10 ms·

NY Times gets 230 wrong again

149 points by hn_acker 2y ago

hn_acker 2y ago
The original title of the article is: > NY Times Gets 230 Wrong Again; Misrepresenting History, Law, And The First Amendment
- mikestew 2y ago
  Four chars too long, though. And it's "Section 230", if you were not parsing the integer value in the title.
  - nickthegreek 2y ago
    They know, they are the one who submitted the article to HN. I believe they were posting the comment just to denote that they had to change it. The following preserves all info under the title limit: NYT Gets 230 Wrong Again; Misrepresenting History, Law, And The 1st Amendment > NY Times Gets 230 Wrong Again; Misrepresenting History, Law, And The First Amendment
    - mikestew 2y ago
      I get that. It was more directed at the dork that downvoted the comment, to let them know why OP might have elaborated.
lasermike026 2y ago
And Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned.
chomp 2y ago
Mike Masnick is a treasure. He posts on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social
- consumer451 2y ago
  I just found out that he replaced Dorsey on the board of Bluesky as well. https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social/post/3l7lnkz6fjz2w https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social/post/3l7lnkz6f...
akira2501 2y ago
[flagged]
- kurisufag 2y ago
  >zero control I have had reasonable success with Youtube's built-in algorithm-massaging features. It mostly always respects "Do Not Recommend Channel", and understands "Not Interested" after a couple repetitions.
  - alwa 2y ago
    I seem to remember part of TikTok’s allure being that it learned your tastes well from implicit feedback, no active feedback required. We around here probably tend to enjoy the idea of training our own recommenders, but it’s not clear to me that the bulk of users even want to be bothered with a simple thumbs-up/thumbs-down.
- alwa 2y ago
  If they want to make money, don’t they need you to stick around? As a side effect of making money, then, aren’t they incentivized to reduce the amount of large categories of content you’d find noxious? That doesn’t work as well for stuff that you wish other people would find noxious but they don’t: neo-Nazis probably would rather see more neo-Nazi things rather than fewer, even if the broader social consensus is (at least on the pages of the New York Times) that those things fall under the uselessly vague header of “toxic.” Even if the recommenders only filter out some of what you want less of, ditching them entirely means you’ll see more of the portion of the slop that they’re deprioritizing the way you want them to.
  - akira2501 2y ago
    > aren’t they incentivized to reduce the amount of large categories of content you’d find noxious? No, they're incentivized to increase the amount of content advertisers find acceptable. Plus, youtube isn't strictly watching, many people do make a living from the platform and these algorithmic controls are not available to them in any way at all. > ditching them entirely Which is why I implied that user oriented control is the factor to care about. Nowhere did I suggest you had to do this, just remove _corporate_ control of that list.
thot_experiment 2y ago
[flagged]
- readthenotes1 2y ago
  [flagged]
Kon-Peki 2y ago
> Note that the issue of Section 230 does not come up even once in this history lesson. To be perfectly pedantic, the history lesson ends in 1991 and the CDA was passed in 1996. Also, I am not sure that this author really understands where things stand anymore. He calls the 3rd circuit TikTok ruling "batshit insane" and "deliberately ignores precedent". Well, it is entirely possible (likely even?) that it will get overruled. But that ruling is based on a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year (Moody vs. NetChoice). Throw your precedence out the window, the Supreme Court just changed things (or maybe we will find out that they didn't really mean it like that). The First Amendment protects you from the consequences of your own speech (with something like 17 categories of exceptions). Section 230 protects you from the consequences of publishing someone else's speech. Where we are right now is deciding if the algorithm is pumping out your speech or it is pumping out someone else's speech. And the 3rd circuit TikTok ruling spends paragraphs discussing this. You can read it for yourself and decide if it makes sense.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  > The First Amendment protects you from the consequences of your own speech It does no such thing. It protects your right to speak, but does not protect you from the consequences of what you say.
  - ideashower 2y ago
    Bingo. If you threaten, or promote harm/hate speech, you're not suddenly immune from the consequences of that. It's that the platform is (generally) immune from those same consequences.
    - TheCleric 2y ago
      It’s not just that. If I say something that people find derogatory, and they do not want to associate with me because of that, that’s THEIR first amendment right. There can always be social consequences for speech that is legal under the first amendment.
btown 2y ago
It's important to note that this article has its own biases; it's disclosed at the end that the author is on the board of Bluesky. But, largely, it raises very good points. > This is the part that 230 haters refuse to understand. Platforms rely on the immunity from liability that Section 230 gives them to make editorial decisions on all sorts of content. Yet, somehow, they think that taking away Section 230 would magically lead to more removals of “bad” content. That’s the opposite of true. Remove 230 and things like removing hateful information, putting in place spam filters, and stopping medical and election misinfo becomes a bigger challenge, since it will cost much more to defend (even if you’d win on First Amendment grounds years later). The general point is that Section 230 gives companies a shield from liability for manual curation, automated curation, and algorithmic recommendations alike, and that removing 230 would result in a wild west of we're-afraid-to-moderate-so-you'll-get-unmoderated-content that would be far worse than the status quo. But it's unfair to say that the NYT article is completely wrong - because, in such a case, recommendation algorithms would be made more carefully as well. Realistically, the entire web ecosystem and thus a significant part of our economy rely on Section 230's protections for companies. IMO, regulation that provides users of large social networks with greater transparency and control into what their algorithms are showing to them personally would be a far more fruitful discussion. Should every human have the right to understand that an algorithm has classified them in a certain way? Should we, as a society, have the right to understand to what extent any social media company is classifying certain people as receptive to content regarding, say, specific phobias, and showing them content that is classified to amplify those phobias? Should we have the right to understand, at least, exactly how a dial turned in a tech office impacts how children learn to see the world? We can and should iterate on ways to answer these complex questions without throwing the ability for companies to moderate content out the window.
- lesuorac 2y ago
  IIUC, most large ad providers allow you to see and tailor what they use in their algorithms (ex. [1]). I think the big problem with "Should every human have the right to understand that an algorithm has classified them in a certain way" is just that they flat out can't. You cannot design a trash can that every human can understand but a bear can't. There is a level of complexity that your average person won't be able to follow. [1]: https://myadcenter.google.com/controls https://myadcenter.google.com/controls
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
jjmarr 2y ago
I don't like Section 230 because "actual knowledge" no longer matters, as tech companies willfully blind themselves to the activities on their platforms. ~~As an example, there are subreddits like /r/therewasanattempt or /r/interestingasfuck that ban users that post in /r/judaism or /r/israel (there used to be a subreddit /r/bannedforbeingjewish that tracked this but that was banned by reddit admins). This isn't the First Amendment, since it's just a ban based on identity instead of posting content. According to the US legal system, discrimination based on religion is wrong. I should be able to fix this by complaining to reddit and creating actual knowledge of discrimination. In practice, because there is no contact mechanism for reddit, it's impossible for me to create actual knowledge.~~ edit: I still believe the above behaviour is morally wrong, but it isn't an accurate example of the actual knowledge standard as others have pointed out. I'm leaving it here for context on the follow-up comments. The TechDirt article doesn't engage with this. It asserts that: >> Section 230 now has been used to shield tech from consequences for facilitating deadly drug sales, sexual harassment, illegal arms sales and human trafficking. And in the meantime, the companies grew to be some of the most valuable in the world. > None of those cases would have succeeded under the First Amendment, again because the companies had no actual knowledge of the underlying issues, and thus could not be held liable. However, if you try to use Facebook's defamation form[1] and list the United States as an option: > Facebook is not in a position to adjudicate the truth or falsity of statements made by third parties, and consistent with Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, is not responsible for those statements. As a result, we are not liable to act on the content you want to report. If you believe content on Facebook violates our Community Standards (e.g., bullying, harassment, hate speech), please visit the Help Center to learn more about how to report it to us. [1]https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/430253071144967 https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/430253071144967
- criley2 2y ago
  I'm not sure where you learned that the US legal system is against religious discrimination in private organizations, but it's not strictly true. Many religious organizations in the US openly discriminate against people who are not their religion, from christian charities and businesses requiring staff to sign contracts that state they agree with/are members of the religion, to catholic hospitals openly discriminating against non-catholics based on their own "religious freedom to deny care". One way they can do this is an exemption to discrimination called bona fide occupational qualification suggesting that only certain people can do the job. In a more broad sense, any private organization with limited membership (signing up vs allowing everyone) can discriminate. For example some country clubs discriminate based on race to this day. One reason for this is that the constitution guarantees "Freedom of Association" which includes the ability to have selective membership.
stackskipton 2y ago
[flagged]
- tedunangst 2y ago
  Techdirt's coverage of section 230 has been pretty consistent from before bluesky existed.
  - pfraze 2y ago
    In fact, the causality is reversed; he's on the board due to his influence on us. Masnick wrote the Protocols not Platforms essay which inspired Dorsey to start the Bluesky project. Then Bluesky became the PBC, we launched, became independent, etc etc, and Masnick wasn't involved until the past year when we invited him to join our board. I hope you view his writing and POV as independent from his work with us. On matters like 230 you can find archives of very consistent writing from well before joining.
    - stackskipton 2y ago
      TIL. I'll admit, I'm not avid reader of TechDirt, follower of Mike Masnick or care that much about Bluesky since I don't interact a ton with social media. However, my initial feelings are correct. NYT article is bemoaning about Section 230, Mike seems to ignore why those feelings are coming up and burying there might be conflict of interest in caring since I guess BlueSky has algorithms it runs to help users? Again, admitting I know nothing about BlueSky. In any case, I don't think consistent PoV should bypass disclosure of that. His arguments about why Section 230 should be left intact are solid and I agree with some of them. I also think he misses the point that letting algorithms go insane with 100% Section 230 protection may not be best idea. Whether or not Section can be reformed without destroying the internet or if First Amendment gets involved here, I personally don't know.
      - TheCleric 2y ago
        BlueSky’s big selling point is no algorithm by default. It’s default timeline is users you follow in descending chronological order. You can use an algorithm (called a feed) if you like. They provide a few, but also are open about their protocol and allow anyone who wants to write an algorithm to do so, and any user who wants to opt in to using it can.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
It isn’t surprising that they get details wrong. It’s the same NY Times that called the constitution “dangerous”(https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/books/review/constitution-secession-democracy-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/books/review/constitution...), fanning the flames of a kind of uncivil line of thinking that has unfortunately been more and more popular. But this article itself makes mistakes - it does not seem to understand that the first amendment is about protecting free speech principles, which are actually much bigger than just what the first amendment says. The author makes an illogical claim that there is a category of speech that we want to illegitimize and shield platforms from. This is fundamentally opposed to the principles of free speech. Yes there is the tricky case of spam. But we should not block people based on political views or skepticism about science or anything else that is controversial. The censorship regime of big social media platforms should be viewed as an editorial choice, under law and in principle. Lastly - large social media platforms are utility communication services and public squares. They need to be regulated and treated like a government agency, restricting their ability to ban users and content. After all, so much of today’s speech is on these platforms. Not being able to share your ideas there is similar to not having free speech rights at all.
- kaibee 2y ago
  > But we should not block people based on political views or skepticism about science or anything else that is controversial. The censorship regime of big social media platforms should be viewed as an editorial choice, under law and in principle. > Lastly - large social media platforms are utility communication services and public squares. They need to be regulated and treated like a government agency, restricting their ability to ban users and content. After all, so much of today’s speech is on these platforms. Not being able to share your ideas there is similar to not having free speech rights at all. This is all well and good, but maybe the place to rehash a debate about whether vaccines work is not in fact, the center town square. I would say that a person who has no idea about any of the underlying science and evidence, but is spreading doubt about it anyway (especially while benefiting financially), is not in fact, 'sharing their ideas', because they don't meet the minimum standard to actually have an opinion on the topic.
harshreality 2y ago
I think the author is right that harms caused by incorrect content aren't—and shouldn't be—the fault of section 230, and are instead the fault of the original producers of the content. I think the author is wrong in claiming that modern attention-optimizing recommendation algorithms are better than more primitive, poorer recommendation algorithms. Appearing to be more engaging/addictive does not imply more value. It's a measurement problem.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  > Appearing to be more engaging/addictive does not imply more value. for modern day businesses it sadly does. But that misalignment of how to define "quality" is a part of why we're in this real time divide of whether social media is good/bad to begin with.
- basch 2y ago
  Id like to propose something akin to the Ship of Theseus Paradox: lets call it the Ransom Letter Paradox. At what point do newspaper clipping arranged together become the work of the arranger and not the individual newspapers. If I take one paragraph from the NYT and one paragraph from the WSJ am I the author or are the NYT and WSJ the author? If I take 16 words in a row from each and alternate, am I the author? If I alternate sentences am I the author? At some point, there is a higher order "creation" of context between individually associated videos played together in a sequence. If I arrange one minute clips into an hour long video, I can say something the original authors never intended. If I, algorithmically, start following up videos with rebuttals, but only rebuttals that support my viewpoint, I am ADDING context by making suggestions. Sure people can click next, but in my ransom note example above, people can speed read and skip words as well. Current suggestion algorithms may not be purposely "trying to say something" but they effectively BECOME speakers almost accidently. Ignoring that a well crafted sequences of videos can create new meaning leaves us with a disingenuous interpretation of what suggestion algorithms either are doing or can do. I'm not saying that google is purposely radicalizing children into lets say white nationalists, buuut there may be something akin to negligence going on, if they can always point to a black box algorithm, one with a mind of its own, as the culprit. Winter v. GP Putnam giving them some kind of amnesty from their own "suggestions" rubs me the wrong way. Designing systems to give people "more of what they want" rubs me the wrong way because it narrows horizons not broadens them. That lets me segue into again linking to my favorite internet article ever (which the bbc has somehow broken the link to so here is the real link, and an archive https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7-30a0-9a0a-3ff76e8bfe58 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7... https://archive.ph/RoBjr https://archive.ph/RoBjr ) Im not sure I have an answer, but current recommendation engines are the opposite of it.
andrewla 2y ago
The question that section 230, and the Communications Indecency Act in general, is the same one that plagued the court cases leading up to it, is to what degree the voluntary removal of some content implies an endorsement of other content. Some material you can be required to remove by law, or required to suspend pending review for various MDCA safe harbor provisions. But when you remove content in excess of that, where does the liability end? If you have a cat forum and you remove dog posts, are you also required to remove defamatory posts in general? If you have a new forum and you remove misinformation, does that removal constitute an actionable defamation against the poster? I generally dislike section 230, as I feel like blanket immunity is too strong -- I'd prefer that judges and juries make this decision on a case-by-case basis. But the cost of litigating these cases could be prohibitive, especially for small or growing companies. It seems like this would lead to an equilibrium where there was no content moderation at all, or one where you could only act on user reports. Maybe this wouldn't even be so bad.
- basch 2y ago
  That is the entire point of 230. You can remove whatever you want for whatever reason, and what you leave up doesn't make you the speaker or endorser of that content. Taken to the extreme it obviously leaves a window for a crazy abuse where you let people upload individual letters, then you remove letters of your choice to create new sentences and claim the contributors of the letters are the speakers, not the editor. However, as far as I know, nobody is yet quite accused of that level of moderation to editorialize. Subreddits however ARE similar to that idea. Communities with strict points of view are allowed to purge anything not aligned with their community values. Taking away their protection basically eliminates the community from being able to exist.
- Manuel_D 2y ago
  > If you have a new forum and you remove misinformation, does that removal constitute an actionable defamation against the poster? Twitter was sued for this, because they attached a note to a user's post. But note that this was not a user-generated community note. It was authored directly by Twitter. Without Section 230, any moderation - even if it was limited to just removing abjectly offensive content - resulted in the internet service taking liability for all user generated content. I think even acting on user reports would still result in liability. The two court cases that stablished this are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc.
maxlybbert 2y ago
I’m sure that the difficulty the New York Times editors have about summarizing laws related to online publishing shouldn’t make you wonder about what glaring mistakes are in their other reports about topics the newspaper wouldn’t be expected to know as deeply.
- htk 2y ago
  Related to that, there's the "Gell-Mann Amnesia" effect[1], where an expert can see numerous mistakes on his area of expertise being reported on the news, but somehow takes the rest as being accurate. [1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
  - shadowmanifold 2y ago
    Murray Gell-Mann - "The quality of information" lecture on youtube from 1997 is also worth a listen. Murray basically points out how much communication in general is really just exchanging errors for no reason. I suspect this is where the idea of "Gell-Mann Amnesia" came from.
jay_kyburz 2y ago
I can't speak to the legality or meaning of section 230, but I can share my somewhat controversial opinions about how I think the internet should operate. The author points out that the publisher of a book of mushrooms cannot be held responsible for recommending people eat poisonous mushrooms. This is OK I guess because the author _can_ be held responsible. If the author had been anonymous and the publisher could not accurately identify who should be responsible, then I would like to live in a society where the publisher _was_ held responsible. I don't think that's unreasonable. Over on the internet, content is posted mostly anonymously and there is nobody to take responsibility. I think big tech needs to be able to accurately identify the author of the harmful material, or take responsibility themselves.
- phkahler 2y ago
  >> Over on the internet, content is posted mostly anonymously and there is nobody to take responsibility. I sometimes suggest that the internet should start from strongly verifiable identity. You can strip identity in cases where it makes sense, but trying to establish identity is very hard. When people can be identified it make it possible to track them down and hold them accountable if they violate laws. People will generally behave better when they are not anonymous.
  - yunwal 2y ago
    “We should dox everyone on the internet” is definitely not a take I expected.
    - Nasrudith 2y ago
      That take has been around since Facebook's real name policy as what seemed like a good idea at the time. It failed to make people behavior any better. Yet absolute idiots keep on thinking that if we just make the internet less free it will solve all of our problems and deliver us into a land of rainbows, unicorns, and gumdrops where it rains chocolate. For god's sake stop doing the work for a dystopia for free!
- kaibee 2y ago
riskable 2y ago
The main point the author is making is that algorithms represent the opinion of the corporation/website/app maker and opinions are free speech. That is, deciding what to prioritize/hide in your feed is but a mere manifestation of the business's opinion. Algorithms == Opinions. This is a fine argument. The part where I think they get it wrong is the assumption/argument that a person or corporation can't be held accountable for their opinions. They most certainly can! In Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund the Supreme Court found that a company cannot be held liable for its opinion as long as that opinion was was "honestly believed". Though: the Court also held, however, that liability may result if the company omitted material facts about the company's inquiry into, or knowledge concerning, the statement of opinion, and those facts conflict with what a reasonable investor would understand as the basis of the statement when reading it. (from: https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2015/03/supreme-court-clarifies-liability-standard-for-opinions-expressed-in-registration-statements https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2015/03/supreme-court-c...) That is, a company can be held liable if it intentionally mislead its client (presumably also a customer or user). For that standard to be met the claimant would have to prove that the company was aware of the facts that proved their opinion wrong and decided to mislead the client anyway. In the case of a site like Facebook--if Meta was aware that certain information was dangerous/misleading/illegal--it very well could be held liable for what its algorithm recommends. It may seem like a high bar but probably isn't because Meta is made aware of all sorts of dangerous/misleading information every day but only ever removes/de-prioritizes individual posts and doesn't bother (as far as I'm aware) with applying the same standard to re-posts of the same information. It must be manually reported and review again, every time (though maybe not? Someone with more inside info might know more). I'd also like to point out that if a court sets a precedent that algorithms == opinions it should spell the end of all software patents. Since all software is 100% algorithms (aside from comments, I guess) that would mean all software is simply speech and speech isn't patentable subject matter (though the SCOTUS should've long since come to that conclusion :anger:)
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Yeah, that's the motte-and-bailey argument about 230 that makes me more scrutinous of tech companies by the day motte: "we curate content based on user preferences, and are hands off. We can't be responsible for every piece of (legal) content that is posted on your platform . bailey: "our algorithm is ad-friendly, and we curate content or punish it based on how happy or mad it makes out adverts, the real customers for our service. So if adverts don't like hearing the word "suicide" we'll make creators who want to be paid self-censor". if you want to take hands on what content is allowed on that granular a level, I don't see why 230 should protect you. >I'd also like to point out that if a court sets a precedent that algorithms == opinions it should spell the end of all software patents. I'm sure they'd word it very carefully to prevent that, or limit it only to software defined as "social media".
freejazz 2y ago
[flagged]
pyuser583 2y ago
We need to stop calling it “Section 230,” “Section 230 of the CDA,” or worst “Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act.” Call it “Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.” As the name implies, the CDA was an attempt at censorship, specifically an act to outlaw internet pornography. An unconstitutional (per SCOTUS) act to outlaw unpopular speech (pornography). Far from being some libertarian Christmas gift, the whole point is to facilitate internet censorship. Without 230 of the CDA, third parties would be held liable for attempts at moderation (a synonym for private censorship). It’s so bizarre that the popular understanding is so far removed from what was actually done.
- the_why_of_y 2y ago
  TFA: Also, it is somewhat misleading to call Section 230 “a snippet of law embedded in the 1995 Communications Decency Act.” Section 230 was an entirely different law, designed to be a replacement for the CDA. It was the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act and was put forth by then Reps. Cox and Wyden as an alternative to the CDA. Then, Congress, in its infinite stupidity, took both bills and merged them.
janalsncm 2y ago
I create recommender systems for a living. They are powerful and also potentially dangerous. But many people fall into the trap of thinking that just because a computer recommends something it’s objectively good. It is math but it’s not “just math”. Pharmaceuticals is chemistry but it’s not “just chemistry”. And that is the framework I think we should be thinking about these with. Instagram doesn’t have a God-given right to flood teen girls’ feeds with anorexia-inducing media. The right is granted by people, and can be revoked. > Because you can’t demand that anyone recommending anything know with certainty whether or not the content they are recommending is good or bad. That puts way too much of a burden on the recommender, and makes the mere process of recommending anything a legal minefield. Let’s flag for a moment that this is a value judgement. The author is using “can’t” when they really mean “should not”. I also think it is a strawman to suggest anyone is requiring absolute certainty. When dealing with baby food manufacturers, if their manufacturing process creates poisoned food, we hold the manufacturer liable. Someone might say it’s unfair to require that a food manufacturer guarantee none of their food will be poisoned, and yet we still have a functioning food industry. > The whole point of a search recommendation is “the algorithm thinks these are the most relevant bits of content for you.” Sure. But “relevant” is fuzzy and not quantifiable. Computers like things to be quantifiable. So instead we might use a proxy like click. Click will lead to boosting clickbait content. So maybe you include text match. Now you boost websites that are keyword stuffing. If you continue down the path of maximal engagement somewhere down the line you end up with some kind of cesspool of clickbait and ragebait. But choosing to maximize engagement was itself a choice, it’s not objectively more relevant.
echoangle 2y ago
> It being just a suggestion or a recommendation is also important from a legal standpoint: because recommendation algorithms are simply opinions. They are opinions of what content that algorithm thinks is most relevant to you at the time based on what information it has at that time. Is that really how opinions work in US law? Isn’t an opinion something a human has? If google builds a machine that does something, is that protected as an opinion, even if no human at google ever looks at it? „Opinion“ sounds to me like it’s something a humans believes, not the approximation a computer generates.
- TheCleric 2y ago
  Not a lawyer, but that’s how I understand it. In the Citizens United case the Supreme Court has given corporations free speech rights. Included in that right is the right to state an opinion. And when you develop an algorithm that promotes content you’re implicitly saying is “better” or “more relevant” or however the algorithm ranks it, that’s you providing an opinion via that algorithm.
  - esbranson 2y ago
    Not a lawyer either, but I believe regulations on speech, as here, are scrutinized ("strictly") such that regulations are not allowed to discriminate based on content. Moderation is usually based on content. Whether something is fact or not, opinion or not, is content-based. Citizens United held that criminalizing political films is illegal. Allowing Fahrenheit 9/11 to be advertised and performed but criminalizing Hillary: The Movie is exactly why Citizens United was correct and the illiberal leftists are wrong.
p3rls 2y ago
Wrong-- section 230 is whatever some 80-year-old judge wants to interpret it as. Didn't you guys watch the LiveJournal court case? Those guys had to run away to Russia while Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. all are completely flooded with pirated content and it's cool.
wodenokoto 2y ago
Maybe we can add " Section " before 230 in the title? I honestly thought this was a numerical thing.
syndicatedjelly 2y ago
Section 230 discussions seem to always devolve into a bunch of CS people talking way outside their depth about “free speech”, and making universal claims about the First Amendment as if the literal reading of the amendment is all that matters. I wish some actual lawyers would weigh in here

149 points by hn_acker 2y ago

The original title of the article is: > NY Times Gets 230 Wrong Again; Misrepresenting History, Law, And The First Amendment

mikestew 2y ago
Four chars too long, though. And it's "Section 230", if you were not parsing the integer value in the title.
- nickthegreek 2y ago
  They know, they are the one who submitted the article to HN. I believe they were posting the comment just to denote that they had to change it. The following preserves all info under the title limit: NYT Gets 230 Wrong Again; Misrepresenting History, Law, And The 1st Amendment > NY Times Gets 230 Wrong Again; Misrepresenting History, Law, And The First Amendment
  - mikestew 2y ago
    I get that. It was more directed at the dork that downvoted the comment, to let them know why OP might have elaborated.

lasermike026 2y ago

And Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned.

chomp 2y ago

Mike Masnick is a treasure. He posts on Bluesky here: https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social

consumer451 2y ago
I just found out that he replaced Dorsey on the board of Bluesky as well. https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social/post/3l7lnkz6fjz2w https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social/post/3l7lnkz6f...

akira2501 2y ago

[flagged]

kurisufag 2y ago
>zero control I have had reasonable success with Youtube's built-in algorithm-massaging features. It mostly always respects "Do Not Recommend Channel", and understands "Not Interested" after a couple repetitions.
- alwa 2y ago
  I seem to remember part of TikTok’s allure being that it learned your tastes well from implicit feedback, no active feedback required. We around here probably tend to enjoy the idea of training our own recommenders, but it’s not clear to me that the bulk of users even want to be bothered with a simple thumbs-up/thumbs-down.
alwa 2y ago
If they want to make money, don’t they need you to stick around? As a side effect of making money, then, aren’t they incentivized to reduce the amount of large categories of content you’d find noxious? That doesn’t work as well for stuff that you wish other people would find noxious but they don’t: neo-Nazis probably would rather see more neo-Nazi things rather than fewer, even if the broader social consensus is (at least on the pages of the New York Times) that those things fall under the uselessly vague header of “toxic.” Even if the recommenders only filter out some of what you want less of, ditching them entirely means you’ll see more of the portion of the slop that they’re deprioritizing the way you want them to.
- akira2501 2y ago
  > aren’t they incentivized to reduce the amount of large categories of content you’d find noxious? No, they're incentivized to increase the amount of content advertisers find acceptable. Plus, youtube isn't strictly watching, many people do make a living from the platform and these algorithmic controls are not available to them in any way at all. > ditching them entirely Which is why I implied that user oriented control is the factor to care about. Nowhere did I suggest you had to do this, just remove _corporate_ control of that list.

thot_experiment 2y ago

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readthenotes1 2y ago
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Kon-Peki 2y ago

> Note that the issue of Section 230 does not come up even once in this history lesson. To be perfectly pedantic, the history lesson ends in 1991 and the CDA was passed in 1996. Also, I am not sure that this author really understands where things stand anymore. He calls the 3rd circuit TikTok ruling "batshit insane" and "deliberately ignores precedent". Well, it is entirely possible (likely even?) that it will get overruled. But that ruling is based on a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year (Moody vs. NetChoice). Throw your precedence out the window, the Supreme Court just changed things (or maybe we will find out that they didn't really mean it like that). The First Amendment protects you from the consequences of your own speech (with something like 17 categories of exceptions). Section 230 protects you from the consequences of publishing someone else's speech. Where we are right now is deciding if the algorithm is pumping out your speech or it is pumping out someone else's speech. And the 3rd circuit TikTok ruling spends paragraphs discussing this. You can read it for yourself and decide if it makes sense.

SoftTalker 2y ago
> The First Amendment protects you from the consequences of your own speech It does no such thing. It protects your right to speak, but does not protect you from the consequences of what you say.
- ideashower 2y ago
  Bingo. If you threaten, or promote harm/hate speech, you're not suddenly immune from the consequences of that. It's that the platform is (generally) immune from those same consequences.
  - TheCleric 2y ago
    It’s not just that. If I say something that people find derogatory, and they do not want to associate with me because of that, that’s THEIR first amendment right. There can always be social consequences for speech that is legal under the first amendment.

btown 2y ago

It's important to note that this article has its own biases; it's disclosed at the end that the author is on the board of Bluesky. But, largely, it raises very good points. > This is the part that 230 haters refuse to understand. Platforms rely on the immunity from liability that Section 230 gives them to make editorial decisions on all sorts of content. Yet, somehow, they think that taking away Section 230 would magically lead to more removals of “bad” content. That’s the opposite of true. Remove 230 and things like removing hateful information, putting in place spam filters, and stopping medical and election misinfo becomes a bigger challenge, since it will cost much more to defend (even if you’d win on First Amendment grounds years later). The general point is that Section 230 gives companies a shield from liability for manual curation, automated curation, and algorithmic recommendations alike, and that removing 230 would result in a wild west of we're-afraid-to-moderate-so-you'll-get-unmoderated-content that would be far worse than the status quo. But it's unfair to say that the NYT article is completely wrong - because, in such a case, recommendation algorithms would be made more carefully as well. Realistically, the entire web ecosystem and thus a significant part of our economy rely on Section 230's protections for companies. IMO, regulation that provides users of large social networks with greater transparency and control into what their algorithms are showing to them personally would be a far more fruitful discussion. Should every human have the right to understand that an algorithm has classified them in a certain way? Should we, as a society, have the right to understand to what extent any social media company is classifying certain people as receptive to content regarding, say, specific phobias, and showing them content that is classified to amplify those phobias? Should we have the right to understand, at least, exactly how a dial turned in a tech office impacts how children learn to see the world? We can and should iterate on ways to answer these complex questions without throwing the ability for companies to moderate content out the window.

lesuorac 2y ago
IIUC, most large ad providers allow you to see and tailor what they use in their algorithms (ex. [1]). I think the big problem with "Should every human have the right to understand that an algorithm has classified them in a certain way" is just that they flat out can't. You cannot design a trash can that every human can understand but a bear can't. There is a level of complexity that your average person won't be able to follow. [1]: https://myadcenter.google.com/controls https://myadcenter.google.com/controls

deleted 2y ago

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jjmarr 2y ago

I don't like Section 230 because "actual knowledge" no longer matters, as tech companies willfully blind themselves to the activities on their platforms. ~~As an example, there are subreddits like /r/therewasanattempt or /r/interestingasfuck that ban users that post in /r/judaism or /r/israel (there used to be a subreddit /r/bannedforbeingjewish that tracked this but that was banned by reddit admins). This isn't the First Amendment, since it's just a ban based on identity instead of posting content. According to the US legal system, discrimination based on religion is wrong. I should be able to fix this by complaining to reddit and creating actual knowledge of discrimination. In practice, because there is no contact mechanism for reddit, it's impossible for me to create actual knowledge.~~ edit: I still believe the above behaviour is morally wrong, but it isn't an accurate example of the actual knowledge standard as others have pointed out. I'm leaving it here for context on the follow-up comments. The TechDirt article doesn't engage with this. It asserts that: >> Section 230 now has been used to shield tech from consequences for facilitating deadly drug sales, sexual harassment, illegal arms sales and human trafficking. And in the meantime, the companies grew to be some of the most valuable in the world. > None of those cases would have succeeded under the First Amendment, again because the companies had no actual knowledge of the underlying issues, and thus could not be held liable. However, if you try to use Facebook's defamation form[1] and list the United States as an option: > Facebook is not in a position to adjudicate the truth or falsity of statements made by third parties, and consistent with Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, is not responsible for those statements. As a result, we are not liable to act on the content you want to report. If you believe content on Facebook violates our Community Standards (e.g., bullying, harassment, hate speech), please visit the Help Center to learn more about how to report it to us. [1]https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/430253071144967 https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/430253071144967

criley2 2y ago
I'm not sure where you learned that the US legal system is against religious discrimination in private organizations, but it's not strictly true. Many religious organizations in the US openly discriminate against people who are not their religion, from christian charities and businesses requiring staff to sign contracts that state they agree with/are members of the religion, to catholic hospitals openly discriminating against non-catholics based on their own "religious freedom to deny care". One way they can do this is an exemption to discrimination called bona fide occupational qualification suggesting that only certain people can do the job. In a more broad sense, any private organization with limited membership (signing up vs allowing everyone) can discriminate. For example some country clubs discriminate based on race to this day. One reason for this is that the constitution guarantees "Freedom of Association" which includes the ability to have selective membership.

stackskipton 2y ago

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tedunangst 2y ago
Techdirt's coverage of section 230 has been pretty consistent from before bluesky existed.
- pfraze 2y ago
  In fact, the causality is reversed; he's on the board due to his influence on us. Masnick wrote the Protocols not Platforms essay which inspired Dorsey to start the Bluesky project. Then Bluesky became the PBC, we launched, became independent, etc etc, and Masnick wasn't involved until the past year when we invited him to join our board. I hope you view his writing and POV as independent from his work with us. On matters like 230 you can find archives of very consistent writing from well before joining.
  - stackskipton 2y ago
    TIL. I'll admit, I'm not avid reader of TechDirt, follower of Mike Masnick or care that much about Bluesky since I don't interact a ton with social media. However, my initial feelings are correct. NYT article is bemoaning about Section 230, Mike seems to ignore why those feelings are coming up and burying there might be conflict of interest in caring since I guess BlueSky has algorithms it runs to help users? Again, admitting I know nothing about BlueSky. In any case, I don't think consistent PoV should bypass disclosure of that. His arguments about why Section 230 should be left intact are solid and I agree with some of them. I also think he misses the point that letting algorithms go insane with 100% Section 230 protection may not be best idea. Whether or not Section can be reformed without destroying the internet or if First Amendment gets involved here, I personally don't know.
    - TheCleric 2y ago
      BlueSky’s big selling point is no algorithm by default. It’s default timeline is users you follow in descending chronological order. You can use an algorithm (called a feed) if you like. They provide a few, but also are open about their protocol and allow anyone who wants to write an algorithm to do so, and any user who wants to opt in to using it can.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

It isn’t surprising that they get details wrong. It’s the same NY Times that called the constitution “dangerous”(https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/books/review/constitution-secession-democracy-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/31/books/review/constitution...), fanning the flames of a kind of uncivil line of thinking that has unfortunately been more and more popular. But this article itself makes mistakes - it does not seem to understand that the first amendment is about protecting free speech principles, which are actually much bigger than just what the first amendment says. The author makes an illogical claim that there is a category of speech that we want to illegitimize and shield platforms from. This is fundamentally opposed to the principles of free speech. Yes there is the tricky case of spam. But we should not block people based on political views or skepticism about science or anything else that is controversial. The censorship regime of big social media platforms should be viewed as an editorial choice, under law and in principle. Lastly - large social media platforms are utility communication services and public squares. They need to be regulated and treated like a government agency, restricting their ability to ban users and content. After all, so much of today’s speech is on these platforms. Not being able to share your ideas there is similar to not having free speech rights at all.

kaibee 2y ago
> But we should not block people based on political views or skepticism about science or anything else that is controversial. The censorship regime of big social media platforms should be viewed as an editorial choice, under law and in principle. > Lastly - large social media platforms are utility communication services and public squares. They need to be regulated and treated like a government agency, restricting their ability to ban users and content. After all, so much of today’s speech is on these platforms. Not being able to share your ideas there is similar to not having free speech rights at all. This is all well and good, but maybe the place to rehash a debate about whether vaccines work is not in fact, the center town square. I would say that a person who has no idea about any of the underlying science and evidence, but is spreading doubt about it anyway (especially while benefiting financially), is not in fact, 'sharing their ideas', because they don't meet the minimum standard to actually have an opinion on the topic.

harshreality 2y ago

I think the author is right that harms caused by incorrect content aren't—and shouldn't be—the fault of section 230, and are instead the fault of the original producers of the content. I think the author is wrong in claiming that modern attention-optimizing recommendation algorithms are better than more primitive, poorer recommendation algorithms. Appearing to be more engaging/addictive does not imply more value. It's a measurement problem.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
> Appearing to be more engaging/addictive does not imply more value. for modern day businesses it sadly does. But that misalignment of how to define "quality" is a part of why we're in this real time divide of whether social media is good/bad to begin with.
basch 2y ago
Id like to propose something akin to the Ship of Theseus Paradox: lets call it the Ransom Letter Paradox. At what point do newspaper clipping arranged together become the work of the arranger and not the individual newspapers. If I take one paragraph from the NYT and one paragraph from the WSJ am I the author or are the NYT and WSJ the author? If I take 16 words in a row from each and alternate, am I the author? If I alternate sentences am I the author? At some point, there is a higher order "creation" of context between individually associated videos played together in a sequence. If I arrange one minute clips into an hour long video, I can say something the original authors never intended. If I, algorithmically, start following up videos with rebuttals, but only rebuttals that support my viewpoint, I am ADDING context by making suggestions. Sure people can click next, but in my ransom note example above, people can speed read and skip words as well. Current suggestion algorithms may not be purposely "trying to say something" but they effectively BECOME speakers almost accidently. Ignoring that a well crafted sequences of videos can create new meaning leaves us with a disingenuous interpretation of what suggestion algorithms either are doing or can do. I'm not saying that google is purposely radicalizing children into lets say white nationalists, buuut there may be something akin to negligence going on, if they can always point to a black box algorithm, one with a mind of its own, as the culprit. Winter v. GP Putnam giving them some kind of amnesty from their own "suggestions" rubs me the wrong way. Designing systems to give people "more of what they want" rubs me the wrong way because it narrows horizons not broadens them. That lets me segue into again linking to my favorite internet article ever (which the bbc has somehow broken the link to so here is the real link, and an archive https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7-30a0-9a0a-3ff76e8bfe58 https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7... https://archive.ph/RoBjr https://archive.ph/RoBjr ) Im not sure I have an answer, but current recommendation engines are the opposite of it.

andrewla 2y ago

The question that section 230, and the Communications Indecency Act in general, is the same one that plagued the court cases leading up to it, is to what degree the voluntary removal of some content implies an endorsement of other content. Some material you can be required to remove by law, or required to suspend pending review for various MDCA safe harbor provisions. But when you remove content in excess of that, where does the liability end? If you have a cat forum and you remove dog posts, are you also required to remove defamatory posts in general? If you have a new forum and you remove misinformation, does that removal constitute an actionable defamation against the poster? I generally dislike section 230, as I feel like blanket immunity is too strong -- I'd prefer that judges and juries make this decision on a case-by-case basis. But the cost of litigating these cases could be prohibitive, especially for small or growing companies. It seems like this would lead to an equilibrium where there was no content moderation at all, or one where you could only act on user reports. Maybe this wouldn't even be so bad.

basch 2y ago
That is the entire point of 230. You can remove whatever you want for whatever reason, and what you leave up doesn't make you the speaker or endorser of that content. Taken to the extreme it obviously leaves a window for a crazy abuse where you let people upload individual letters, then you remove letters of your choice to create new sentences and claim the contributors of the letters are the speakers, not the editor. However, as far as I know, nobody is yet quite accused of that level of moderation to editorialize. Subreddits however ARE similar to that idea. Communities with strict points of view are allowed to purge anything not aligned with their community values. Taking away their protection basically eliminates the community from being able to exist.
Manuel_D 2y ago
> If you have a new forum and you remove misinformation, does that removal constitute an actionable defamation against the poster? Twitter was sued for this, because they attached a note to a user's post. But note that this was not a user-generated community note. It was authored directly by Twitter. Without Section 230, any moderation - even if it was limited to just removing abjectly offensive content - resulted in the internet service taking liability for all user generated content. I think even acting on user reports would still result in liability. The two court cases that stablished this are here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc.

maxlybbert 2y ago

I’m sure that the difficulty the New York Times editors have about summarizing laws related to online publishing shouldn’t make you wonder about what glaring mistakes are in their other reports about topics the newspaper wouldn’t be expected to know as deeply.

htk 2y ago
Related to that, there's the "Gell-Mann Amnesia" effect[1], where an expert can see numerous mistakes on his area of expertise being reported on the news, but somehow takes the rest as being accurate. [1]: https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/ https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/
- shadowmanifold 2y ago
  Murray Gell-Mann - "The quality of information" lecture on youtube from 1997 is also worth a listen. Murray basically points out how much communication in general is really just exchanging errors for no reason. I suspect this is where the idea of "Gell-Mann Amnesia" came from.

jay_kyburz 2y ago

I can't speak to the legality or meaning of section 230, but I can share my somewhat controversial opinions about how I think the internet should operate. The author points out that the publisher of a book of mushrooms cannot be held responsible for recommending people eat poisonous mushrooms. This is OK I guess because the author _can_ be held responsible. If the author had been anonymous and the publisher could not accurately identify who should be responsible, then I would like to live in a society where the publisher _was_ held responsible. I don't think that's unreasonable. Over on the internet, content is posted mostly anonymously and there is nobody to take responsibility. I think big tech needs to be able to accurately identify the author of the harmful material, or take responsibility themselves.

phkahler 2y ago
>> Over on the internet, content is posted mostly anonymously and there is nobody to take responsibility. I sometimes suggest that the internet should start from strongly verifiable identity. You can strip identity in cases where it makes sense, but trying to establish identity is very hard. When people can be identified it make it possible to track them down and hold them accountable if they violate laws. People will generally behave better when they are not anonymous.
- yunwal 2y ago
  “We should dox everyone on the internet” is definitely not a take I expected.
  - Nasrudith 2y ago
    That take has been around since Facebook's real name policy as what seemed like a good idea at the time. It failed to make people behavior any better. Yet absolute idiots keep on thinking that if we just make the internet less free it will solve all of our problems and deliver us into a land of rainbows, unicorns, and gumdrops where it rains chocolate. For god's sake stop doing the work for a dystopia for free!
kaibee 2y ago

riskable 2y ago

The main point the author is making is that algorithms represent the opinion of the corporation/website/app maker and opinions are free speech. That is, deciding what to prioritize/hide in your feed is but a mere manifestation of the business's opinion. Algorithms == Opinions. This is a fine argument. The part where I think they get it wrong is the assumption/argument that a person or corporation can't be held accountable for their opinions. They most certainly can! In Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers District Council Construction Industry Pension Fund the Supreme Court found that a company cannot be held liable for its opinion as long as that opinion was was "honestly believed". Though: the Court also held, however, that liability may result if the company omitted material facts about the company's inquiry into, or knowledge concerning, the statement of opinion, and those facts conflict with what a reasonable investor would understand as the basis of the statement when reading it. (from: https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2015/03/supreme-court-clarifies-liability-standard-for-opinions-expressed-in-registration-statements https://www.jonesday.com/en/insights/2015/03/supreme-court-c...) That is, a company can be held liable if it intentionally mislead its client (presumably also a customer or user). For that standard to be met the claimant would have to prove that the company was aware of the facts that proved their opinion wrong and decided to mislead the client anyway. In the case of a site like Facebook--if Meta was aware that certain information was dangerous/misleading/illegal--it very well could be held liable for what its algorithm recommends. It may seem like a high bar but probably isn't because Meta is made aware of all sorts of dangerous/misleading information every day but only ever removes/de-prioritizes individual posts and doesn't bother (as far as I'm aware) with applying the same standard to re-posts of the same information. It must be manually reported and review again, every time (though maybe not? Someone with more inside info might know more). I'd also like to point out that if a court sets a precedent that algorithms == opinions it should spell the end of all software patents. Since all software is 100% algorithms (aside from comments, I guess) that would mean all software is simply speech and speech isn't patentable subject matter (though the SCOTUS should've long since come to that conclusion :anger:)

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Yeah, that's the motte-and-bailey argument about 230 that makes me more scrutinous of tech companies by the day motte: "we curate content based on user preferences, and are hands off. We can't be responsible for every piece of (legal) content that is posted on your platform . bailey: "our algorithm is ad-friendly, and we curate content or punish it based on how happy or mad it makes out adverts, the real customers for our service. So if adverts don't like hearing the word "suicide" we'll make creators who want to be paid self-censor". if you want to take hands on what content is allowed on that granular a level, I don't see why 230 should protect you. >I'd also like to point out that if a court sets a precedent that algorithms == opinions it should spell the end of all software patents. I'm sure they'd word it very carefully to prevent that, or limit it only to software defined as "social media".

freejazz 2y ago

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pyuser583 2y ago

We need to stop calling it “Section 230,” “Section 230 of the CDA,” or worst “Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act.” Call it “Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.” As the name implies, the CDA was an attempt at censorship, specifically an act to outlaw internet pornography. An unconstitutional (per SCOTUS) act to outlaw unpopular speech (pornography). Far from being some libertarian Christmas gift, the whole point is to facilitate internet censorship. Without 230 of the CDA, third parties would be held liable for attempts at moderation (a synonym for private censorship). It’s so bizarre that the popular understanding is so far removed from what was actually done.

the_why_of_y 2y ago
TFA: Also, it is somewhat misleading to call Section 230 “a snippet of law embedded in the 1995 Communications Decency Act.” Section 230 was an entirely different law, designed to be a replacement for the CDA. It was the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act and was put forth by then Reps. Cox and Wyden as an alternative to the CDA. Then, Congress, in its infinite stupidity, took both bills and merged them.

janalsncm 2y ago

I create recommender systems for a living. They are powerful and also potentially dangerous. But many people fall into the trap of thinking that just because a computer recommends something it’s objectively good. It is math but it’s not “just math”. Pharmaceuticals is chemistry but it’s not “just chemistry”. And that is the framework I think we should be thinking about these with. Instagram doesn’t have a God-given right to flood teen girls’ feeds with anorexia-inducing media. The right is granted by people, and can be revoked. > Because you can’t demand that anyone recommending anything know with certainty whether or not the content they are recommending is good or bad. That puts way too much of a burden on the recommender, and makes the mere process of recommending anything a legal minefield. Let’s flag for a moment that this is a value judgement. The author is using “can’t” when they really mean “should not”. I also think it is a strawman to suggest anyone is requiring absolute certainty. When dealing with baby food manufacturers, if their manufacturing process creates poisoned food, we hold the manufacturer liable. Someone might say it’s unfair to require that a food manufacturer guarantee none of their food will be poisoned, and yet we still have a functioning food industry. > The whole point of a search recommendation is “the algorithm thinks these are the most relevant bits of content for you.” Sure. But “relevant” is fuzzy and not quantifiable. Computers like things to be quantifiable. So instead we might use a proxy like click. Click will lead to boosting clickbait content. So maybe you include text match. Now you boost websites that are keyword stuffing. If you continue down the path of maximal engagement somewhere down the line you end up with some kind of cesspool of clickbait and ragebait. But choosing to maximize engagement was itself a choice, it’s not objectively more relevant.

echoangle 2y ago

> It being just a suggestion or a recommendation is also important from a legal standpoint: because recommendation algorithms are simply opinions. They are opinions of what content that algorithm thinks is most relevant to you at the time based on what information it has at that time. Is that really how opinions work in US law? Isn’t an opinion something a human has? If google builds a machine that does something, is that protected as an opinion, even if no human at google ever looks at it? „Opinion“ sounds to me like it’s something a humans believes, not the approximation a computer generates.

TheCleric 2y ago
Not a lawyer, but that’s how I understand it. In the Citizens United case the Supreme Court has given corporations free speech rights. Included in that right is the right to state an opinion. And when you develop an algorithm that promotes content you’re implicitly saying is “better” or “more relevant” or however the algorithm ranks it, that’s you providing an opinion via that algorithm.
- esbranson 2y ago
  Not a lawyer either, but I believe regulations on speech, as here, are scrutinized ("strictly") such that regulations are not allowed to discriminate based on content. Moderation is usually based on content. Whether something is fact or not, opinion or not, is content-based. Citizens United held that criminalizing political films is illegal. Allowing Fahrenheit 9/11 to be advertised and performed but criminalizing Hillary: The Movie is exactly why Citizens United was correct and the illiberal leftists are wrong.

p3rls 2y ago

Wrong-- section 230 is whatever some 80-year-old judge wants to interpret it as. Didn't you guys watch the LiveJournal court case? Those guys had to run away to Russia while Twitter, Reddit, Discord, etc. all are completely flooded with pirated content and it's cool.

wodenokoto 2y ago

Maybe we can add " Section " before 230 in the title? I honestly thought this was a numerical thing.

syndicatedjelly 2y ago

Section 230 discussions seem to always devolve into a bunch of CS people talking way outside their depth about “free speech”, and making universal claims about the First Amendment as if the literal reading of the amendment is all that matters. I wish some actual lawyers would weigh in here