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posted by martyb on Friday March 23 2018, @01:25PM   Printer-friendly
from the The-best-laid-schemes-o'-mice-an'-men-[an'-Congress]-Gang-aft-agley dept.

In Passing SESTA/FOSTA, Lawmakers Failed to Separate Their Good Intentions from Bad Law

The U.S. Senate just voted 97-2 to pass the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865), a bill that silences online speech by forcing Internet platforms to censor their users. As lobbyists and members of Congress applaud themselves for enacting a law tackling the problem of trafficking, let's be clear: Congress just made trafficking victims less safe, not more.

The version of FOSTA that just passed the Senate combined an earlier version of FOSTA (what we call FOSTA 2.0) with the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA, S. 1693). The history of SESTA/FOSTA—a bad bill that turned into a worse bill and then was rushed through votes in both houses of Congress—is a story about Congress' failure to see that its good intentions can result in bad law. It's a story of Congress' failure to listen to the constituents who'd be most affected by the laws it passed. It's also the story of some players in the tech sector choosing to settle for compromises and half-wins that will put ordinary people in danger.

[...] Throughout the SESTA/FOSTA debate, the bills' proponents provided little to no evidence that increased platform liability would do anything to reduce trafficking. On the other hand, the bills' opponents have presented a great deal of evidence that shutting down platforms where sexual services are advertised exposes trafficking victims to more danger.

Freedom Network USA—the largest national network of organizations working to reduce trafficking in their communities—spoke out early to express grave concerns [.pdf] that removing sexual ads from the Internet would also remove the best chance trafficking victims had of being found and helped by organizations like theirs as well as law enforcement agencies.


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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by LVDOVICVS on Friday March 23 2018, @06:44PM (16 children)

    by LVDOVICVS (6131) on Friday March 23 2018, @06:44PM (#657210)

    Gun manufacturers are still free to make their guns as deadly as possible with no responsibility whatsoever.

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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by insanumingenium on Friday March 23 2018, @07:04PM (13 children)

    by insanumingenium (4824) on Friday March 23 2018, @07:04PM (#657224) Journal

    What use is a gun that isn't deadly? Would you use a car that didn't go anywhere fast? Their responsibility is EXACTLY to make their guns deadly to anything on the wrong end of them. Your rhetoric doesn't make the first bit of sense.

    • (Score: 2) by LVDOVICVS on Friday March 23 2018, @07:20PM (3 children)

      by LVDOVICVS (6131) on Friday March 23 2018, @07:20PM (#657234)

      It's ok to make a sell a machine purpose-built for killing, and there is no responsibility for that machine's use to be monitored for legal compliance, how can a website owner be held liable when their site is misused.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:08AM (2 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:08AM (#657323)

        Website owners should not be held liable when their sites are misused, and gun manufacturers should not be held liable when their guns are misused. This law is just unconstitutional; don't use it as an excuse to justify more authoritarian nonsense.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:49AM (1 child)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:49AM (#657335)

          I don't think he's doing any such thing, he's pointing out the hypocrisy. Republicans (and apparently a bunch of Democrats too) will happily vote to make websites responsible for all the ways they're used, but they'll absolutely refuse to make gun manufacturers responsible for all the ways their products are used.

          I think it should be fairly obvious (except maybe to politicians) that companies/sellers can't realistically be held responsible for how their products or services are used in all cases. Maybe to a certain limited extent, but only some: it just isn't feasible for a gunmaker to keep track of where their products are, and keep them from being misused, just like it isn't feasible for an automaker to prevent their car from being misused. Same goes for websites, to a large extent. A message board can't be expected to police every single message there and proactively make sure "bad" ones aren't posted; it'd require far too much manpower. We don't require that of real-life messageboards, like those you see on college campuses where people (used to?) post things for sale, post road trips they were taking to find paying passengers, etc.

          The OP is probably making this point because on the other side of the aisle, the Dems for a while were trying to pass a law holding gunmakers responsible for misuse of their products, which of course the Reps opposed. But here, because it's about sex, the Reps are perfectly happy to pass a ridiculous law that works the same way.

          • (Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday March 26 2018, @04:04PM

            by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us (6553) on Monday March 26 2018, @04:04PM (#658493) Journal

            We don't require that of real-life messageboards, like those you see on college campuses where people (used to?) post things for sale, post road trips they were taking to find paying passengers, etc.

            On the last three campuses I attended two had only items which were approved by administration were allowed to be posted, and the boards were policed to make sure any items without the proper stamp were removed. One allowed anyone to put it up if it had the stamp, the other had the same staff who policed them put up new announcements (you had to turn the copy to be posted in). The third campus didn't have that system at all. One campus I visit now (but don't attend) has a bulletin board in the lobby of the library that is completely open.

            We haven't required it of real-life messageboards through now, or rather the policy has been, "if you show you've taken action to police them you are responsible. If not then you are not." It doesn't mean it cannot be done, and needn't be cost prohibitive if you use volunteer moderators to do so. One could carve out an exception that good faith attempts to do so are sufficient, so that if a bad post gets past a volunteer mod there is still no harm.

            --
            This sig for rent.
    • (Score: 2, Disagree) by VanessaE on Friday March 23 2018, @10:17PM (8 children)

      by VanessaE (3396) <vanessa.e.dannenberg@gmail.com> on Friday March 23 2018, @10:17PM (#657280) Journal

      We're going offtopic here, but if you measure "deadly" by standard issue magazine capacity and maximum firing rate (unmodified) -- in other words, the number of ended lives, total and per unit of time -- then there obviously needs to be a limit to what a person is allowed to own or carry. Any reasonable person should be able to see that.

      There's nothing inherently wrong with a simple lever- or pump-action shotgun or hunting rifle that only holds half a dozen rounds and has to be reloaded one shell at a time. Hell, the pump-action sound, alone, is enough to scare off most would-be assailants (of course we all know the rule, don't cock it if you aren't prepared to kill).

      If you're not in the military or law enforcement and actively serving, with a good record, reputation, and background, there's everything in the world wrong with being allowed to wield a firearm, of any classification or style, that makes it easy to take a dozen lives in a minute, reload in a few seconds (new already-full magazine), take another dozen lives, and keep repeating for as long as time and ammo allow. NO ONE outside of those categories needs that kind of firepower (and some could reasonably argue that law enforcement doesn't need it, either).

      A 17-round Glock is a hell of a lot deadlier, by the above metric, than my 6-round shotgun.

      • (Score: 2) by LVDOVICVS on Friday March 23 2018, @10:23PM (5 children)

        by LVDOVICVS (6131) on Friday March 23 2018, @10:23PM (#657284)

        The comparison I'm trying to get at is guns versus websites. No one has ever been directly killed by a website. Yet they, the website owners, are being held to a higher level of liability than those who sell or make guns.

        • (Score: 2) by VanessaE on Friday March 23 2018, @11:23PM

          by VanessaE (3396) <vanessa.e.dannenberg@gmail.com> on Friday March 23 2018, @11:23PM (#657307) Journal

          A fair comparison. My point stands, though.

        • (Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:44AM (3 children)

          by insanumingenium (4824) on Sunday March 25 2018, @03:44AM (#657780) Journal
          Guns are dangerous by design, if they weren't they wouldn't be useful. Why would you be liable for making a tool that does exactly what it is supposed to?

          If I thought this really warranted it, I might add that people have been killed by a website just as directly as most people are killed by guns. The silk road fell when the owner tried to hire a hitman, I am sure I could find cases where the attempt was successful. The vast majority of people are not bludgeoned to death with guns directly. Gunshot wounds tend to be far more effective. In either case, there is a human using a tool.

          That isn't to say that I think websites should be liable for the content posted by their users, just that your comparison is fundamentally flawed.
          • (Score: 2) by LVDOVICVS on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:12AM (2 children)

            by LVDOVICVS (6131) on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:12AM (#657785)

            The gun manufacturer and website owner both produce a product that can be used legally or illegally. How can it be justifiable to hold one of those two responsible for their product's use, while the other should remain free from all liability?

            As for your claim that "people have been killed by a website," this is just preposterous on the face of it and requires no further comment. However, let me assure you that "death by website" will only ever be written this one time I just wrote it now. And still, no one actually was killed.

            • (Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:52AM (1 child)

              by insanumingenium (4824) on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:52AM (#657795) Journal
              I wish it were ridiculous.

              Unfortunately [fbi.gov] it [theguardian.com] isn't [cnn.com] rediculous [independent.co.uk] at [telegraph.co.uk] all. [dailymail.co.uk]

              Sorry, I am too lazy to filter through to find better sources, you get the idea.

              I think I have been fairly clear that I don't agree that either product's manufacturer/provider should be liable for the way they are used by third parties. My point was never that they should be, but that the comparison was ill considered. A gun is designed to kill, the websites this is going to censor, like craigslist, aren't. I also don't think this law will have its desired effect, but that doesn't seem to be the subject here.

              A gun that has a design defect and goes off when it shouldn't absolutely does carry liability, and that is about the only example you could supply of a gun directly killing a person any more than a website has, though there have been some near misses there too [theguardian.com]. In either case you seem to be discussing intentional usage, so I have been ignoring these cases.
              • (Score: 2) by LVDOVICVS on Sunday March 25 2018, @05:24AM

                by LVDOVICVS (6131) on Sunday March 25 2018, @05:24AM (#657798)

                Words don't cause death from physical trauma and blood loss, guns do. If you choose to twist your thinking in knots to try to believe the contrary, that's your choice.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:35AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 24 2018, @12:35AM (#657333)

        obviously needs to be a limit to what a person is allowed to own or carry.

        It's so obvious you couldn't be bothered to explain it?

        You make a case* for why it's not useful to carry dozens of rounds for self-defense, but you never explained why there should be a law not only against carrying, but even owning, a magazine with more rounds than is useful. I don't see anything obvious about the idea that owning a drum mag for plinking is harmful at all, let alone so harmful that it justifies forcibly dragging me to jail.

        *not a particularly good one, as you don't address that people aren't perfect shots to begin with and get worse in stressful situations -- while many assailants flee at any gunfire, hit or miss, in the cases where they take cover and a literal gunfight ensues, it's quite possible to spend a dozen potentially lethal rounds to get one lethal hit.

      • (Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:18AM

        by insanumingenium (4824) on Sunday March 25 2018, @04:18AM (#657788) Journal
        You are right, we are well in the sticks as far as being offtopic.

        Magazine capacity and firing rate are poor predictors of lethality.

        I don't find the need for a limit obvious, rather I find it obvious that there weren't intended to be such limits.

        Would you stage a rebellion with nothing but your pump shotgun? I know I would want better tools for that job. And that is the explicit reason for the second amendment. The men who wrote those words and ratified the bill of rights had literally just finished an armed rebellion against their government, and they acknowledged that their heirs might have to repeat that abjectly stupid and bloody process in the future.

        The founding fathers did not intend for all martial power to rest in the government, not in the military, not in the police. To state otherwise suggests an incredible misunderstanding of American history and government.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @10:36PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @10:36PM (#657289)

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence [wikipedia.org]

    One is protected by one of the highest laws in the land. The other is not. I think you can figure it out.

    • (Score: 2) by LVDOVICVS on Friday March 23 2018, @11:49PM

      by LVDOVICVS (6131) on Friday March 23 2018, @11:49PM (#657314)

      I think you can figure out that the right to bear arms is listed second after the right to free speech.