5 ms·

> Being able to pick what content they host is fundamental to freedom of speech for private entities Interesting position - when somebody posts illegal content

> Being able to pick what content they host is fundamental to freedom of speech for private entities Interesting position - when somebody posts illegal content on YouTube, they are not liable, it’s not their speech. But when I want to post something they don’t like, suddenly it’s their freedom of speech to remove it. A lot of breakdown in society lately is clearly coming from the fact that some people/companies have it both ways when it suits them.

akimbostrawman 1y ago
The solution would be to revoke section 203 from any platform which acts as a digital public square if they do moderation beyond removing illegal content. Ofc they would try there best to be excluded to have there cake and eat it too.
- lesuorac 1y ago
  The entire point of section 230 is to allow platforms to remove non-illegal content [1]. Basically there were two lawsuits about platforms showing content. One of the platfroms tried to curate content to create a family-friendly environment. The second platform just didn't take anything down. The first platform lost their lawsuit while the second won their lawsuit. Congress wants to allow platforms to create family friend environment online so section 230 was written. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#
- klooney 1y ago
  You need moderation for more than legality though, otherwise you can't have open forums like this, that aren't total cesspits.
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    Right: * When a bot farm spams ads for erectile dysfunction pills into every comment thread on your blog... That's "legal content"! * When your model-train hobbyist site is invaded by posters sharing swastikas and planning neo-nazi rallies, that too is "legal content"--at least outside Germany. All sorts of deceptive, off-topic, and horribly offensive things are "legal content."
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  If something like that were put in place, any platforms acting as a “public square” should also be required to disable all recommendation and content surfacing features aside from search, algorithmic or otherwise. Those recommendation features already do plenty of damage even with platforms having the ability to remove anything they like. If platforms are restricted to only removing illegal content, that damage would quickly become much greater.
Sloowms 1y ago
This is correct. In the US tiktok is currently being sued for feeding kids choking game content through the algorithm that was earlier judged to be free speech.
- maketheman 1y ago
  Curation and promotion, even if done by a machine (LOL, why does that matter at all?) needs to come with significant liability. It should be possible to protect content hosting services from extensive liability while not protecting companies from the consequences of what they choose to promote and present to people. Those are two separate and very different activities that aren't even necessarily connected (you could curate and promote without hosting, and in fact this happens all the time; you can host without curating and promoting, this also happens all the time—in fact, these typically are not mixed together outside of social media companies with their damned "algorithms", as far as content from 3rd parties goes)
gspencley 1y ago
> Interesting position - when somebody posts illegal content on YouTube, they are not liable, it’s not their speech. > But when I want to post something they don’t like, suddenly it’s their freedom of speech to remove it. There is no contradiction there. Imagine a forum about knitting. Someone, who has it in for the owners of this knitting forum (or perhaps even just a SPAM bot) starts posting illegal, or even just non-knitting content on this forum. The entire purpose of the forum is to be a community about knitting. Why is it the legal or moral responsibility of the knitting forum to host SPAM content? And why should they be legally liable for someone else posting content on their platform? You're equating specific pieces of content with the platform as a whole. There is no reality where I will accept that if I create something. I spend and risk my money on web hosting. I write the code. I put something out there... that other people get to dictate what content I have to distribute. That's an evil reality to contemplate. I don't want to live in that world. I certainly wont' do business under those terms. You're effectively trying to give other people an ultimatum in order to extract value from them that you did not earn and have no claim to. You're saying that if they don't host content that they don't want to distribute that they should be legally liable for anything that anyone uploads. The two don't connect at all. Anyone is, and should be free to create any kind of online service where they pick and choose what is or is not allowed. That shouldn't then subject them to criminal or civil liability because of how others decide to use that product or service. Imagine if that weird concept were applied to offline things, like kitchen knives. A kitchen knife manufacturer is perfectly within their rights to say "This product is intended to be used for culinary purposes and no other. If we find out that you are using it to do other things, we will stop doing business with you forever." That doesn't then make them liable for people who use their product for other purposes.
- andrepd 1y ago
  The issue is that the knitting forum is a different beast from youtube. The latter is a platform. Its scale makes it QUALITATIVELY different. And there's network effects, there's dumping behaviour, there's preinstalls on every phone, there's integration with the ad behemoth, all to make sure it remains a platform.
- dcow 1y ago
andrepd 1y ago
> A lot of breakdown in society lately is clearly coming from the fact that some people/companies have it both ways when it suits them. See how copyright is protected when it's whatcd violating it and when it's OpenAI
tzs 1y ago
Your premise is incomplete. When someone posts illegal content on YouTube they are not liable if they are not aware of the illegality of that content. Once they learn that they are hosting illegal content they lose their safe harbor if they don't remove it.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- torstenvl 1y ago
  Please don't post deliberately false information on HN. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
  - tzs 1y ago
    Let me rephrase, since saying they lose their safe harbor was a poor choice of words. The safe harbor does indeed prevent them from being treated as the publisher of the illegal content. However illegal content can incur liability for acts other than publishing or distributing and section 230's safe harbor won't protect them from that.
- rolph 1y ago
  i find it hard to believe there is any content on YT platform that they are unaware of.
  - p_j_w 1y ago
    I mean what do you think happens? Do you think YouTube employs an army of people to watch and vet every single video that gets posted there?
    - rolph 1y ago
      no i think YT uses an AI to categorize and vet media based on standard rubrick, at a pace that exceeds a human collective by orders of magnitude. they know about it as soon as you post it.
intended 1y ago
Sadly it turns out that the biggest driving force is politics, and the inability for our institutions to win with boring facts, against fast and loose engaging content. The idea is that in a competitive marketplace of ideas, the better idea wins. The reality is that if you dont compete on accuracy, but compete on engagement, you can earn enough revenue to stay cash flow positive. I would say as the cost of making content and publishing content went down, the competition for attention went up. The result is that expensive to produce information, cannot compete with cheap to produce content.

akimbostrawman 1y ago

The solution would be to revoke section 203 from any platform which acts as a digital public square if they do moderation beyond removing illegal content. Ofc they would try there best to be excluded to have there cake and eat it too.

lesuorac 1y ago
The entire point of section 230 is to allow platforms to remove non-illegal content [1]. Basically there were two lawsuits about platforms showing content. One of the platfroms tried to curate content to create a family-friendly environment. The second platform just didn't take anything down. The first platform lost their lawsuit while the second won their lawsuit. Congress wants to allow platforms to create family friend environment online so section 230 was written. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#
klooney 1y ago
You need moderation for more than legality though, otherwise you can't have open forums like this, that aren't total cesspits.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  Right: * When a bot farm spams ads for erectile dysfunction pills into every comment thread on your blog... That's "legal content"! * When your model-train hobbyist site is invaded by posters sharing swastikas and planning neo-nazi rallies, that too is "legal content"--at least outside Germany. All sorts of deceptive, off-topic, and horribly offensive things are "legal content."
cosmic_cheese 1y ago
If something like that were put in place, any platforms acting as a “public square” should also be required to disable all recommendation and content surfacing features aside from search, algorithmic or otherwise. Those recommendation features already do plenty of damage even with platforms having the ability to remove anything they like. If platforms are restricted to only removing illegal content, that damage would quickly become much greater.

Sloowms 1y ago

This is correct. In the US tiktok is currently being sued for feeding kids choking game content through the algorithm that was earlier judged to be free speech.

maketheman 1y ago
Curation and promotion, even if done by a machine (LOL, why does that matter at all?) needs to come with significant liability. It should be possible to protect content hosting services from extensive liability while not protecting companies from the consequences of what they choose to promote and present to people. Those are two separate and very different activities that aren't even necessarily connected (you could curate and promote without hosting, and in fact this happens all the time; you can host without curating and promoting, this also happens all the time—in fact, these typically are not mixed together outside of social media companies with their damned "algorithms", as far as content from 3rd parties goes)

gspencley 1y ago

> Interesting position - when somebody posts illegal content on YouTube, they are not liable, it’s not their speech. > But when I want to post something they don’t like, suddenly it’s their freedom of speech to remove it. There is no contradiction there. Imagine a forum about knitting. Someone, who has it in for the owners of this knitting forum (or perhaps even just a SPAM bot) starts posting illegal, or even just non-knitting content on this forum. The entire purpose of the forum is to be a community about knitting. Why is it the legal or moral responsibility of the knitting forum to host SPAM content? And why should they be legally liable for someone else posting content on their platform? You're equating specific pieces of content with the platform as a whole. There is no reality where I will accept that if I create something. I spend and risk my money on web hosting. I write the code. I put something out there... that other people get to dictate what content I have to distribute. That's an evil reality to contemplate. I don't want to live in that world. I certainly wont' do business under those terms. You're effectively trying to give other people an ultimatum in order to extract value from them that you did not earn and have no claim to. You're saying that if they don't host content that they don't want to distribute that they should be legally liable for anything that anyone uploads. The two don't connect at all. Anyone is, and should be free to create any kind of online service where they pick and choose what is or is not allowed. That shouldn't then subject them to criminal or civil liability because of how others decide to use that product or service. Imagine if that weird concept were applied to offline things, like kitchen knives. A kitchen knife manufacturer is perfectly within their rights to say "This product is intended to be used for culinary purposes and no other. If we find out that you are using it to do other things, we will stop doing business with you forever." That doesn't then make them liable for people who use their product for other purposes.

andrepd 1y ago
The issue is that the knitting forum is a different beast from youtube. The latter is a platform. Its scale makes it QUALITATIVELY different. And there's network effects, there's dumping behaviour, there's preinstalls on every phone, there's integration with the ad behemoth, all to make sure it remains a platform.
dcow 1y ago

andrepd 1y ago

> A lot of breakdown in society lately is clearly coming from the fact that some people/companies have it both ways when it suits them. See how copyright is protected when it's whatcd violating it and when it's OpenAI

tzs 1y ago

Your premise is incomplete. When someone posts illegal content on YouTube they are not liable if they are not aware of the illegality of that content. Once they learn that they are hosting illegal content they lose their safe harbor if they don't remove it.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
torstenvl 1y ago
Please don't post deliberately false information on HN. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230
- tzs 1y ago
  Let me rephrase, since saying they lose their safe harbor was a poor choice of words. The safe harbor does indeed prevent them from being treated as the publisher of the illegal content. However illegal content can incur liability for acts other than publishing or distributing and section 230's safe harbor won't protect them from that.
rolph 1y ago
i find it hard to believe there is any content on YT platform that they are unaware of.
- p_j_w 1y ago
  I mean what do you think happens? Do you think YouTube employs an army of people to watch and vet every single video that gets posted there?
  - rolph 1y ago
    no i think YT uses an AI to categorize and vet media based on standard rubrick, at a pace that exceeds a human collective by orders of magnitude. they know about it as soon as you post it.

intended 1y ago

Sadly it turns out that the biggest driving force is politics, and the inability for our institutions to win with boring facts, against fast and loose engaging content. The idea is that in a competitive marketplace of ideas, the better idea wins. The reality is that if you dont compete on accuracy, but compete on engagement, you can earn enough revenue to stay cash flow positive. I would say as the cost of making content and publishing content went down, the competition for attention went up. The result is that expensive to produce information, cannot compete with cheap to produce content.