4 ms·

If a platform wants section 230 protection, then it can't use a content display algorithm because that is editorial control. [edit] I stand corrected.

• loeg 3y ago
  That just isn't true.
  • ProjectArcturis 3y ago
    That's what the court is going to determine.
    • loeg 3y ago
      No, Section 230 does not require providers to not exercise editorial control. This is a commonly repeated misunderstanding of the law. There is no room for a court to find GP's misstatement in the existing law.
      • fzzzy 3y ago
        I'm very curious. Can you explain more?
        • loeg 3y ago
          There is no such requirement in Section 230. What more do you want?
          • fzzzy 3y ago
            Thank you for correcting my misconception. I thought it classified them as common carriers.
  • fzzzy 3y ago
    Sorry, I should have said this is my opinion. As my sibling mentioned, courts haven't tested it yet.
    • loeg 3y ago
      It's good to clearly separate statements about what the law is and what we wish it to be.
• jcranmer 3y ago
  §230 is one of the most misunderstood laws in the US, in large part because of intentional efforts to misconstrue it. What it actually says is that websites are not to be considered the speaker of any user-generated content, and there is explicitly and very intentionally no precondition along the lines of "publisher-platform" or "algorithmic content" or "moderation" or the like. Now, it's also the case that moderation and content recommendations themselves are speech on the part of the website--crucially so, for that means they also have First Amendment rights to choose those policies without government coercion. There is an interesting question as to whether it is possible for such speech to create liability independent of the underlying user content (for which §230 absolutely immunizes them); indeed SCOTUS heard a case not long ago to answer this question, only to toss it out because the plaintiffs were uninterested in discussing that question.
  • SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    The interesting question is likely (IMO) to be that it can create liability. Selectively picking & ordering the content of others can trivially create new meaning, for example the classic trope of a ransom note formed by clipping words & phrases out of a newspaper & gluing them onto a page. Whether a particular site's editorial actions on user content create liability is likely to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Real site's algorithmic recommendation systems aren't nearly as transformative as newspaper clipping ransom notes, but the sequence and organization of recommended content may well count as a new composite work (much like a music album is a work composed of a sequence of individual tracks) and create liability. I wonder if it would also qualify for individual copyright.