SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the it-only-works-until-it-is-killed dept.
The Recorder reports on efforts to weaken Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act:
[...] §230 has proven to be one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet. In the past two decades, we've (EFF) filed well over 20 legal briefs in support of §230, probably more than on any other issue, in response to attempts to undermine or sneak around the statute. Thankfully, most of these attempts were unsuccessful.
[...] The first wave of attacks on §230's protections came from plaintiffs who tried to plead around §230 in an attempt to force intermediaries to take down online speech they didn't like.
[...] The second wave of attacks came from plaintiffs trying to deny §230 protection to ordinary users who reposted content authored by others
[...] Another wave of attacks, also in the mid-2000s, came as plaintiffs tried to use the Fair Housing Act to hold intermediaries responsible when users posted housing advertisements that violated the law.
[...] We are now squarely in the middle of a fourth wave of attack—efforts to hold intermediaries responsible for extremist or illegal online content. The goal, again, seems to be forcing intermediaries to actively screen users and censor speech. Many of these efforts are motivated by noble intentions, and the speech at issue is often horrible, but these efforts also risk devastating the Internet as we know it.
[...] the current attacks are unfortunately not only in the courts. The more dangerous threats are in Congress. Both the House and Senate are considering bills that would exempt charges under federal and state criminal and civil laws related to sex trafficking from §230's protections—the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act (S. 1693) (SESTA) in the Senate, and the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (H.R. 1865) in the House. While the legislators backing these laws are largely well meaning, and while these laws are presented as targeting commercial classified ads websites like Backpage.com, they don't stop there. Instead, SESTA and its house counterpart punish small businesses that just want to run a forum where people can connect and communicate. They will have disastrous consequences for community bulletin boards and comment sections, without making a dent in sex trafficking. In fact, it is already a federal criminal offense for a website to run ads that support sex trafficking, and §230 doesn't protect against prosecutions for violations of federal criminal laws.
Ultimately, SESTA and its house counterpart would impact all platforms that host user speech, big and small, commercial and noncommercial. [...] Under these bills, if any of this user-generated content somehow related to sex trafficking, even without the platform's knowledge, the platform could be held liable.
Also posted on EFF's website.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @12:57PM (4 children)
IANAL but I find it surprising there are references to some random act I never heard about instead of just saying it's constitutionally guaranteed.
Double legislation is madness and nazi hate speech disgusting.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bradley13 on Sunday November 19 2017, @01:18PM (1 child)
There's nothing here that is constitutionally guaranteed. It's about this: You allow comments on your website, or run a forum. Someone posts something illegal. You don't delete the illegal content, maybe because you didn't ever see it. You go to jail.
The legislation in question says: If you're just providing a platform for other people to post content, you cannot be held legally liable for what those other people say. This is essential, because otherwise no one would ever want to risk providing such a platform. Or, at least, only the really big companies that can afford armies of moderators, and armies of lawyers to defend themselves.
This latest example is typical. Take an emotional issue ("it's for the children") as a wedge, to take away protections and/or rights. Whether Congress is being naive (likely), or whether Congress is being paid to do this by the established players (more likely) - either way, this is something you desperately do not want to happen.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @04:03PM
Sounds unconstitutional to me. It could easily be argued that this would result in no one wanting to accept user-generated speech, which would be qualify as a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Sunday November 19 2017, @05:42PM (1 child)
More than likely you have heard of it. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act [wikipedia.org]
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday November 19 2017, @07:15PM
Bad and old law signed by Bill Clinton, before we had ISIS. Before anyone heard of the Internet. Before anyone knew about that Internet. We're losing a lot of people because of the Internet.
Look at what happened in California. No guns. We didn't have guns, the bad guys had the guns. And these young people -- and I tell the press, you gotta stop calling them masterminds, these are dirty rotten scum. These aren't masterminds. Remember the guy in Paris with the big dirty hat? Remember the guy in Paris? The mastermind. I was watching all the networks, I won't mention who but some of them disgusted me. The mastermind is on the loose, the mastermind. And we have kids that are watching the Internet and they want to be masterminds. And then you wonder why do we lose all of these kids? They go over there and they're young and they're impressionable. They go over there and want to join ISIS.
And we have our anchors, I think I got them mostly stopped, did you notice that? I don't hear it too much. But they say, the young mastermind. Ohhh, he's brilliant! Oh man, he's brilliant. I don't even think he's got a high IQ. I call him, in Paris I called him the guy with the dirty filthy hat. OK. Not a smart guy, a dummy. Puts people in there, mastermind. Bing, bing, bing, they start shooting everybody. You gotta be a mastermind. So the press has to be responsible. They're not being responsible. Because we're losing a lot of people because of the Internet and we have to do something. We have to go see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them about maybe in certain areas closing that Internet up in some way. SESTA and the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act are a great start for that. They're a great beginning. They let us go after the pimping sites. Many of which are Islamic, or Islamist. And the beauty of the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act is it won't cost our federal government anything. It leaves the prosecution up to the states. Let them pay, our federal government is bankrupt. Somebody will say, "oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech." These are foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people. We have a lot of foolish people.
We've got to maybe do something with the Internet because they are recruiting by the thousands. They're leaving our country and then when they come back we take them back. Oh, come on back. Where were you? I was fighting for ISIS. Oh, come on back, go home, enjoy yourself. When they leave our country and they go to fight for ISIS or any of the other groups they never come back. They never can come back. They never can come back. They can never, ever, ever, ever come back. It's over. How about that? And now they've become radicalized, they're totally radicalized. And how about the woman? She was in Pakistan and then Saudi Arabia. She brings, she comes in on an engagement deal and she radicalized the guy. Probably the guy couldn't get women. I don't know what the hell his problem is. No game, a loser virgin. So he goes to an ISIS pimping site and orders a woman. It's probably the first woman he's ever had, I don't know what was going on. But he became radicalized quickly. Notice how easy it is? He becomes radicalized and then they go on a spree. We need a good shutdown.