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from the to-censor-or-not-to-censor,-that-is-the-question dept.
The DOJ is proposing scaling back protections for large social media companies outlined in The 1996 Communications Decency Act. In section 230 of the act it states
no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
This has protected the platforms from liability over user-generated content through the years and enabled the incredible growth of social media. An executive order signed last month directed the FCC to review whether social media companies "actions to remove, edit or supplement users' content" invalidated the protections they enjoyed from liability. It seems we have an answer:
In a press release, the Justice Department said that the past 25 years of technological change "left online platforms unaccountable for a variety of harms flowing from content on their platforms and with virtually unfettered discretion to censor third-party content with little transparency or accountability."
The new rules will be aimed at "incentivizing platforms to address the growing amount of illicit content online," the department said; the revisions will also "promote free and open discourse online," "increase the ability of the government to protect citizens from unlawful conduct," and promote competition among Internet companies.
In announcing the [requested] changes to the 26-year-old rules on Wednesday, Attorney General William Barr said: "When it comes to issues of public safety, the government is the one who must act on behalf of society at large."
"Law enforcement cannot delegate our obligations to protect the safety of the American people purely to the judgment of profit-seeking private firms. We must shape the incentives for companies to create a safer environment, which is what Section 230 was originally intended to do," he said.
The full review of section 230 by the DOJ is available here. Key Takeaways and Recommendations are here.
Also at: Justice Department proposes major overhaul of Sec. 230 protections
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Thursday June 18 2020, @04:49PM (23 children)
If they have started to moderate content, censor something -- promoting other things, then they are a publisher and should have publisher rights and responsibilities. I fail to see how that should be somewhat controversial. If they don't want those things then stop moderating content to suit their various agendas. Having it both ways was clearly not intended and it would seem obvious that they have abused the system. Time to "man" up and take some responsibility -- or some other gender neutral all including phrase.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:00PM (1 child)
What about the case where media outlets have been forced to remove their comment section because otherwise Google would demonitize / shadow ban their web site?
They have avoided the moderation question by just removing the comment section entirely, but I am greatly opposed to an internet oligarchy having the power to chill free speech.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:20PM
While similar I'm not sure it's the same thing here. It speaks more to the matter how powerful Google, or others -- after all they are not the only one that does this, is or have become -- they de facto are the internet as far as, probably, large amounts of people think.
I don't think this is about removing "illegal" content, even tho sometimes I'm left to wonder, but more about that they are both trying to push agendas but at the same time doesn't want to have the responsibilities of say what a newspaper have. There is someone there responsible for the content they put out while Google, and others, have shifted that entire responsibility onto the user while they so to speak take zero risks but all the rewards themselves. So they want all the protections afforded to other publishers but they want non of the responsibilities that comes along with it.
The Internet monopoly of say Google, Facebook and a few other companies are a related matter but I'm not sure it's the matter at hand. But it's troublesome that so much power has been handed to a very few. That then can, have and will use that power to suit their needs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:20PM (4 children)
Soylent News censors aristarchus articles and promotes DeathMonkey articles. Should they be legally responsible when some AC posts something illegal?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:28PM (1 child)
I think that has more to do with the content then anything else. If I wanted to read all of Aristarchus nazi-fantasies then I would, and I do admit that I usually read some of them and other content in the sub-queue even (or before) it gets rejected and not make it to the front page.
Should SN be responsible if some AC post something illegal? Are they not already? If some AC here would start to post illegal things I'm fairly sure they have a responsibility to remove it. They might not have a lot of information to go on if say some law enforcement agency came knocking -- or just how anonymous is anonymous really? Say if someone would start to link in (or post images -- if that becomes a thing) of child pornography or if they start to post death threats to the President. I guess that sooner or later they would then get a call or a knock on the door from say the Secret Service or similar. So I guess they have some responsibility by offering up the ability for people to post things, perhaps even beyond what would be considered normal human decency.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:30PM
Soylent News is protected by section 230 just like Twitter is....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:31PM (1 child)
Yes. But there's one word missing from the USian sense of justice: "proportionality".
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:43PM
Is that where you think different standards should apply to websites whose editorial choices you agree with?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:49PM (13 children)
I strongly disagree.
All platforms, whether publishers or not, should have Section 230 protection. No platform, even platforms that I don't like, should be liable for content written and posted by others. Even if that platform doesn't happen to discover that objectionable content and thus fails to remove it.
Try these two items on for size:
0. I think FoxNews should not be responsible for the things that others say on their platform. The author of those words should be responsible.
1. I think CNN should not be responsible for the things that others say on their platform. The author of those words should be responsible.
2. I think SoylentNews should not be responsible for the things that others say on their platform. The author of those words should be responsible.
Whether or not the platform tries to exercise control, they should not be responsible for someone else's words.
Why should you be responsible for my misspelled words if I managed to slip them onto your site somewhere?
All that said, if a site tries to exercise editorial control, or express a viewpoint, that is unrelated to being responsible for someone else's words. Just because you have a view point should not make you responsible for my words.
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(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @05:58PM (7 children)
Conservatives seem to trust that only #1 will be acted on.
Somehow the fact that they're granting these powers to the next Democratic administration hasn't crossed their minds.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:43PM (6 children)
That is because liberals do not actually persecute them beyond their weird victim fantasies. They don't live in actual fear, therefore they don't actually worry about such things.
Their meltdowns over Black Lives Matter and people getting fired because they publicly post hateful ideologies is clear evidence of their fragile over privileged egos.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:55PM (5 children)
I have seen more people fired, attacked, beaten, shot at, deplatformed, unable to conduct business, etc for having conservative opinion.
The same does not happen when espousing BLM or other leftist mantras. Those mantras are praised by corporations and media. Leftism is the establishment.
I would be more afraid of wearing a MAGA hat in any leftist city than prancing around in the most obscene LGBT outfit burning a bible in a conservative town.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @10:04PM
That is just plain out and out lying. What bullshit, you poor pick on drunken little white bois.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday June 18 2020, @11:26PM (2 children)
All of the extremist killings in the US in 2018 had links to right-wing extremism, according to new report [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @06:48AM
Dude, that paper is literally referencing the ADL. The ADL not only lack any meaningful definition of any sort of extremism other than "right wing extremism" but also define it in the loosest possible terms. That will be most clearly emphasized this year. Right now there are tons of people being severely injured, some killed, by people rioting about a far left agenda. This is, without doubt, the most clear example of far left extremism you could get. Watch, the ADL will attribute 0 or near 0 events to it. This is the problem with organizations that become overtly political, especially when they once had a powerful reputation. People who identify with their new partisanship still cling onto their old image while the rest of the world sees them for the partisan ranters that they have become.
E.g. the Hugo award is another example along the exact same lines. It used to be, by a wide margin, the most prestigious award in sci-fi. Now it's become mostly meaningless since the award is geared not based around what it should be (writing good sci fi) but instead pushing a certain political agenda. People who identify with that agenda pretend it still means something while everybody else knows a Huge Award now means 'avoid'. Check out the reader reviews [amazon.com] for the 2019 winner. It's just a more quantifiable version of the exact thing that's happened to the ADL.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @07:02AM
I think there's a more succinct issue than the one advocated in a peer post.
People who murder others are generally not nice people. They tend to say bad things. This [wikipedia.org] is a list of all mass shootings in 2018. You might notice that the vast majority of these shootings are being carried out by folks who vote for the DNC, to put it one way. And indeed if you dug through their social media posts and tried to find any and all information you could find about them - you'd probably find something political with them making some nasty comments about some group or another - probably those that lean in the opposite political direction. And that's the standard by which organizations such as the ADL now define "far right extremism."
Yet if you applied the same standard to all shootings, you'd find "far left extremism" would be, by a landslide dominant. Heck even just the music that most of the shooters listen to would qualify, based upon the lyrics, as "extremist media" if held to the same standard as "far right extremism." It's all dumb and pointless.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @10:39AM
Well, that is just because they deserved it. Not too bright, are we?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:15PM (3 children)
I agree that not holding a site liable for other peoples words is what we want - they should let other people speak without fears of liability for the other person's speech.
Similarly if someone publishes their own speech they should be liable for that.
Its the new messy business of injecting / wrapping / flagging other's speech that opens the proverbial can of worms. Once the content has been modified its no longer the authors and some "editing" or "editorial control" has been exerted and opens the site up to liability. There's also the ugly fact that selectively exerting editorial control can be seen as editorializing itself and probably cannot be done without becoming liable for everything posted.
IOW, there doesn't seem to be a way for a "non-publishing platform" to say "content in this post may be moronic" without implying the inverse on everything not marked that way - and effectively adding editorial remarks on all of it.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 18 2020, @07:10PM (2 children)
If a platform has a point of view (whether I like it or not), and if that platform exercised editorial control, they still should enjoy Section 230 protections.
Section 230 protections should simply exist universally. Period.
Whether or not a site has an opinion. Anything else is simply wanting to punish (some) platforms (that you don't like) by using Section 230 as a club by threatening to take that safety away. (But not take it away from the sites you like, oh no!)
Why oh why can people not think about what happens when the other people have power, or when the shoe is on the other foot?
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @08:15PM (1 child)
So if I post "I agree with DannyB" and the site edits it to say "I agree with DannyB - <something legitimately libelous>" that sort of editorial control is fine without the site assuming responsibility for the libelous content they edited into the post?
I am not advocating selective enforcement of 230, merely that the site should keep its hand off the user content that its hosting with those protections. It can still remove/flag/block things as long as its done objectively and openly.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday June 19 2020, @01:44PM
If the site adds its own words, then those changes are the responsibility of the site. That seems simple and obvious enough. That has nothing to do with Section 230 which is about protecting sites from the words users write.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @07:21PM
I agree with this. i have a site that is focused on one business process with forums and other posting opportunities for users. I want to exercise editorial control in the sense that i want to warn/ban users or edit/delete posts that are off topic, harassing, etc but i don't want to then be forced to then be responsible for whatever crazy shit some trolls post as a digital swatting. This is just common sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 19 2020, @01:38AM
Pedophiles, rejoice, your KP won't be deleted nomore.
(Score: 2) by dry on Sunday June 21 2020, @07:02PM
Can you show where the law says that the tea pot forum can't ban off topic posts?