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I'm not sure I follow. We are talking about the party who caused the harm. The harm isn't caused when a lie is posted on the internet. The harm isn't caused whe

I'm not sure I follow. We are talking about the party who caused the harm. The harm isn't caused when a lie is posted on the internet. The harm isn't caused when the lie is repeated on the internet. The lie itself can cause no harm. It is just information, and information cannot harm. Irrational people can, and do, reach for a lie and, out of poor judgement, create harm. But the poor judgement is the problem, not the lie, hammer, or car. The latter three do not act. If people were infallible the existence of the lie would mean nothing as it could not possibly lead to harm. Of course, people are not infallible and harm will be created. The onus being placed on the party causing harm, not those who made commonly used tools available to the party at fault is recognized everywhere else. What is special about Google?

danaris 3y ago
> information cannot harm. This is so patently false I don't think it's worth continuing this discussion. There are so many very obvious ways that information, especially false information, can cause demonstrable, material harm that I cannot view this argument as anything other than ideological dogma with no basis in reality.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > There are so many very obvious ways that information, especially false information, can cause demonstrable, material harm Like what? Let's pretend, for argument's sake, that this website containing inflammatory information was never found by another person. What harm would the information cause? The answer is that it wouldn't cause any harm. How could it? Not even the court case tried to make this claim. It claimed the harm was caused by the poor judgment of people in the man's life.
  - danaris 3y ago
    You could just as easily argue "chlorine gas can't cause harm; see, if it's hermetically sealed inside a canister, it's perfectly safe!" Or "I didn't hurt those people; all I did was open the valve on the chlorine gas canister! It was their own breathing that hurt them!" > Not even the court case tried to make this claim. It claimed the harm was caused by the poor judgment of people in the man's life. You're going to have to provide specific quotes, because reading the article, I can't see anything that looks remotely like what you say here.
    - randomdata 3y ago
      > You're going to have to provide specific quotes Why? What's the incentive? It affects me in no way if you missed something, or you don't believe me, or whatever it is that prompted this request. I find enjoyment in writing down my own neural activity, but there is nothing exciting about copying/pasting someone else's. > I can't see anything that looks remotely like what you say here. What did you see? What harm do you think was caused? The article I read said that the man was harmed by having people disassociate with him. Not the lie disassociating with him, people disassociating with him. Those people exhibited poor judgment in their willingness to harm another person and, if the the courts determine the harm is worthy of legal reprieve, why are the people making those poor decisions not who were penalized for their actions? Why is their stupidity Google's responsibility? "I didn't know not to harm this man. A computer I was using said it was okay! It must be the computer's fault." should not be a sufficient argument in a court of law. But here we are.
rat9988 3y ago
The lie can cause harm. Your logic is flawed. It's as saying as telling a captain telling a soldier to kill a child is harmless. Because it's only information,and information is harmless. The cause of the cause is a cause.
- randomdata 3y ago
  > The lie can cause harm. Like what? I'm going to write a lie on a piece of paper and seal it in a safe which no person can access. Is it going to break free and kill us all? Or what harm should we expect from it? Back to reality, it won't cause any harm. If someone with poor judgment found a way into the safe, read the lie, and then did something stupid, that could result in harm. But it would be the person doing something stupid that caused the harm. Even the court case was clear that the harm caused was in people making poor decisions after reading the lie, not the lie itself. Why are the people who caused the harm claimed in the case not held responsible for their poor judgment? What is special about Google that it gets to take responsibility for unrelated people doing something stupid? Fortunately in this case the harm caused by those people was limited, but if the harm was greater, like someone murdered the guy after reading the lie, would it be reasonable to charge Google with murder and absolve the murderer of responsibility?
  - danaris 3y ago
    OK, I'll bite. Your example with the safe is obviously absurd. No one is suggesting that the mere existence of untrue information, in a vacuum, causes harm. Communicating it to people, presented as true information, is where the harm comes. If you tell someone there are no peanuts in their meal, and they have a peanut allergy, they will eat it because of your false assurance and be harmed. If you tell someone the car dealership down the street always gives amazing deals and gives lifetime warranties for free, but they're selling lemons and fraudulent warranties, your endorsement of their lies can entice more people into getting swindled by them. If you tell someone the car dealership down the street is selling lemons and fraudulent warranties, when in reality they give good deals and honor their warranties faithfully, you are driving away business from them, which harms them financially. "I didn't harm the person with the peanut allergy; the peanuts did!" Bullshit. They ate it in this scenario specifically because they trusted your assurance that it was safe. "I didn't harm the people who got swindled; the car dealership did!" You both harmed them. Your false statements gave them extra legitimacy. Plus, the lies of the car dealership itself caused harm here. "I didn't harm the car dealership; the people who didn't go there did!" Bullshit. You gratuitously introduced false information into a system where it didn't otherwise exist, defaming the car dealership and causing it to lose business that would otherwise have supported it financially. I think that should be sufficient, since you're making an absolute, categorical claim, meaning that any nontrivial counterexample refutes it.

danaris 3y ago

> information cannot harm. This is so patently false I don't think it's worth continuing this discussion. There are so many very obvious ways that information, especially false information, can cause demonstrable, material harm that I cannot view this argument as anything other than ideological dogma with no basis in reality.

randomdata 3y ago
> There are so many very obvious ways that information, especially false information, can cause demonstrable, material harm Like what? Let's pretend, for argument's sake, that this website containing inflammatory information was never found by another person. What harm would the information cause? The answer is that it wouldn't cause any harm. How could it? Not even the court case tried to make this claim. It claimed the harm was caused by the poor judgment of people in the man's life.
- danaris 3y ago
  You could just as easily argue "chlorine gas can't cause harm; see, if it's hermetically sealed inside a canister, it's perfectly safe!" Or "I didn't hurt those people; all I did was open the valve on the chlorine gas canister! It was their own breathing that hurt them!" > Not even the court case tried to make this claim. It claimed the harm was caused by the poor judgment of people in the man's life. You're going to have to provide specific quotes, because reading the article, I can't see anything that looks remotely like what you say here.
  - randomdata 3y ago
    > You're going to have to provide specific quotes Why? What's the incentive? It affects me in no way if you missed something, or you don't believe me, or whatever it is that prompted this request. I find enjoyment in writing down my own neural activity, but there is nothing exciting about copying/pasting someone else's. > I can't see anything that looks remotely like what you say here. What did you see? What harm do you think was caused? The article I read said that the man was harmed by having people disassociate with him. Not the lie disassociating with him, people disassociating with him. Those people exhibited poor judgment in their willingness to harm another person and, if the the courts determine the harm is worthy of legal reprieve, why are the people making those poor decisions not who were penalized for their actions? Why is their stupidity Google's responsibility? "I didn't know not to harm this man. A computer I was using said it was okay! It must be the computer's fault." should not be a sufficient argument in a court of law. But here we are.

rat9988 3y ago

The lie can cause harm. Your logic is flawed. It's as saying as telling a captain telling a soldier to kill a child is harmless. Because it's only information,and information is harmless. The cause of the cause is a cause.

randomdata 3y ago
> The lie can cause harm. Like what? I'm going to write a lie on a piece of paper and seal it in a safe which no person can access. Is it going to break free and kill us all? Or what harm should we expect from it? Back to reality, it won't cause any harm. If someone with poor judgment found a way into the safe, read the lie, and then did something stupid, that could result in harm. But it would be the person doing something stupid that caused the harm. Even the court case was clear that the harm caused was in people making poor decisions after reading the lie, not the lie itself. Why are the people who caused the harm claimed in the case not held responsible for their poor judgment? What is special about Google that it gets to take responsibility for unrelated people doing something stupid? Fortunately in this case the harm caused by those people was limited, but if the harm was greater, like someone murdered the guy after reading the lie, would it be reasonable to charge Google with murder and absolve the murderer of responsibility?
- danaris 3y ago
  OK, I'll bite. Your example with the safe is obviously absurd. No one is suggesting that the mere existence of untrue information, in a vacuum, causes harm. Communicating it to people, presented as true information, is where the harm comes. If you tell someone there are no peanuts in their meal, and they have a peanut allergy, they will eat it because of your false assurance and be harmed. If you tell someone the car dealership down the street always gives amazing deals and gives lifetime warranties for free, but they're selling lemons and fraudulent warranties, your endorsement of their lies can entice more people into getting swindled by them. If you tell someone the car dealership down the street is selling lemons and fraudulent warranties, when in reality they give good deals and honor their warranties faithfully, you are driving away business from them, which harms them financially. "I didn't harm the person with the peanut allergy; the peanuts did!" Bullshit. They ate it in this scenario specifically because they trusted your assurance that it was safe. "I didn't harm the people who got swindled; the car dealership did!" You both harmed them. Your false statements gave them extra legitimacy. Plus, the lies of the car dealership itself caused harm here. "I didn't harm the car dealership; the people who didn't go there did!" Bullshit. You gratuitously introduced false information into a system where it didn't otherwise exist, defaming the car dealership and causing it to lose business that would otherwise have supported it financially. I think that should be sufficient, since you're making an absolute, categorical claim, meaning that any nontrivial counterexample refutes it.