago
Most people don’t.

110 points by mikece 4y ago

Alternate link: https://archive.ph/qHVIX https://archive.ph/qHVIX

Veen 4y ago

It seems to me the difference in this case is that it complains about content promotion, not content publishing. The issue is that YouTube's algorithms promoted extremist content to people who were prone to extremist behavior. That's not quite the same as simply hosting extremist content uploaded by users. As it says on the Supreme Court site: "Issue: Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider, or only limits the liability of interactive computer services when they engage in traditional editorial functions (such as deciding whether to display or withdraw) with regard to such information." https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gonzalez-v-google-llc/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gonzalez-v-googl...

circuit10 4y ago
How could they fix that? If it was that easy to reliably identify illegal/extremist content and prevent it from being recommended they’d just take it down
- Zak 4y ago
  The obvious options if targeted recommendations are found not to be protected is to only use them with curated content (Netflix) or not use them (reddit).
  - circuit10 4y ago
    That will completely destroy the experience of using YouTube for many people, the reason I like it is because I can see really niche content that has a really small target audience. With curated recommendations I wouldn't discover that type of thing at all, which would be bad for both me and the creators, and with no recommendations it would be even harder to find it. Reddit does target recommendations, by the way, though maybe it's just based on what subreddits you joined so maybe that isn't the same thing as the user chose to receive it (I'm not trying to imply that YouTube should work how specially I want it to, just using myself as an example of what I think many people use it for)
eli 4y ago
Google decides what emails go in the gmail inbox vs spam folder vs rejected outright. Should they be legally responsible if an offensive email lands in your inbox?
- prepend 4y ago
  I don’t think spam filtering is promoting content as it is removing material. I think they would be liable if they took emails that weren’t addressed to you and showed them in your inbox and it did some harm. Or if they showed an ad that did some harm.
  - eli 4y ago
    I would challenge you to craft a legal opinion around 230 that excludes Youtube recommending harmful content from protection but not Google placing harmful content in the "Priority Inbox".
    - freejazz 4y ago
      There isn't difficulty there. Lawyers aren't having problems navigating this language. Obtuse techies who obsess over edge-cases definitions are having difficulty. No one reasonable would describe the SPAM filtering as a recommendation algorithm and to suggest otherwise is either outright ignorant or just facially disingenuous. The law doesn't care what can be argued to be a promotion algorithm based upon some HN-poster's obtuse reliance upon a specific word, the law deals with reasonability as a standard all the time.
      - eli 4y ago
        Navigating what language? The law today I agree is pretty clear. This is speculation on a ruling that doesn't yet exist that could change all that. Your suggestion is that there would be a carve out for spam filtering? Or that Google deciding what goes in "Promotions" and what goes in "Priority Inbox" isn't a recommendation?
        4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago

Has it ever?

mikece 4y ago

I suspect Section 230 will need to be revamped or at least more thoroughly defined. Some interpretations suggest that any editorial action by a platform (aside from those required by law) changes them from being a common carrier to a publisher with all of the liability that goes with it. It only makes sense that there should be an intermediate zone where a platform provider can engage in editorialism/content restriction without falling under the liability of being a publisher.

Retric 4y ago
The problem isn’t the definition it’s that companies want the common carrier status without actually acting like one. The phone company doesn’t editorialize and we would think it insane if they started doing so.
- pwinnski 4y ago
  The phone company doesn't fill your line 24/7 with unsolicited and illegal content, either, which any unmoderated comment section does.
- eli 4y ago
  You would want Hacker News or any other forum to be legally responsible for comments posted by users?
  - hrunt 4y ago
    No, I would not want HN legally responsible for comments posted by users. Hacker News does not directly promote content (aside from prioritizing content based on non-content factors [age, voting, etc.]). It does moderate, but that is not the same as promotion. The crux of the argument in this case is that the plaintiffs want Google held liable for promoting content, not hosting it. The difficulty the Supreme Court seems to have is understanding what the boundaries are between promoting content and simply delivering a usable view of content choices to consumers, and whether Congress intended for that difference to matter with regards to Section 230. Is Hacker News default feed that promotes highly-upvoted, newer stories to the front of the list and example of HN promoting those stories? If so, should HN be held liable if that algorithm pushes content that harms others?

mmcconnell1618 4y ago

I wonder if making platforms liable for providing the identity of content producers is a fair balance between providing the platform immunity and allowing those potentially harmed by content to pursue the content creator if needed.

XorNot 4y ago
How is mandating cyberstalking access going to solve anything?
- mmcconnell1618 4y ago
  One of the first challenges was the Zeran v. American Online case where a business owner was harmed but was never able to compel AOL to provide the identity of the person creating the harmful content. Forcing platforms to provide identity information in pursuit of legal action would allow action against the formally anonymous poster. As it stands today, an anonymous person (or botnet) can post whatever they want with no fear they will be exposed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeran_v._America_Online,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeran_v._America_Online,_Inc.
  - pessimizer 4y ago
    > As it stands today, an anonymous person (or botnet) can post whatever they want with no fear they will be exposed. This is also how is has stood throughout American history. The foundation of the US was built on anonymous/pseudonymous pamphlets and secret communications between the "Founding Fathers."
bryan_w 4y ago
I think it's an interesting idea to explore. I think if a platform makes a good faith effort to know their users that it would be able to defer liability onto them. Ideally this would be coupled with a privacy aware proof of identity system but perhaps that's asking for too much. Sites could still allow anonymous communication, but it would need to vet it first and assume liability. You can't go out in public in a mask and say "John Smith eats worms" (when he doesn't) and not have any repercussions.

causi 4y ago

Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services when they make targeted recommendations of information provided by another information content provider Should it? This feels a lot like a "have your cake and eat it too" situation. Either you're a neutral party or you are not. Being a trillion-dollar company doesn't exempt you from that. Letting a computer make the decisions instead of a person doesn't exempt you either. Youtube would be in no danger if all it was doing was keyword-matching with recommended videos. Instead it created profit by designing its algorithm to maximize engagement by any means necessary, especially via outrage and bandwagoning. What the fuck did they expect to happen when they created a money engine that runs on human emotional intensity?

ladyattis 4y ago
The thing is that the law as written allows them to do just that. If they don't like your content on YouTube, they can punt it instantly. And it can be for ANY REASON. And that's not even including their first amendment right to refuse distributing or listing your content.
- causi 4y ago
  If they don't like your content on YouTube, they can punt it instantly. And it can be for ANY REASON Certainly. But Section 230, at least from my reading, does not protect them for the promotion of content. I could be wrong about that. The Supreme Court will decide. Personally I'd find it delightful if the rage-engine got smashed with a legal hammer and my Youtube recommendations were as useful as they were fifteen years ago.
  - eli 4y ago
    Wouldn't that also make it incredibly difficult for a new startup to invent a better and less harmful recommendation system?
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago

Hacktrick 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20230222164232/https://www.wired.com/story/the-supreme-court-section-230-the-internet/ https://web.archive.org/web/20230222164232/https://www.wired...

coffeeblack 4y ago

230 would be okay if the user had the ability to choose the algorithm that determines what content that user sees. That was one of the early ideas for Twitter when Musk took over. Could even have external, independent “filter providers”. Then the user a chose what bubble they want to live in. Or none at all, if they are brave enough to see opposing opinions. But if the web site decides the algorithm for the user, well, then the web site is the same as a newspaper or TV channel.

koboll 4y ago
The problem is that with modern ML-based recommendation systems there is not really an "algorithm" at all. Which is probably the reason that particular promise from Musk never actually went anywhere.
jabroni_salad 4y ago
given the rate at which youtube takes in new videos (millions per day), I think you would be supremely lucky to see anything even resembling "an opinion" in a truly unfiltered list.

cebu 4y ago

just a series of tubes

shadowgovt 4y ago

FWIW, the Supreme Court doesn't need to understand the Internet to do its job. A judge's job is to understand the law. It is the job of the lawyers to bring facts and argumentation before the judges to pursuade them that the law should be interpreted one way or the other. The expertise is expected to live with the lawyers, not the judges (and the ability to find expert witnesses and spin up on the details of what they're advocating is a lawyer skill).

kube-system 4y ago
Yes, this is the most frustrating thing about these kind of article titles. Justice Kagan isn't saying "we have no clue what we're doing" she's saying, "I'm not sure you're in the right place"
corbulo 4y ago
It's really grounded in an anti-adversarial process ideology. Pre-empting it and demanding there should only be one side dictating what is and isn't true. Thats probably overanalyzing a narrative piece for their owners but its what this accumulates to at scale.

tristor 4y ago

The reality is that most people, EVEN technical people, don't actually understand the Internet. The only people I consistently have conversed with who understand the Internet are technology advocates that have a deep background in Internet networking. Even on HN, most people believe many things about how the Internet works, at the networking layer, at the application layer, and socioculturally, that are not true, and provably not true, but widely believed. A true headline would be "Hardly anyone who isn't at least a double CCIE with ~15 years of experience in web policy understands the Internet." Most technical people don't understand DNS, and it's one of the most basic and core technologies to how the Internet works today. The courts definitely don't understand DNS. The vast majority don't understand BGP, and it's literally the basis for how Internet networking works. Many don't understand the Web as a tech stack, outside possibly the basics of website design. Even people who develop web applications don't understand the Web as a tech stack. It's actually a major concern for me, because the promise that future generations would be "digital natives" with deep technology understanding didn't come to fruition. The knowledge of how all of this infrastructure actually works is dying off, and very few people are interested in learning it, and the entire global economy is now built on the Internet in a myriad of ways. Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/2347/ https://xkcd.com/2347/ except extrapolate from open source software to literally all essential technologies the world runs on.

automatoney 4y ago
> Even on HN, most people believe many things about how the Internet works, at the networking layer, at the application layer, and socioculturally, that are not true, and provably not true, but widely believed. Could you debunk some of the most common/biggest false beliefs you encounter? I'm curious to see which traps I fall into.
- tristor 4y ago
  There's so many I'm not sure where to begin. A few simple ones that most people believe about networking on the Internet that aren't true are: 1. Routing paths are primarily decided by path distance as the metric. 2. IP ownership is authenticated and therefore the global route table is deterministic and stable. 3. DNS traffic is always over UDP/53 4. DNS is controlled by the network. Related, split horizon DNS is reliable. 5. Domain registrars and the root nameservers are required to be contacted in order to get a DNS response for a given public domain. As a corollary, seizing domains or blocking DNS at the root is a sufficient method to block access to a site. Secondary corollary, a correctly configured and valid public domain is reachable from anywhere on the Internet that can make a DNS query. A lot of these are true in /some cases/, or in the general case, but not in the corner cases. A lot of policy and court decisions about the Internet assume the happy path or the common case when dealing with situations where motivated actors may take actions outside the happy path to work around that court order. It is entirely possible to bypass public DNS to resolve a public IP on the Internet as long as it routable, regardless of what registrars or public (and root) nameservers say. (see: Pirate Bay and their shenanigans, also see Tor resolvers, see non-authoritative DNS resolvers, see host file sharing, see alternate roots, etc.) A lot of policies within organizations, including those set by network admins, are based on a belief that systems in their network obey the things provided by their network, when in fact the client controls nearly everything about how it decides to interact with a network, and the network can only provide configuration as a suggestion or recommendation. There are very limited options for enforcing policy at the network level. There is no guarantee that any given client on your network is actually utilizing your local DNS resolvers or successfully will resolve split horizon DNS. A lot of configurations in the world are based on trust in systems which are inherently designed in an untrustworthy manner, or which require additional configuration and technology to provide an external basis for trust. This has had consequences with far-reaching impact and will continue to do (see BGP hijacking). DNS, except when using newer protocols and taking extra measures to authenticate responses, is easily intercepted and hijacked. It is entirely possible to capture queries and inject non-authoritative responses, including responses which claim to be authoritative at any point in the path the query traverses. This is actually commonplace in some regions of the world (see: China). DNS that is authenticated and encrypted doesn't traverse UDP/53.

rayiner 4y ago

The Wired article’s title is frustrating. I’m pretty sure the Supreme Court does “understand the internet.” The judge I clerked for wrote the original decision that struck down most of the CDA except Section 230, which the Supreme Court later affirmed. If you go read that decision, it’s got a pretty accurate description of the internet: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/week/0612decision.html https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/we... (see Findings of Fact). For example it talks about routing: > “The Internet uses ‘packet switching’ communication protocols that allow individual messages to be subdivided into smaller ‘packets’ that are then sent independently to the destination, and are then automatically reassembled by the receiving computer. While all packets of a given message often travel along the same path to the destination, if computers along the route become overloaded, the packets can be re-routed to less loaded computers.” And that was back in the 1990s. What people seem to really mean when they say “the Supreme Court doesn’t understand X” is that the Supreme Court doesn’t share the values they associate with X. That’s almost certainly the case. From the Supreme Court’s view, the internet is just another part of the national economy. They don’t understand or care about the distinct cultural values of people in that sector.

glitchc 4y ago
Hear hear! Sounds like Wired is a mouthpiece for Big Tech.
- wil421 4y ago
  Wired has been in the same camp as the Verge, IGN, Mac Rumors, and so on for a while now. They are closer to a tabloid than what Wired Magazine once was. Not sure who they are a mouthpiece for but they certainly don’t mind being one.
  - corbulo 4y ago
    They're owned by Conde Nast, who also owns Reddit.
- kridsdale1 4y ago

boh 4y ago

The article doesn't really explain what it is about the internet that isn't being understood. Even if these companies have been identified under the general "tech" category by investment firms, they're essentially media companies and there's no reason why they should be exempt from the regulations of other media companies. The idea that somehow first amendment rights will somehow be overtly compromised by adding extra responsibilities for internet companies would require us to ignore the censorship these companies have been willfully prompting in the past decade.

karmelapple 4y ago

If I start a TV network on basic cable and let anyone submit a video that will be broadcast live on air in real time, that network will likely be broadcasting user-submitted material that would not be allowed to be shown on TV during the daytime per FCC decency standards. How is YouTube different than this? Or Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media that is free to see once you have an internet connection?

kjksf 4y ago
Here's the difference: TV network made a deal with the government (FCC): they got a monopoly access to a limited resource (spectrum). In exchange they agreed to limitations set by FCC, like decency standards. Limitations that go beyond what the law, as created by congress, requires. YouTube or Facebook didn't make a similar deal with FCC because they use unconstrained resource (internet bandwidth). Furthermore congress did the right thing and created a law explicitly calling out this scenario and made internet companies not liable for user generated content. Why did they do it? Because without that there would be madness.

migf 4y ago

I think the Supreme Court has a real out here to say, "Fuck, we dunno" and rule to change nothing and suggest that Congress remedy the situation through new laws. That's ideologically consistent and the right move. I would be astonished if they don't do that here.

kube-system 4y ago
A lot of news outlets are just posting the funny part of Kagan's quote and not the rest of the context... but it sounds like that's exactly what she was saying. > "We're a court. We really don't know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet," Kagan said of her colleagues, eliciting a laugh from the courtroom gallery. "There's a lot of uncertainty going the way you would have us go, in part, just because of the difficulty of drawing lines in this area and just because of the fact that, once we go with you, all of a sudden we're finding that Google isn't protected. And maybe Congress should want that system, but isn't that something for Congress to do, not the court?" https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-wrestles-immunity-social-media-companies/story?id=97364834 https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/supreme-court-wrestles-immun...
shagie 4y ago
https://wapo.st/3lWw2Rg https://wapo.st/3lWw2Rg > Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said one could question why Congress provided such immunity when passing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. But she drew laughter when she wondered how far the Supreme Court should go in cutting back such protection. > “We’re a court. We really don’t know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet,” Kagan said. > Kavanaugh said Congress knows that lower courts have interpreted the protections broadly. “Isn’t it better ... to put the burden on Congress to change that, and they can consider the implications and make these predictive judgments?” he asked Stewart. --- Justice Kagan's exchange for that segment is on page 45 https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/2022/21-1333_p8k0.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr... JUSTICE KAGAN: Yeah, so I don't think that a court did it over there, and I think that that's my concern, is I can imagine a world where you're right that none of this stuff gets protection. And, you know, every other industry has to internalize the costs of its conduct. Why is it that the tech industry gets a pass? A little bit unclear. On the other hand, I mean, we're a court. We really don't know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the Internet. (Laughter.) JUSTICE KAGAN: And I don't have to -- I don't have to accept all Ms. Blatt's "the sky is falling" stuff to accept something about, boy, there is a lot of uncertainty about going the way you would have us go, in part, just because of the difficulty of drawing lines in this area and just because of the fact that, once we go with you, all of a sudden we're finding that Google isn't protected. And maybe Congress should want that system, but isn't that something for Congress to do, not the Court?

swatcoder 4y ago

To look for an upside to the worst case scenario, the biggest win from a deep challenge to Section 230 protections would be a return to a smaller and more mindfully curated web. Many of the problems from social media are rooted in the idea of having such enormous hoards of content that the only way to trawl through it is with automated algorithms. This was great when it worked, but the content pool seems to grow faster than algorithm design can accomodate and will only get worse as AI content generators mature. It suggests that there are possibly as few as two futures: 1. The internet is a wasteland of content pollution and the automated tools for sorting and sifting through it are overwhelmed with toxic waste. 2. The internet returns to a network of trust where people are individually, but only marginally, accountable for what they share with others and this accountability engenders thoughtful curation at a manageable scale. It might be that modern equivalents of web rings, curated directories, group chats, and member forums supplant "Internet Scale" search engines and social media networks. It would be an adjustment, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

kmeisthax 4y ago
In scenario #2 the toxic waste still exists. Unmoderated forums are protected against liability even if CDA 230 is repealed. So 4chan will still be around. Furthermore, distributing liability among your users is not a great idea. What will happen is that extortion enterprises will be created to sue people on our hypothetical old-web-of-trust. We know this because BitTorrent allowed Prenda Law to make porn, share it themselves to dox users[0], and then sue the people who downloaded or watched it. This scheme worked because copyright lawsuits are expensive to defend against, and defamation is no different. So everyone just quickly settled, which is why it took years for judges to catch onto this particular fraudster. The only thing that keeps you from being sued for watching an infringing YouTube video is DMCA 512, which works almost[1] identically to CDA 230. Because it's a large centralized service, it's a juicier target, and people with legitimate copyright grievances can get things taken down from them. So nobody bothers to try and sue individual viewers. Your #2 scenario only works if the Supreme Court is merciful and only kills recommendation systems. If CDA 230 is struck down entirely, you won't get to run a network-of-trust version of the web, because just hosting a public web server will require signing an indemnification agreement and posting a very large bond. In this scenario the Internet becomes more like cable, or perhaps a games console. [0] Normally an IP address is not dox; but a lawyer and an out-of-order DMCA subpoena can turn it into dox. [1] 512 adds a notice-and-takedown regime because Hollywood wanted censorship powers over the Internet.

stillsleepy 4y ago

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not2b 4y ago

Based on reporting of the oral arguments, it seems to show that the Supreme Court understands that they don't understand (other than Alito, perhaps), are worried about breaking the whole thing, and will probably do nothing and issue a ruling saying that if changes are needed it's Congress's job to do it. See for example https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/brett-kavanaugh-google-case-scotus-section-230.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/02/brett-kavanaugh-...

russellbeattie 4y ago

A legitimate result from this lawsuit would be to simply force internet companies to be more responsive. The family in question did everything they could to alert Google to the extreme content, and were completely ignored. I think anyone who has had their user ID mistakenly flagged, or app removed, or content stolen can relate to the unresponsiveness of internet companies to legitimate user complaints. It's what is driving the sense of arrogance people get from these companies, who act as though they are untouchable. There needs to be some accountability. The "slippery slope" or "chilling effect" arguments are valid, but the scale has tipped too far so that individuals being harmed by these companies have little to no recourse. These companies make billions of dollars in profit and much of that is because they underfund customer support, or simply ignore it all together. It's like any consumer product safety issue. It's expensive, but should be a required cost of doing business, like product recalls or EPA pollution regulations.

jenkstom 4y ago

I'm done with wired magazine. They no longer produce content, they produce drama. That article about how there's no point in identifying evil people because there's no evidence supporting it was massively harmful to people in abusive relationships who are trying to sort out why they are suffering so much and what evil really is. From the comments below this one apparently is clickbait. I'm done.

taskqa 4y ago

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pyuser583 4y ago

Most people don’t.