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The 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 onl

by Natsu 3y ago

The 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 ago
Calling 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.
- Natsu 3y ago
  Child porn is illegal. Hate speech, however disgusting, is not. And FWIW, most of the platforms do their best to filter out both.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Some hate speech is illegal in the US, it depends on if it’s calling for specific and immediate action or not.
    - Natsu 3y ago
      True threats are a distinct category that may sometimes overlap with hate speech. But those statements are illegal because they threaten immanent lawless action, not because they're hateful.
      - Retric 3y ago
        True threats are someone saying the speaker will do something that’s believable. Ie, Someone claiming they are going to Nuke DC without a nuke fails the standard. Someone claiming they’re going to shoot you while holding a gun is. So it can be illegal hate speech by inciting people to act without being classified as a true threat. The triggers being inciting, specific, and immediate aren’t on their own illegal. I can suggest people go to Starbucks and get a coffee without issue.
        Natsu 3y ago
        The part I was trying to get at is that under current law, true threats are their own category. Hate speech that is a true threat is illegal, due to being a true threat. Hate speech that is not a true threat is awful, but legal. So hate speech is not illegal for being hate speech, it's only illegal when it's also a true threat. And in that case it's illegal because it's a true threat. There's certainly plenty of overlap, but it doesn't help anyone's understanding of why it's illegal to lump them together or point out that speech can fit in more than one category when only one of the categories is illegal under current US jurisprudence.
II2II 3y ago
Would that not depend upon how the website works? I'm fairly certain that any two people going to the same page at the same time on HN will see the same thing. What they see will mostly be determined by the age of a post/article along with up/down votes by end users. It would be difficult to argue that much is going on here beyond speech. Yet a site like YouTube is different. It will display different content to different people based upon their history (and, likely, other factors). You don't even have to be logged into YouTube for this to happen. It is a lot more difficult to argue that this is a form of speech since the recommendations are most likely the product of some optimization algorithm. It certainly isn't the product of the direct input of other people.
- Natsu 3y ago
  > Would that not depend upon how the website works? They're suing, among others, 4chan which is the same as HN in that regard and the judge let the lawsuit go forward. So whatever might later be litigated, we can see from this that the plaintiffs currently have a "defective product" theory that HN would also fit if only there were some murderer willing to claim that they were somehow radicalized by HN.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    The defendants (4chan and the others) are independent. It's possible 4chan will be found not to be liable (no editorial control exercised in such a way as to create new speech) and the others liable.
    - Natsu 3y ago
      Certainly, but if they had a theory where sites like 4chan (and HN) were excluded, they wouldn't have sued them in the first place.
dragonwriter 3y ago
Note that the judge did not find that any of the websites are products or subject to product liability, only that there is a justiciable dispute of fact on that point. Your argument hinges on facts that are on dispute and on which evidence will be presented later by the parties, at this stage the standard is does the complaint state a cause of action when viewing every disputed fact in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. This is not a ruling on the facts, it is a ruling on whether the filing raises issues for which it is necessary to examine the facts to reach a resolution.

by Natsu 3y ago

Retric 3y ago

Calling 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.

Natsu 3y ago
Child porn is illegal. Hate speech, however disgusting, is not. And FWIW, most of the platforms do their best to filter out both.
- Retric 3y ago
  Some hate speech is illegal in the US, it depends on if it’s calling for specific and immediate action or not.
  - Natsu 3y ago
    True threats are a distinct category that may sometimes overlap with hate speech. But those statements are illegal because they threaten immanent lawless action, not because they're hateful.
    - Retric 3y ago
      True threats are someone saying the speaker will do something that’s believable. Ie, Someone claiming they are going to Nuke DC without a nuke fails the standard. Someone claiming they’re going to shoot you while holding a gun is. So it can be illegal hate speech by inciting people to act without being classified as a true threat. The triggers being inciting, specific, and immediate aren’t on their own illegal. I can suggest people go to Starbucks and get a coffee without issue.
      - Natsu 3y ago
        The part I was trying to get at is that under current law, true threats are their own category. Hate speech that is a true threat is illegal, due to being a true threat. Hate speech that is not a true threat is awful, but legal. So hate speech is not illegal for being hate speech, it's only illegal when it's also a true threat. And in that case it's illegal because it's a true threat. There's certainly plenty of overlap, but it doesn't help anyone's understanding of why it's illegal to lump them together or point out that speech can fit in more than one category when only one of the categories is illegal under current US jurisprudence.

II2II 3y ago

Would that not depend upon how the website works? I'm fairly certain that any two people going to the same page at the same time on HN will see the same thing. What they see will mostly be determined by the age of a post/article along with up/down votes by end users. It would be difficult to argue that much is going on here beyond speech. Yet a site like YouTube is different. It will display different content to different people based upon their history (and, likely, other factors). You don't even have to be logged into YouTube for this to happen. It is a lot more difficult to argue that this is a form of speech since the recommendations are most likely the product of some optimization algorithm. It certainly isn't the product of the direct input of other people.

Natsu 3y ago
> Would that not depend upon how the website works? They're suing, among others, 4chan which is the same as HN in that regard and the judge let the lawsuit go forward. So whatever might later be litigated, we can see from this that the plaintiffs currently have a "defective product" theory that HN would also fit if only there were some murderer willing to claim that they were somehow radicalized by HN.
- SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
  The defendants (4chan and the others) are independent. It's possible 4chan will be found not to be liable (no editorial control exercised in such a way as to create new speech) and the others liable.
  - Natsu 3y ago
    Certainly, but if they had a theory where sites like 4chan (and HN) were excluded, they wouldn't have sued them in the first place.

dragonwriter 3y ago

Note that the judge did not find that any of the websites are products or subject to product liability, only that there is a justiciable dispute of fact on that point. Your argument hinges on facts that are on dispute and on which evidence will be presented later by the parties, at this stage the standard is does the complaint state a cause of action when viewing every disputed fact in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. This is not a ruling on the facts, it is a ruling on whether the filing raises issues for which it is necessary to examine the facts to reach a resolution.