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> It being just a suggestion or a recommendation is also important from a legal standpoint: because recommendation algorithms are simply opinions. They are opin
by 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 agoNot 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 agoNot 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.