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World's easiest problem to solve if we just get the political will to do so: Pass a law requiring a human being to sign off in "writing" (can be eSigned throug

World's easiest problem to solve if we just get the political will to do so: Pass a law requiring a human being to sign off in "writing" (can be eSigned through an internal moderation platform) on any ad that will be run that the platform will profit from and that will be pushed to users by choice of the platform as opposed to request by the user. This human serves as an agent who will be liable along with their firm if there are any illegal issues that should have been obvious to a "reasonable person" reviewing the ad. Require anyone doing this job to be supervised by a licensed attorney, who must document their hiring and supervision practices and can be disbarred for failing to run a reasonably tight ship. Problem solved. Bam. So easy. It is not fair that platforms get to pretend that being able to automate running ads means they have no responsibility for their choices. It's like saying you can't murder with a handgun, but if you set up an automated machine gun turret, now it's OK.

waveBidder 2y ago
> It's like saying you can't murder with a handgun, but if you set up an automated machine gun turret, now it's OK. This is a great analogy. You can't actually afford to run this at scale legally? Too bad.
toast0 2y ago
I don't think it's actually that easy. In the US, we have Section 230[1], which says > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Seems to me, that says if you have a problem with the advertisement, you need to go to the source, not the ad network. You're proposing an exception for advertisement, which is reasonable, but you've got to define advertisement. It's not just money for distribution; I'm not an advertiser just because I pay to use a forum, which is money for distribution. Section 230 isn't some immutable force, so yes, political force is all that's needed, but it's been the norm since 1996, and has been enabling ad networks to show ads without regard to their content since 1997 [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 [2] https://www.eff.org/files/zeran-v-aol.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/zeran-v-aol.pdf
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  Section 230 was drafted at a time where algorithmic (and/or ML-driven) curation of content (whether ads or actual content) wasn't a thing. If you use algorithms to selectively choose which content the user gets exposed to (in an objective to increase your profits obviously), this is literally the definition of a publisher. We are way past the "we just provide a dumb pipe for content between publishers and users". The pipe is no longer dumb and hasn't been for over a decade.
- anigbrowl 2y ago
  So just rewrite or repeal it. If we make social network and UGC companies common carriers, then they'll be subject to different kinds of regulation, too bad. Right now they are having their cake and eating it, to the general detriment.
- stevenicr 2y ago
  fwiw - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/30/seante-kosa-passes-kids-online-privacy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/30/seante-... This has a good chance of being the additional cracks in 203 that bring the whole thing down imho. The cracks were created years ago when fb and ggle did a 180 on the sopa / pipa censorship.. I knew then that the cracks would only get bigger.. A fediverse will be more and more used in the future I feel, maybe not by the masses of grandmas but certainly as more is censored in main portals people will nose around elsewhere.
- galdosdi 2y ago
  > Section 230 isn't some immutable force, so yes, political force is all that's needed, Exactly. Glad you agree. It's just an act of congress. We pass many every year, including far bigger ones. > you've got to define advertisement. I did in my post. I'll repeat myself for you: (1) the platform is profiting from it (2) the platform is pushing and selecting the content to the user at the platform's whim, not the user's request. Seems reasonable to me but these details can be worked out if the political will for the big picture change ever actually appears. My definition would allow the main thrust of Section 230 to remain intact. Section 230 was, in my view, most nobly intended for cases like ISPs hosting content, such as GeoCities or Cloudflare or Google Sites. This is content that the end user specifically seeks and requests. Ads as well as algorithmically recommended content don't meet this test. If I go to criminalhatespeech.com on purpose, that's on me. If TikTok advertises criminalhatespeech.com to me or puts it in my For You for whatever reason they think it'll engage me, that's on them. Simple, isn't it? All we're doing is putting humans and robots on an even footing instead of priviliging robots over humans as the current law does (never thought I'd type that sentence someday, but it's basically true-- the platforms are getting away with doing things they could not get away with if the code was being "executed" by "hand" by humans with flow charts instead of automated with CPUs and network cards.)
deleted 2y ago
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waveBidder 2y ago

> It's like saying you can't murder with a handgun, but if you set up an automated machine gun turret, now it's OK. This is a great analogy. You can't actually afford to run this at scale legally? Too bad.

toast0 2y ago

I don't think it's actually that easy. In the US, we have Section 230[1], which says > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Seems to me, that says if you have a problem with the advertisement, you need to go to the source, not the ad network. You're proposing an exception for advertisement, which is reasonable, but you've got to define advertisement. It's not just money for distribution; I'm not an advertiser just because I pay to use a forum, which is money for distribution. Section 230 isn't some immutable force, so yes, political force is all that's needed, but it's been the norm since 1996, and has been enabling ad networks to show ads without regard to their content since 1997 [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230 [2] https://www.eff.org/files/zeran-v-aol.pdf https://www.eff.org/files/zeran-v-aol.pdf

Nextgrid 2y ago
Section 230 was drafted at a time where algorithmic (and/or ML-driven) curation of content (whether ads or actual content) wasn't a thing. If you use algorithms to selectively choose which content the user gets exposed to (in an objective to increase your profits obviously), this is literally the definition of a publisher. We are way past the "we just provide a dumb pipe for content between publishers and users". The pipe is no longer dumb and hasn't been for over a decade.
anigbrowl 2y ago
So just rewrite or repeal it. If we make social network and UGC companies common carriers, then they'll be subject to different kinds of regulation, too bad. Right now they are having their cake and eating it, to the general detriment.
stevenicr 2y ago
fwiw - https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/30/seante-kosa-passes-kids-online-privacy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/07/30/seante-... This has a good chance of being the additional cracks in 203 that bring the whole thing down imho. The cracks were created years ago when fb and ggle did a 180 on the sopa / pipa censorship.. I knew then that the cracks would only get bigger.. A fediverse will be more and more used in the future I feel, maybe not by the masses of grandmas but certainly as more is censored in main portals people will nose around elsewhere.
galdosdi 2y ago
> Section 230 isn't some immutable force, so yes, political force is all that's needed, Exactly. Glad you agree. It's just an act of congress. We pass many every year, including far bigger ones. > you've got to define advertisement. I did in my post. I'll repeat myself for you: (1) the platform is profiting from it (2) the platform is pushing and selecting the content to the user at the platform's whim, not the user's request. Seems reasonable to me but these details can be worked out if the political will for the big picture change ever actually appears. My definition would allow the main thrust of Section 230 to remain intact. Section 230 was, in my view, most nobly intended for cases like ISPs hosting content, such as GeoCities or Cloudflare or Google Sites. This is content that the end user specifically seeks and requests. Ads as well as algorithmically recommended content don't meet this test. If I go to criminalhatespeech.com on purpose, that's on me. If TikTok advertises criminalhatespeech.com to me or puts it in my For You for whatever reason they think it'll engage me, that's on them. Simple, isn't it? All we're doing is putting humans and robots on an even footing instead of priviliging robots over humans as the current law does (never thought I'd type that sentence someday, but it's basically true-- the platforms are getting away with doing things they could not get away with if the code was being "executed" by "hand" by humans with flow charts instead of automated with CPUs and network cards.)

deleted 2y ago

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