6 ms·

Ninth Circuit Panel Goes Out of Its Way to Question Section 230–DOE vs. Meta

45 points by hn_acker 5mo ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 5mo ago
Repeal section 230!
- adastra22 5mo ago
  Why?
  - cyanydeez 5mo ago
    so the social media dinosaurs can make a legal moat against competitors and politicians can slap down opposition. who knows.
  - SoftTalker 5mo ago
    Platforms should bear some responsibility for the content they distribute. Particularly when they run algorithms to promote content based on what they think will engage your attention. There should be no "safe haven."
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5mo ago
      Yes
    - Aurornis 5mo ago
      Still wild to me that people advocate for making platforms responsible for user-submitted content on a website that consists entirely of user-submitted content. Everyone always has some excuse for why they believe their favorite websites and platforms wouldn’t be impacted, but generally these problems would result in a situation where only the big platforms like Facebook could afford to comply and the platforms like Hacker News or all of your favorite forums and chat hangouts would be forced to close because they can’t afford to comply with laws making them liable for user generated content. Repealing 230 would only consolidate power among the big social sites who can afford to comply and lobby.
      - SoftTalker 5mo ago
        Oh I think sites would be greatly impacted. To the point where most/all user submitted content would need to be moderated. It would completely upend social media and make most comment-based forums impractical to operate at large scale. I think that would be a good thing. We'd be going back to something like the days of newspapers, where letters to the editor were all read and approved by the publisher before they were printed.
        Aurornis 5mo ago
        You want to go back to an era where only a select few large, powerful outlets could decide what gets published? You see what’s happening with news media and governments threatening news outlets and you want to consolidate to that? The rest of us would have to beg for their permission to let our words be heard? I don’t think you’ve thought this fantasy through.
        SoftTalker 5mo ago
        I didn't say anything about a few large, powerful outlets. I said outlets should at least share responsiblity for what they publish.
        Aurornis 5mo ago
        > I didn't say anything about a few large, powerful outlets. Only the large powerful outlets will have the budgets and legal connections to host user submitted content.
      - benoau 5mo ago
        > Still wild to me that people advocate for making platforms responsible for user-submitted content on a website that consists entirely of user-submitted content. In both Meta and Google's case, it has been found that it doesn't "consist entirely of user-submitted content", there is also "their software" promoting and recommending content and allowing to pay for higher visibility, and they should certainly be liable for at least this facet of what they do (and were both recently found to have intentionally designed it to be "harmful"). There is also the open question of whether the big tech companies are doing enough to police their platforms, which are all awash with scams, counterfeits and more. Their safeguards for "user-generated content" (somehow including physical goods on Amazon and apps for Android and iPhone) are another facet they should be liable for if it is insufficient.
    - BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
      230 is vital, but platforms want to be covered by it they need to stop using algorithms for anything (including ads) other than "most recent".
    - dv_dt 5mo ago
      If there is a non-transparent or non-user changable algorithm selecting content to present then 230 protections shouldn't apply. This is different than removing 230 entirely
    - protocolture 5mo ago
      > Platforms should bear some responsibility for the content they distribute. My read of section 230 is that they do, and part of that responsibility is remediating bad content as soon as possible? Whether that is currently being done to the fullest extent is debatable, but I dont see how getting sued into the ground for hosting user content at all even if they remediate it is better?
      - hn_acker 5mo ago
        > and part of that responsibility is remediating bad content as soon as possible? No. Section 230 protects websites from the liability that they might otherwise bear upon removing objectionable content. You may ask, why would removing objectionable content give someone liability? Because for legal "simplicity" some people want to treat the act of removing harmful content as legal knowledge that the harmful content existed, and if the website was "too slow" to remove harmful content then surely the website should bear responsibility for the harm caused by being "too slow" or possibly complicit.
- pdonis 5mo ago
  So you think that, for example, ycombinator, who provides this forum, should have to be prepared to defend in court every single action it takes that restricts someone's use of this site? (For example, every time a post gets restricted because of downvotes?) Because that's what repealing Section 230 would do.
  - chowells 5mo ago
    No, I think that ycombinator, who provides this forum... shouldn't. This thing where we've traded societal trust for profits for the companies destroying it is a bad choice, and section 230 is what enables it. Let it all burn. Bring back small communities with internal trust relationships. Growth is not an automatic good. (No, pointing out that I wouldn't be allowed to post this isn't a clever gotcha. The whole point of advocating for change is that it would affect me too.)
    - b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago
      [flagged]
    - nradov 5mo ago
      Nah. Growth is awesome. There are a few casualties but those are acceptable losses.
    - pdonis 5mo ago
      > No, I think that ycombinator, who provides this forum... shouldn't. Good, then we're in agreement on that. > This thing where we've traded societal trust for profits for the companies destroying it is a bad choice We're in agreement on that too. > section 230 is what enables it. Here is where we disagree. Section 230 is not what enables the big tech giants. Section 230 is what protects sites like this one, that do not do the sorts of things the big tech giants do, but do host user-provided content. Without Section 230, ycombinator would have to be prepared to defend every moderation action it takes in court. The big tech giants actually don't care whether or not they have to do that; the cost of that is hardly even rounding error in their accounting. If Section 230 were repealed, they'd be fine; maybe they'd have to charge some more for ads on average to make up the difference. Big deal. Sites like this one, however, would not be fine. Ycombinator might still be able to keep this site up, because they're well enough known that they might be able to get some political traction if someone took them to court. But the "small communites with internal trust relationships" that you talk about? Those need something like Section 230 to avoid being sued out of business by the first a*hole that wants to post there and is told they can't because of their behavior, and has enough time and effort to spare to take them to court. If we want to outlaw something that might put a spoke in the wheels of the big tech giants, IMO it would be the ad-supported business model--the idea that a large corporation providing a service that's of obvious value to billions of people can get out of any responsibility towards those people simply by saying, well, we're providing the service for free, take it or leave it. And then saying they need to monetize those same people's data to stay in business, because, well, how else are we going to pay for this valuable service we're providing?
- rpdillon 5mo ago
  Section 230 is foundational to how the web works. I think Mike Masnick has a superb grasp of the salient issues, and is articulate. I recommend his writing on the topic. https://www.techdirt.com/2021/10/29/everything-you-know-about-section-230-is-wrong-why/ https://www.techdirt.com/2021/10/29/everything-you-know-abou...
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5mo ago
    [flagged]
  - deleted 5mo ago
    [deleted]
  - billjings 5mo ago
    It is, in the sense that companies like Meta operate assuming that 230 gives them carte blanche to act as they please. But: "Plaintiffs characterize Meta’s duty as one of product design—that Meta should not have built Facebook in a way that boosted incitements to violence. Still, the alleged defects relate to Facebook’s core design as a publishing platform, particularly how Facebook promoted or downplayed third-party posts using algorithms. Under our case law, matching users with content is publishing conduct, even when the user has not requested the content." At issue the question of who, if anyone, is responsible for the speech issues at play when Meta chooses to show me X rather than Y of the near infinite pool of content at its disposal. Some are indeed looking to completely get rid of 230, but if you ask me, assuming that Meta has 230 protections for all editorial decisions it makes should be considered overbroad. I'm no lawyer, but as a citizen it seems to me that it puts Meta's influence beyond legal accountability in a way that no individual is. And that seems totally unfair.
    - rpdillon 5mo ago
      Section 230 applies to millions of sites. It's important to consider how repeal affects most of them, rather than just the biggest.
- yieldcrv 5mo ago
  There are exemptions to section 230 immunity and they have resulted in wild censorship in an effort to avoid liability So although I functionally agree that responsibility should be shared more, I haven’t seen a framework that accomplishes that. Organizations just stop allowing user generated content entirely, not addressing how they syndicate it
- WarOnPrivacy 5mo ago
  > Repeal section 230! This would make every site hosting user generated content vulnerable to expensive lawsuits by authoritarians, deep-pocket censorists and other bad faith actors. 230 enabled most of the internet - specifically the rise of small sites. Getting rid of 230 would be a massive gift to large platforms who'd be the only ones who could afford the legal bills. Which is why many large platforms have supported ending 230.
rho138 5mo ago
Meta sits behind 230 to let the pedophile rings roll. https://time.com/7336204/meta-lawsuit-files-child-safety/ https://time.com/7336204/meta-lawsuit-files-child-safety/
- hn_acker 5mo ago
  Section 230 itself already does not apply to federal criminal investigations, including investigations of child sexual abuse. A social media company should not bear legal responsiblity to detect crimes before law enforcement does.
  - carefulfungi 5mo ago
    Counterpoint - Businesses are generally liable in the physical world for harms caused on their premises by a foreseeable hazard. Whether as simple as a pothole in a parking lot that causes injury or an unstable shelf that collapses, … The major social media sites know absolutely that their products expose customers and users to predictable harm and cause real damages. They should bear an analogous liability burden as a business operating a physical location.
    - simoncion 5mo ago
      > They should bear an analogous liability burden as a business operating a physical location. Sounds great. Last I checked, most businesses don't have a legal obligation to police the conversations that happen on or around their premises.
      - carefulfungi 5mo ago
        In the case of Meta, X, et. al., the conversation is an integral part of the product. It isn't incidental "around their premises". You're also wrong though - a corporation is absolutely liable for threats and various types of verbal harassment that occurs within their walls. Thus the endless liability-offsetting mandatory training videos... Duty of care is well established.
ETH_start 5mo ago
Abolishing 230 means no free speech, anywhere. Speech would need to be restrained, vetted, and approved by a platform, before it could be shared. While much abusive speech can be blocked from being published with this sort of Prior Restraint, much more healthy, vital speech — that counters abuse — would be repressed by it, IMHO. See how litigation involving copyright law has been used by the Church of Scientology to silence critics, for example. The removal of 230 means platforms themselves could be targeted to efficiently censor large sections of the population. And the basic principle of Prior Restraint flies in the face of the presumption of innocence that underlies conduct in a Free Society.
- fc417fc802 5mo ago
  That's not true. It would stifle centralized platforms but it would not meaningfully impact those self hosting. So ActivityPub (ie self hosted Mastodon and similar) would be unaffected as would Bluesky with a self hosted PDS (IIUC). Further, paid hosting services for those would be unaffected for the same reason that we don't require section 230 to protect the car rental company if someone uses the vehicle to commit a crime. I'm not advocating to repeal section 230 but honestly all I'm seeing here is upsides.
  - krapp 5mo ago
    >So ActivityPub (ie self hosted Mastodon and similar) would be unaffected as would Bluesky with a self hosted PDS (IIUC). Only as long as you don't allow third party comments or run a multi-user instance. Then you're just as legally liable for that content as the centralized platforms. >Further, paid hosting services for those would be unaffected for the same reason that we don't require section 230 to protect the car rental company if someone uses the vehicle to commit a crime. Mixed metaphors aside, Section 230 is the law that "protects the car rental company if someone uses the vehicle to commit a crime." If the car rental company is the platform, then prior to Section 230 (and after its repeal) they were and would be held responsible. Section 230 just establishes that the party posting content is liable for that content, just as the person using a vehicle to commit a crime is responsible for that crime.
jmyeet 5mo ago
I knew it. I've been saying this is going to become an issue for awhile eg [1][2]. For context Section 230 avoids strict liability for an "interactive computer service" hosting third-party content. For comparison, a first-party site (eg a media site) does have strict liability. Here's the problem and what (IMHO) will become a big issue: if you, as a platform, only push out content with a particular view, how is that any different to just publishing that view and thus being liable? Put another way: modern tech companies want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the protections from strict liability and, while hiding behind that shield of third-party content, they analyze the content of posts and they push or suppress posts based on the content. How is that any different to being a first-party publisher? Example: if 10,000 people write posts for or against South African apartheid and I suppress only those posts that argue against it, aren't I, in effect, publishing a pro-apartheid position? I think this is a landmine waiting to go off. Tech companies have successfully sold us on the idea that "the algorithm" is somehow agnostic or neutral. Nothing could be further from the truth, particularly with modern AI tools that can deeply classify posts based on their content, politics, etc. Meta's policy chief bragged about doing this [3]. People on HN seem to have this weird, third-rail stance on Section 230. It's nuanced. Legally, I think making algorithmic decisions based on content should be treated as a first-party act of publishing. And I believe courts are going to get there. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066527 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46148529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46148529 [3]: https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palestine-censorship-sjp/ https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palesti...
- pdonis 5mo ago
  > Legally, I think making algorithmic decisions based on content should be treated as a first-party act of publishing. That was basically the direction the ruling in Anderson v. TikTok was pointing, yes? The question is going to be where you draw the line. For example, if HN's automated mechanisms make a post invisible (to anyone who doesn't have showdead enabled) after enough downvotes, is that "making algorithmic decisions based on content"? I don't think so, or at any rate I don't think it's at all the same as the kind of things the big tech giants do algorithmically. But the line needs to be carefully drawn.

45 points by hn_acker 5mo ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 5mo ago

Repeal section 230!

adastra22 5mo ago
Why?
- cyanydeez 5mo ago
  so the social media dinosaurs can make a legal moat against competitors and politicians can slap down opposition. who knows.
- SoftTalker 5mo ago
  Platforms should bear some responsibility for the content they distribute. Particularly when they run algorithms to promote content based on what they think will engage your attention. There should be no "safe haven."
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5mo ago
    Yes
  - Aurornis 5mo ago
    Still wild to me that people advocate for making platforms responsible for user-submitted content on a website that consists entirely of user-submitted content. Everyone always has some excuse for why they believe their favorite websites and platforms wouldn’t be impacted, but generally these problems would result in a situation where only the big platforms like Facebook could afford to comply and the platforms like Hacker News or all of your favorite forums and chat hangouts would be forced to close because they can’t afford to comply with laws making them liable for user generated content. Repealing 230 would only consolidate power among the big social sites who can afford to comply and lobby.
    - SoftTalker 5mo ago
      Oh I think sites would be greatly impacted. To the point where most/all user submitted content would need to be moderated. It would completely upend social media and make most comment-based forums impractical to operate at large scale. I think that would be a good thing. We'd be going back to something like the days of newspapers, where letters to the editor were all read and approved by the publisher before they were printed.
      - Aurornis 5mo ago
        You want to go back to an era where only a select few large, powerful outlets could decide what gets published? You see what’s happening with news media and governments threatening news outlets and you want to consolidate to that? The rest of us would have to beg for their permission to let our words be heard? I don’t think you’ve thought this fantasy through.
        SoftTalker 5mo ago
        I didn't say anything about a few large, powerful outlets. I said outlets should at least share responsiblity for what they publish.
        Aurornis 5mo ago
        > I didn't say anything about a few large, powerful outlets. Only the large powerful outlets will have the budgets and legal connections to host user submitted content.
    - benoau 5mo ago
      > Still wild to me that people advocate for making platforms responsible for user-submitted content on a website that consists entirely of user-submitted content. In both Meta and Google's case, it has been found that it doesn't "consist entirely of user-submitted content", there is also "their software" promoting and recommending content and allowing to pay for higher visibility, and they should certainly be liable for at least this facet of what they do (and were both recently found to have intentionally designed it to be "harmful"). There is also the open question of whether the big tech companies are doing enough to police their platforms, which are all awash with scams, counterfeits and more. Their safeguards for "user-generated content" (somehow including physical goods on Amazon and apps for Android and iPhone) are another facet they should be liable for if it is insufficient.
  - BigTTYGothGF 5mo ago
    230 is vital, but platforms want to be covered by it they need to stop using algorithms for anything (including ads) other than "most recent".
  - dv_dt 5mo ago
    If there is a non-transparent or non-user changable algorithm selecting content to present then 230 protections shouldn't apply. This is different than removing 230 entirely
  - protocolture 5mo ago
    > Platforms should bear some responsibility for the content they distribute. My read of section 230 is that they do, and part of that responsibility is remediating bad content as soon as possible? Whether that is currently being done to the fullest extent is debatable, but I dont see how getting sued into the ground for hosting user content at all even if they remediate it is better?
    - hn_acker 5mo ago
      > and part of that responsibility is remediating bad content as soon as possible? No. Section 230 protects websites from the liability that they might otherwise bear upon removing objectionable content. You may ask, why would removing objectionable content give someone liability? Because for legal "simplicity" some people want to treat the act of removing harmful content as legal knowledge that the harmful content existed, and if the website was "too slow" to remove harmful content then surely the website should bear responsibility for the harm caused by being "too slow" or possibly complicit.
pdonis 5mo ago
So you think that, for example, ycombinator, who provides this forum, should have to be prepared to defend in court every single action it takes that restricts someone's use of this site? (For example, every time a post gets restricted because of downvotes?) Because that's what repealing Section 230 would do.
- chowells 5mo ago
  No, I think that ycombinator, who provides this forum... shouldn't. This thing where we've traded societal trust for profits for the companies destroying it is a bad choice, and section 230 is what enables it. Let it all burn. Bring back small communities with internal trust relationships. Growth is not an automatic good. (No, pointing out that I wouldn't be allowed to post this isn't a clever gotcha. The whole point of advocating for change is that it would affect me too.)
  - b65e8bee43c2ed0 5mo ago
    [flagged]
  - nradov 5mo ago
    Nah. Growth is awesome. There are a few casualties but those are acceptable losses.
  - pdonis 5mo ago
    > No, I think that ycombinator, who provides this forum... shouldn't. Good, then we're in agreement on that. > This thing where we've traded societal trust for profits for the companies destroying it is a bad choice We're in agreement on that too. > section 230 is what enables it. Here is where we disagree. Section 230 is not what enables the big tech giants. Section 230 is what protects sites like this one, that do not do the sorts of things the big tech giants do, but do host user-provided content. Without Section 230, ycombinator would have to be prepared to defend every moderation action it takes in court. The big tech giants actually don't care whether or not they have to do that; the cost of that is hardly even rounding error in their accounting. If Section 230 were repealed, they'd be fine; maybe they'd have to charge some more for ads on average to make up the difference. Big deal. Sites like this one, however, would not be fine. Ycombinator might still be able to keep this site up, because they're well enough known that they might be able to get some political traction if someone took them to court. But the "small communites with internal trust relationships" that you talk about? Those need something like Section 230 to avoid being sued out of business by the first a*hole that wants to post there and is told they can't because of their behavior, and has enough time and effort to spare to take them to court. If we want to outlaw something that might put a spoke in the wheels of the big tech giants, IMO it would be the ad-supported business model--the idea that a large corporation providing a service that's of obvious value to billions of people can get out of any responsibility towards those people simply by saying, well, we're providing the service for free, take it or leave it. And then saying they need to monetize those same people's data to stay in business, because, well, how else are we going to pay for this valuable service we're providing?
rpdillon 5mo ago
Section 230 is foundational to how the web works. I think Mike Masnick has a superb grasp of the salient issues, and is articulate. I recommend his writing on the topic. https://www.techdirt.com/2021/10/29/everything-you-know-about-section-230-is-wrong-why/ https://www.techdirt.com/2021/10/29/everything-you-know-abou...
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5mo ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- billjings 5mo ago
  It is, in the sense that companies like Meta operate assuming that 230 gives them carte blanche to act as they please. But: "Plaintiffs characterize Meta’s duty as one of product design—that Meta should not have built Facebook in a way that boosted incitements to violence. Still, the alleged defects relate to Facebook’s core design as a publishing platform, particularly how Facebook promoted or downplayed third-party posts using algorithms. Under our case law, matching users with content is publishing conduct, even when the user has not requested the content." At issue the question of who, if anyone, is responsible for the speech issues at play when Meta chooses to show me X rather than Y of the near infinite pool of content at its disposal. Some are indeed looking to completely get rid of 230, but if you ask me, assuming that Meta has 230 protections for all editorial decisions it makes should be considered overbroad. I'm no lawyer, but as a citizen it seems to me that it puts Meta's influence beyond legal accountability in a way that no individual is. And that seems totally unfair.
  - rpdillon 5mo ago
    Section 230 applies to millions of sites. It's important to consider how repeal affects most of them, rather than just the biggest.
yieldcrv 5mo ago
There are exemptions to section 230 immunity and they have resulted in wild censorship in an effort to avoid liability So although I functionally agree that responsibility should be shared more, I haven’t seen a framework that accomplishes that. Organizations just stop allowing user generated content entirely, not addressing how they syndicate it
WarOnPrivacy 5mo ago
> Repeal section 230! This would make every site hosting user generated content vulnerable to expensive lawsuits by authoritarians, deep-pocket censorists and other bad faith actors. 230 enabled most of the internet - specifically the rise of small sites. Getting rid of 230 would be a massive gift to large platforms who'd be the only ones who could afford the legal bills. Which is why many large platforms have supported ending 230.

rho138 5mo ago

Meta sits behind 230 to let the pedophile rings roll. https://time.com/7336204/meta-lawsuit-files-child-safety/ https://time.com/7336204/meta-lawsuit-files-child-safety/

hn_acker 5mo ago
Section 230 itself already does not apply to federal criminal investigations, including investigations of child sexual abuse. A social media company should not bear legal responsiblity to detect crimes before law enforcement does.
- carefulfungi 5mo ago
  Counterpoint - Businesses are generally liable in the physical world for harms caused on their premises by a foreseeable hazard. Whether as simple as a pothole in a parking lot that causes injury or an unstable shelf that collapses, … The major social media sites know absolutely that their products expose customers and users to predictable harm and cause real damages. They should bear an analogous liability burden as a business operating a physical location.
  - simoncion 5mo ago
    > They should bear an analogous liability burden as a business operating a physical location. Sounds great. Last I checked, most businesses don't have a legal obligation to police the conversations that happen on or around their premises.
    - carefulfungi 5mo ago
      In the case of Meta, X, et. al., the conversation is an integral part of the product. It isn't incidental "around their premises". You're also wrong though - a corporation is absolutely liable for threats and various types of verbal harassment that occurs within their walls. Thus the endless liability-offsetting mandatory training videos... Duty of care is well established.

ETH_start 5mo ago

Abolishing 230 means no free speech, anywhere. Speech would need to be restrained, vetted, and approved by a platform, before it could be shared. While much abusive speech can be blocked from being published with this sort of Prior Restraint, much more healthy, vital speech — that counters abuse — would be repressed by it, IMHO. See how litigation involving copyright law has been used by the Church of Scientology to silence critics, for example. The removal of 230 means platforms themselves could be targeted to efficiently censor large sections of the population. And the basic principle of Prior Restraint flies in the face of the presumption of innocence that underlies conduct in a Free Society.

fc417fc802 5mo ago
That's not true. It would stifle centralized platforms but it would not meaningfully impact those self hosting. So ActivityPub (ie self hosted Mastodon and similar) would be unaffected as would Bluesky with a self hosted PDS (IIUC). Further, paid hosting services for those would be unaffected for the same reason that we don't require section 230 to protect the car rental company if someone uses the vehicle to commit a crime. I'm not advocating to repeal section 230 but honestly all I'm seeing here is upsides.
- krapp 5mo ago
  >So ActivityPub (ie self hosted Mastodon and similar) would be unaffected as would Bluesky with a self hosted PDS (IIUC). Only as long as you don't allow third party comments or run a multi-user instance. Then you're just as legally liable for that content as the centralized platforms. >Further, paid hosting services for those would be unaffected for the same reason that we don't require section 230 to protect the car rental company if someone uses the vehicle to commit a crime. Mixed metaphors aside, Section 230 is the law that "protects the car rental company if someone uses the vehicle to commit a crime." If the car rental company is the platform, then prior to Section 230 (and after its repeal) they were and would be held responsible. Section 230 just establishes that the party posting content is liable for that content, just as the person using a vehicle to commit a crime is responsible for that crime.

jmyeet 5mo ago

I knew it. I've been saying this is going to become an issue for awhile eg [1][2]. For context Section 230 avoids strict liability for an "interactive computer service" hosting third-party content. For comparison, a first-party site (eg a media site) does have strict liability. Here's the problem and what (IMHO) will become a big issue: if you, as a platform, only push out content with a particular view, how is that any different to just publishing that view and thus being liable? Put another way: modern tech companies want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the protections from strict liability and, while hiding behind that shield of third-party content, they analyze the content of posts and they push or suppress posts based on the content. How is that any different to being a first-party publisher? Example: if 10,000 people write posts for or against South African apartheid and I suppress only those posts that argue against it, aren't I, in effect, publishing a pro-apartheid position? I think this is a landmine waiting to go off. Tech companies have successfully sold us on the idea that "the algorithm" is somehow agnostic or neutral. Nothing could be further from the truth, particularly with modern AI tools that can deeply classify posts based on their content, politics, etc. Meta's policy chief bragged about doing this [3]. People on HN seem to have this weird, third-rail stance on Section 230. It's nuanced. Legally, I think making algorithmic decisions based on content should be treated as a first-party act of publishing. And I believe courts are going to get there. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066527 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066527 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46148529 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46148529 [3]: https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palestine-censorship-sjp/ https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palesti...

pdonis 5mo ago
> Legally, I think making algorithmic decisions based on content should be treated as a first-party act of publishing. That was basically the direction the ruling in Anderson v. TikTok was pointing, yes? The question is going to be where you draw the line. For example, if HN's automated mechanisms make a post invisible (to anyone who doesn't have showdead enabled) after enough downvotes, is that "making algorithmic decisions based on content"? I don't think so, or at any rate I don't think it's at all the same as the kind of things the big tech giants do algorithmically. But the line needs to be carefully drawn.