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I get a feeling that liability is the missing piece in a lot of these issues. Section 230? Liability. Protection of personal data? Liability. Minors viewing por

I get a feeling that liability is the missing piece in a lot of these issues. Section 230? Liability. Protection of personal data? Liability. Minors viewing porn? Liability. Lack of liability is screwing up the incentive structure.

brookst 2y ago
I think I agree, but people will have very different views on where liability should fall, and whether there is a malicious / negligent / no-fault model? Section 230? Is it the platform or the originating user that's liable? Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum attack)? Minors viewing porn? Is it the parents, the ISP, the distributor, or the creator that's liable? I'm not here to argue specific answers, just saying that everyone will agree liability would fix this, and few will agree on who should be liable for what.
- TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
  It's not a solvable problem. Like most tech problems it's political, not technical. There is no way to balance the competing demands of privacy, security, legality, and corporate overreach. It might be solvable with some kind of ID escrow, where an independent international agency managed ID as a not-for-profit service. Users would have a unique biometrically-tagged ID, ID confirmation would be handled by the agency, ID and user behaviour tracking would be disallowed by default and only allowed under strictly monitored conditions, and law enforcement requests would go through strict vetting. It's not hard to see why that will never happen in today's world.
  - malfist 2y ago
    > It's not a solvable problem Lawnmower manufacturers said the same thing about making safe lawnmowers. Until government regulations forced them to
    - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/mXU28ta.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/mXU28ta.jpeg Specifically, 1970.
      - Aerroon 2y ago
        Well, something to consider is that part of why everything is so much expensive these days is that a lot of the solutions to those problems add costs. That cost needs to be absorbed by the price. One of the reasons it's so expensive to build a house is safety regulations. They exist for a reason, but they nevertheless add a substantial cost to building a house. If you had mandated such a cost to people living in 1870 then a lot fewer people could've afforded a house.
        malfist 2y ago
        Building codes are written in blood.
        ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        In fact you can say that about most regulations of any sort, this seems to hit people's brains in the same way as how anti-vaxxers are so cavalier about things like Measles because we effectively eradicated it via vaccination (except it's now making a comeback thanks to anti-vaxxers) and people have forgotten how horrible it is, in the same way people forget, sure, houses used to be cheaper to build. And they also burned down a hell of a lot more, or were constructed poorly and not to code, or were built too close together, etc. etc. etc. Just about every regulation that exists for every product or thing or way of doing something was written not even after a death, that's usually not enough, it needs to be a substantial number of deaths that can be directly linked to the thing the regulation covers and only then does it become law.
        Aerroon 2y ago
        Yes, and? It still adds an enormous amount of cost. Despite that buildings (and even bridges) still collapse. What is often not asked is how many people lack housing because those building codes made it unaffordable for them.
- StanislavPetrov 2y ago
  >Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum attack)? There absolutely should be, especially for personal data collected and stored without the express written consent of those being surveilled. They should have to get people to sign off on the risks of having their personal data collected and stored, be legally prevented from collecting and storing the personal data of people who haven't consented and/or be liable for any leaking or unlawful sharing/selling of this data.

brookst 2y ago

I think I agree, but people will have very different views on where liability should fall, and whether there is a malicious / negligent / no-fault model? Section 230? Is it the platform or the originating user that's liable? Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum attack)? Minors viewing porn? Is it the parents, the ISP, the distributor, or the creator that's liable? I'm not here to argue specific answers, just saying that everyone will agree liability would fix this, and few will agree on who should be liable for what.

TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
It's not a solvable problem. Like most tech problems it's political, not technical. There is no way to balance the competing demands of privacy, security, legality, and corporate overreach. It might be solvable with some kind of ID escrow, where an independent international agency managed ID as a not-for-profit service. Users would have a unique biometrically-tagged ID, ID confirmation would be handled by the agency, ID and user behaviour tracking would be disallowed by default and only allowed under strictly monitored conditions, and law enforcement requests would go through strict vetting. It's not hard to see why that will never happen in today's world.
- malfist 2y ago
  > It's not a solvable problem Lawnmower manufacturers said the same thing about making safe lawnmowers. Until government regulations forced them to
  - ToucanLoucan 2y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/mXU28ta.jpeg https://i.imgur.com/mXU28ta.jpeg Specifically, 1970.
    - Aerroon 2y ago
      Well, something to consider is that part of why everything is so much expensive these days is that a lot of the solutions to those problems add costs. That cost needs to be absorbed by the price. One of the reasons it's so expensive to build a house is safety regulations. They exist for a reason, but they nevertheless add a substantial cost to building a house. If you had mandated such a cost to people living in 1870 then a lot fewer people could've afforded a house.
      - malfist 2y ago
        Building codes are written in blood.
        ToucanLoucan 2y ago
        In fact you can say that about most regulations of any sort, this seems to hit people's brains in the same way as how anti-vaxxers are so cavalier about things like Measles because we effectively eradicated it via vaccination (except it's now making a comeback thanks to anti-vaxxers) and people have forgotten how horrible it is, in the same way people forget, sure, houses used to be cheaper to build. And they also burned down a hell of a lot more, or were constructed poorly and not to code, or were built too close together, etc. etc. etc. Just about every regulation that exists for every product or thing or way of doing something was written not even after a death, that's usually not enough, it needs to be a substantial number of deaths that can be directly linked to the thing the regulation covers and only then does it become law.
        Aerroon 2y ago
        Yes, and? It still adds an enormous amount of cost. Despite that buildings (and even bridges) still collapse. What is often not asked is how many people lack housing because those building codes made it unaffordable for them.
StanislavPetrov 2y ago
>Protection of personal data? Is there a standard of care beyond which liability lapses (e.g. a nation state supply chain attack exfiltrates encrypted data and keys are broken due to novel quantum attack)? There absolutely should be, especially for personal data collected and stored without the express written consent of those being surveilled. They should have to get people to sign off on the risks of having their personal data collected and stored, be legally prevented from collecting and storing the personal data of people who haven't consented and/or be liable for any leaking or unlawful sharing/selling of this data.