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Is it just me or are a lot of software related questions going to these 9 people who “are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet”, according to Just

Is it just me or are a lot of software related questions going to these 9 people who “are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet”, according to Justice Kagan? Although to be fair, they did really well on Oracle v Google (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_....). The questions the Justices asked were very good and the final judgement was definitely written by a clerk who understood software well. It's possible they might mess this up. I'm having a hard time imagining a site that doesn't make a decision on what content to show. Even HN makes an editorial decision when choosing what to show on the front page. It would be absurd to hold dang accountable for that.

SllX 4y ago
> Is it just me or are a lot of software related questions going to these 9 people who “are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet”, according to Justice Kagan? We have an adversarial court system and they don’t need to know software to know the law. It is the jobs of the attorneys to properly educate the Justices in their briefs, filings and oral arguments on the facts of the case and how they think the law should be read in their favor; and the Court watches what goes on in the Appellate and District courts to gauge what issues they will be dealing with. Lastly while the Justices themselves might have left school decades ago, they regularly rotate through clerks bringing fresh opinions and perspectives into the Courthouse. What’s important is what the law says and the way it should be read, and that’s going to be inconvenient for someone but typically any perceived defects in the law lay squarely at Congress’s feet.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Exactly, if there's some court-room drama type "gotcha" that a knowledgable Justice could ask then it is the job of one side or the other to make that argument.
- LeifCarrotson 4y ago
  > What’s important is what the law says and the way it should be read, and that’s going to be inconvenient for someone but typically any perceived defects in the law lay squarely at Congress’s feet. Congress writes laws with the assumption that ambiguities and complications will be intelligently and justly resolved by a human being - namely, these 9 people. The issue is not that one side or the other may fail to educate the Court, it's that the problems of "what the law says" and "what justice is" and "how the internet should work" may not be entirely coherent, especially when societal norms are changing as fast as they are today. When the Constitution was written, the word "publisher" had a completely different meaning, completely unaware of the possibility of YouTube. Even in 1996, algorithmic Internet moderation had a different meaning to what providers are doing today. How will - how should - people in 5 or 10 years moderate websites and consume content? I'm not the greatest expert on the Internet, I started using it at approximately the same time that section 230 was passed, but I'm very familiar with it and that would be a really hard question for me to answer. A senior citizen who formed and solidified most of their ideas about the way society works or should work three to five decades ago would have a really hard time wrapping their mind around the concept even with excellent guidance from the best attorneys. We need judgements that put our society in the best position for the next decade, and these 9 people may not be sufficiently able to be coached to think ahead far enough to do that.
  - SllX 4y ago
    > We need judgements that put our society in the best position for the next decade, and these 9 people may not be sufficiently able to be coached to think ahead far enough to do that. That is a kind of judgement, but that kind of judgment is a policy judgment, not a legal one. If you want a policy judgment, you go to Congress; they make a determination, decide if they’re going to pass a law, and if they do so then you have a law that reflects what their policy is in the text of the statute. If you want a legal one, you go to the Courts. If there’s ambiguity in the law, then you’re going to have different interpretations, and the attorneys at trial, and often the Solicitor-General of the United States are going to present their best arguments as to how the law should be interpreted. In other words, a trial and its eventual outcome is a collaboration between adversaries, the Justices, their staff, and the US government when they choose to chime in (they usually can if they want even if they’re not one of try party’s at trial). You’re giving the Justices too little credit and more responsibility than they lawfully possess; it is already sufficient that they have the responsibility of interpreting the laws, facts and arguments before them.
  - nradov 4y ago
    The Constitution doesn't even contain the word "publisher". Issues that come before the Supreme Court are by nature largely toss-ups with no clear right or wrong answer. Instead of taking a risk with those 9 people, lobby your members of Congress to write laws that are so clear and specific that no judicial interpretation is needed.
    - flyingv 4y ago
      +1 -- SCOTUS even seems to agree that they wish Congress would just modernize 230 so they wouldn't be trying to interpret what the word "publisher" (conceived before the internet existed) means in a digital era. All SCOTUS can do is look at the law as currently written and try to apply it to current situations in a reasonable way. By contrast, Congress can wholly rewrite the law and introduce new terms/concepts into it.
      - bcrosby95 4y ago
flyingv 4y ago
Some of their past internet-related cases have been worrisome, but if you listen to the oral arguments on this one they do ask some good questions... albeit that's probably partially due to their recent-law-school-grad clerks helping with prep.
- reylas 4y ago
  Keep in mind, when you get to the "oral argument" phase, the Justices have already had months to read the documentation and the briefs submitted in order to articulate and understand those issues. The attorneys for both sides state their case well ahead of time before the oral arguments.

SllX 4y ago

> Is it just me or are a lot of software related questions going to these 9 people who “are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet”, according to Justice Kagan? We have an adversarial court system and they don’t need to know software to know the law. It is the jobs of the attorneys to properly educate the Justices in their briefs, filings and oral arguments on the facts of the case and how they think the law should be read in their favor; and the Court watches what goes on in the Appellate and District courts to gauge what issues they will be dealing with. Lastly while the Justices themselves might have left school decades ago, they regularly rotate through clerks bringing fresh opinions and perspectives into the Courthouse. What’s important is what the law says and the way it should be read, and that’s going to be inconvenient for someone but typically any perceived defects in the law lay squarely at Congress’s feet.

bombcar 4y ago
Exactly, if there's some court-room drama type "gotcha" that a knowledgable Justice could ask then it is the job of one side or the other to make that argument.
LeifCarrotson 4y ago
> What’s important is what the law says and the way it should be read, and that’s going to be inconvenient for someone but typically any perceived defects in the law lay squarely at Congress’s feet. Congress writes laws with the assumption that ambiguities and complications will be intelligently and justly resolved by a human being - namely, these 9 people. The issue is not that one side or the other may fail to educate the Court, it's that the problems of "what the law says" and "what justice is" and "how the internet should work" may not be entirely coherent, especially when societal norms are changing as fast as they are today. When the Constitution was written, the word "publisher" had a completely different meaning, completely unaware of the possibility of YouTube. Even in 1996, algorithmic Internet moderation had a different meaning to what providers are doing today. How will - how should - people in 5 or 10 years moderate websites and consume content? I'm not the greatest expert on the Internet, I started using it at approximately the same time that section 230 was passed, but I'm very familiar with it and that would be a really hard question for me to answer. A senior citizen who formed and solidified most of their ideas about the way society works or should work three to five decades ago would have a really hard time wrapping their mind around the concept even with excellent guidance from the best attorneys. We need judgements that put our society in the best position for the next decade, and these 9 people may not be sufficiently able to be coached to think ahead far enough to do that.
- SllX 4y ago
  > We need judgements that put our society in the best position for the next decade, and these 9 people may not be sufficiently able to be coached to think ahead far enough to do that. That is a kind of judgement, but that kind of judgment is a policy judgment, not a legal one. If you want a policy judgment, you go to Congress; they make a determination, decide if they’re going to pass a law, and if they do so then you have a law that reflects what their policy is in the text of the statute. If you want a legal one, you go to the Courts. If there’s ambiguity in the law, then you’re going to have different interpretations, and the attorneys at trial, and often the Solicitor-General of the United States are going to present their best arguments as to how the law should be interpreted. In other words, a trial and its eventual outcome is a collaboration between adversaries, the Justices, their staff, and the US government when they choose to chime in (they usually can if they want even if they’re not one of try party’s at trial). You’re giving the Justices too little credit and more responsibility than they lawfully possess; it is already sufficient that they have the responsibility of interpreting the laws, facts and arguments before them.
- nradov 4y ago
  The Constitution doesn't even contain the word "publisher". Issues that come before the Supreme Court are by nature largely toss-ups with no clear right or wrong answer. Instead of taking a risk with those 9 people, lobby your members of Congress to write laws that are so clear and specific that no judicial interpretation is needed.
  - flyingv 4y ago
    +1 -- SCOTUS even seems to agree that they wish Congress would just modernize 230 so they wouldn't be trying to interpret what the word "publisher" (conceived before the internet existed) means in a digital era. All SCOTUS can do is look at the law as currently written and try to apply it to current situations in a reasonable way. By contrast, Congress can wholly rewrite the law and introduce new terms/concepts into it.
    - bcrosby95 4y ago

flyingv 4y ago

Some of their past internet-related cases have been worrisome, but if you listen to the oral arguments on this one they do ask some good questions... albeit that's probably partially due to their recent-law-school-grad clerks helping with prep.

reylas 4y ago
Keep in mind, when you get to the "oral argument" phase, the Justices have already had months to read the documentation and the briefs submitted in order to articulate and understand those issues. The attorneys for both sides state their case well ahead of time before the oral arguments.