7 ms·
Judge demands social media sites prove they didn't help radicalize mass shooter
- newsclues 3y agoShifting the burden of proof
- morkalork 3y agoHilariously enough, 4chan, if it is still functions how I remember it, sounds like it would be the most protected given the lack of algorithmicly promoted content. Still, trying to prove a negative though, isn't it?
- pierat 3y agoAfter reading on /pol/ horrible takes on Jewish slurs, and horrible takes on BiPOC folk, and horrible takes on homosexuals.... And it's the 1st post... Yeah that's going to end badly.
- whatshisface 3y agoThe OP's point is that since the case hinges on the question of whether social media platforms are "mere messageboards," or if they are, "products," the presence of hate content (like you'd find inside the telephone switching network) and the absence of any kind of algorithmic management is helpful to Nishimura, while the complex recommendation systems on YouTube will serve as an obstacle for that defendant.
- pierat 3y agoSo there definitely IS algorimithic removers and such. The difference is that posts don't even make it past the gate if they get blocked. And certain content is also ban-worthy. Again, they very much do censor stuff. You just don't see the censoring.
- xyzzy_plugh 3y agoModeration as censorship typically does not cater to, or curate content for, distinct individual users, let alone audience groups. There are of course exceptions but this is about a different extreme. This all started with ads. Now all content is an ad, so that you can be served more ads. It's ingenious but also evil.
- brickteacup 3y agohate speech is still protected speech
- pierat 3y agoThreatening to "go kill ni**ers for a high score" is likely illegal. That shits on /pol/ right now, and is the root of supporting extremism to the point of violence and murder. And last I checked, making death threats is explicitly not protected speech.
- samatman 3y agoIn the US? It absolutely is protected speech. Your test sentence fails the Brandenburg test: it is not "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action", nor "likely to incite or produce such action." https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/brandenburg_test
- tekla 3y agoThankfully, the US system does not agree with you.
- jcranmer 3y agoTrue threats are illegal. However, "go kill ni*ers for a high score" is not only not a true threat, it's the kind of speech that Brandenburg v Ohio, which established the current incitement-to-imminent-lawless-action test, explicitly said was 100% protected free speech. Pretty much anything less than leading a mob and telling them who is their next lynching target will be ruled protected speech.
- ensignavenger 3y agoFrom reading the article, it sounds like what the judge actually ruled is not what the headline seems to claim that the judge ruled. It seems that the judge is simply saying the case can proceed to the next phase. The plaintiffs, it appears, still need to argue their claim of product liability. So they still need to present a case to the court that each of the defendants products are in fact defective.
- m463 3y agoI wonder if this is "the disconnection of article and headline" sort of thing. I've read some article authors have no control over the headlines associated with their writings, either added by someone else, or generated or a/b tested or whatever.
- yieldcrv 3y agoProduct Liability lawsuits don't get enough discussion time yet, I would like to see more discussion on them. I think it can be beneficial for social media sites and other ventures to collaborate with society more
- CSMastermind 3y agoI don't think software in general faces enough product liability standards.
- verdverm 3y agoI think that's more because software is in everything and the product that software is in is what gets the liability as a whole. iirc, the Toyota breaking issue & lawsuit was ultimately a software issue. The code was such a mess that I decided I wouldn't buy Toyota again. This was maybe 8-10 years ago
- gfsincere 3y ago[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- ocdtrekkie 3y agoAnd so begins another round of tech company funded shill outlets (hi Mike) and lobbyists convincing everyone that the most valuable companies on the planet must be given absolute immunity for their behavior or else the Internet will collapse... even though that immunity law is only in the US anyways.
- reaperman 3y agoWould be interesting to see a similar headline like: "Judge demands FBI prove they didn't help radicalize mass shooter", which is definitely fairly common if measured as a % of terrorist convictions. More to the point of the article: I don't understand all these attacks on Section 230. Is there a single reasonable proposal for what kind of framework should replace Section 230?
- dragonwriter 3y agoThe headline is simply a clickbait lie (fairly typical of the source); what the the judge actually ruled is not that liability is assumed and platforms must disprove it, but that Section 230 is not a bar to a defective product liability claim.
- Natsu 3y agoThe problem with that is that the only "product" here is their website. Regulating harmful speech as a "product" seems a bit odd because the product exists only to convey certain speech. Any device used to convey harmful speech would seem to become subject to liability under this theory, as all claims of how this caused harm seem to be related to conveying speech that lead to harmful beliefs, even if that is dressed up as some product that is a "sophisticated system" for recommending or promoting bad ideas. This becomes an especially thin fig leaf when applied to, e.g., 4chan which doesn't seem to do anything like recommending or promoting certain speakers as far as I can tell.
- Retric 3y agoCalling something a website isn't descriptive enough, plenty of websites get shutdown so being a website alone isn't enough to qualify as protected speech. 4chan and Facebook both are already filtering out Child Porn, they may need to add other categories... or not it's an ongoing question. More abstractly I think we can agree a phone network or ISP is a less active participant in what specifically gets said than a recommendation engine. So an websites internal recommendation engine will ultimately get its own kinds of regulations eventually just like search engines etc.
- TheLoafOfBread 3y agoWell, how can you proof that something didn't happen?
- Havoc 3y agoWhat sort of discount store judge is that?
- to11mtm 3y agoI think there's an interesting line to consider around 'engagement algorithms' being responsible for accelerating radicalization (i.e. seeing certain content and then push notifications of same/similar content get delivered.) The 3rd rail of course, is that to fix that you would likely either enter a 'culture war' with each side challenging the others, or you just have to go back to a non-engagement tuned way to deliver updates [0]. And, you know, it's worth some sort of discussion, because I've seen that one mis-click of a youtube video on my phone (trash screen protector) or inebriated TikTok scroll session where it takes me too long to realize it was one form or another of content I didn't really care for before switching on, and then it can take up to a month before the pop ups suggesting similar content stop. But, if the algorithm is 'fair' internally, I would guess the content provider will argue that it is such and, well, sucks this person didn't click a 'save the whales' link instead? To be clear, this is why it is worth a conversation, but it is a difficult one for society for a number of reasons. However I do miss the charm of the 'old web' where we relied on word of mouth. I think MySpace really was a certain peak of Minimalistic non algo Social media; you picked your sort for who to pay attention to, you could put your links or whatever, toss a song for a mood, and it was simple. On the flip side, something like 4chan is not something, last I checked, that did engagement or anything past 'comment = bump' (-does- sage even work on it? did it ever?). AFAIK the argument would have to rest to some extent on proving that the mods failed to 'properly' follow 230... extreme example where they could be in trouble in my mind would be 'a post was reported for a legitimate violent threat and instead of removing/locking mods pinned it'. [0] - you know, when they were nice 'rollups' of what happened more like your mail vs the modern 'spam' of each thing, to get you back in the app and ideally tap each one to view so somebody meets an OKR.
- spike021 3y ago>However I do miss the charm of the 'old web' where we relied on word of mouth. I think MySpace really was a certain peak of Minimalistic non algo Social media; you picked your sort for who to pay attention to, you could put your links or whatever, toss a song for a mood, and it was simple. This is because back then you only had yourself to rely on to find the content you wanted. Now everybody has to use their algorithms to predict what you want to see, which is terrible. What I've noticed in the past couple years is that on any social platform that I admittedly choose to use, all it really takes is clicking something for one topic maybe once or twice and then half my feed is constantly full of it with no way to say "no that was a one-time thing".
- yedava 3y agoI think there is a difference between a message board where everyone sees the same messages and surveillance software which spy on users to build behavioral profiles, which are then used to tailor content for each user. The surveillance software is an active participant in the conversation. It is no longer merely the medium.
- colechristensen 3y agoI think it’s helpful to not say things like “surveillance software”, it’s too easy to have those words become a distraction. When you sort by date you should have quite a lot more immunity than when you pick the content a person sees. Choosing content can manipulate a person and as a result start sharing the responsibility for their actions. Where on the spectrum between protected first amendment expression and conspiracy does a newsfeed algorithm lie? This is a new question.
- rokkitmensch 3y agoBut it's so funny that the CIA-funded USG spyware doesn't want to let anyone influence what they show their users! All the more so for the TikTok furor. "How dare you propagandize to our citizens! That's our job and turf!"
- illusive4080 3y agoI long for the days of unfiltered message board communities
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 3y ago4chan with csam?
- henriquez 3y agoWon’t somebody think of the children. All communication must be filtered through benevolent feed algorithms! Oh no the benevolent feed algorithms are creating pedophiles and terrorists! I yearn for the days of unfiltered chronological communications. Won’t someone think of the children! All communication must be curated by machine learning algorithm. Oh no the machine has created monsters! Wasn’t the web better without the algorithms? Think of the children! We must censor the web! Oh no the web sucks and we still have pedophiles and terrorists. Wouldn’t it be better to go back to 1999? But think of the children. Maximum stack size exceeded exception.
- loeg 3y agoDenying a motion to dismiss is much less meaningful than this editorialized title (by The Register) suggests.
- Natsu 3y agoIt's more important than you're implying, because it subjects the sites to discovery, which is quite burdensome. Avoiding that sort of trap is why we have SLAPP laws.
- loeg 3y agoIt's definitely true that the defendants would have preferred to have the case dismissed, even if they will win eventually (the process is painful and costly). But that isn't really what the clickbait headline says, is it?
- Natsu 3y agoEh, it confuses what's actually stated in the ruling with the direct results of the ruling, which would be a trial on the merits of this, in which they'll have to establish by the preponderance of the evidence that they're not a link in the chain of whatever radicalized this guy. So I can see that it's misleading about what the ruling says, but not about the net effect of the ruling. But it actually links to the actual ruling here, so it still comes out as a C+ article over all, merely because of the terrible state of legal reporting.
- dragonwriter 3y ago> Eh, it confuses what's actually stated in the ruling with the direct results of the ruling, which would be a trial on the merits of this, in which they'll have to establish by the preponderance of the evidence that they're not a link in the chain of whatever radicalized this guy. No, they won't necessarily. As the ruling makes clear, their Section 230 immunity claim is still live, but there are disputed questions of fact nexessary to resolve it. They only need to refute whatever proof is presented for causation if the plaintiff shows sufficient eveidence that they are a product in a manner not protected by Section 230 and they fail to refute that.
- brynhughes 3y ago[flagged]
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 3y ago"It's not clear when - or even if - the case will go to trial. But it's headed that way unless the platforms successfully appeal or settle the matter. The result could set a precedent that makes it harder to use Section 230 as a get-out-of-jail-free card for social media platforms - something that US officials have long tried to do." They always settle. Could also set a precedent that makes it _easier_ to get cases dismissed on Section 230, but "Big Tech" will settle for a larger amount than it costs to go to trial and get that result. Year after year they do this.
- cbsmith 3y agoI'm looking forward to phone companies being targeted by these lawsuits.