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.
Related Stories
Cannabis website to California: Section 230 protects us from your demands
A popular cannabis community website, Weedmaps, which features ads and other listings related to marijuana businesses across the Golden State, has invoked a federal law as a way to stave off the ire of California's cannabis authorities.
Last month, the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the state entity that oversees California's newly legal recreational marijuana market, sent a letter to Weedmaps last month, saying that because the website allows ads for companies that are not officially licensed by the state, it is in violation of state law. (The spat was first reported by The Sacramento Bee.)
On Monday, Weedmaps executives responded with their own letter, saying that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that removes liability of a website for the actions of its users, acts as its shield. Digital rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation have argued that Section 230 is what protects the Web as a whole—publishers don't have to worry about being sued if one of their users is accused of violating the law.
A revision of the law is currently being proposed with the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, which, according to the EFF, would "punch a hole" in Section 230. The new bill is aimed squarely at Backpage, a notorious website that continues to allow prostitution advertisements.
Related: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - 20 Years of Protecting Intermediaries
Notorious website backpage.com has been seized according to NY Daily News.
Sex ads platform Backpage.com was seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation Friday hours after its founder's Phoenix home was raided.
Visitors to the site landed on a notice from the federal government announcing its seizure.
"Backpage.com and affiliated websites have been seized as part of an enforcement action by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division, with analytical assistance from the Joint Regional Intelligence Center," the announcement read.
Founder's home also raided by the FBI Friday morning.
U.S. Government Seizes backpage.com
The FBI, Justice Department, and other agencies have seized backpage.com, and one of the co-founders had their home raided:
US Senate to issue subpoenas for Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Sundar Pichai:
The US Senate's Commerce committee on Thursday voted unanimously on a bipartisan basis to issue subpoenas to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Google's Sundar Pichai, as Congress considers changes to liability protections granted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
The three tech CEOs would appear before the committee as witnesses, but the date of the hearing hasn't been determined.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, from Washington and the leading Democrat on the committee, initially opposed the subpoena, which had been introduced by Chairman Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi. But Cantwell changed her position after Republicans included language in the subpoena regarding privacy and "media domination."
"There is a lot we want to talk to tech platforms about, like privacy and anti-competitive media practices," she said in a statement. "I thank the Chairman for broadening the subpoena to cover these issues."
She went on to say that "Section 230 deserves a serious thoughtful discussion. But the hearing should not be used to try to have a chilling effect on social media platforms who are taking down false COVID information or hate speech."
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Sunday November 19 2017, @11:27AM
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/11/20-years-protecting-intermediaries-legacy-zeran-remains-critical-protection [eff.org]
Yes, I screwed up the link to the article on the EFF's site. The story is exactly the same but may be preferred by some.
Maybe there should be a warning to double check URL's when submitting stories. ;)
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 19 2017, @02:14PM (1 child)
The FCC and a boatload of intermediaries are working to get rid of internet neutrality. Any intermediary that charges to push preferred content, and at the same time slows down non-preferred content is going to open themselves to a world of hurt.
Basically, they've asked to become the internet police, and when they are held to that agreement, they won't be very happy. The old adage that responsibility comes with authority, and authority comes with responsibility is going to bite them all in the ass. "But, oh no, we just wanted the PRIVILEGES, we didn't agree to be responsible!!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @04:50PM
It's not the same people. The ISP's want to charge extra for high speed 'preferred content' but you can bet that they are not going to be moderating that content.
They will just charge the websites that want to supply fast content (and probably the end users who download it).
They will have a pretty good argument that they are still common carriers, they just have two (or more) tiers of service.
The companies supplying 'preferred content' wil be legally distinct from the carriers (and they probably wont allow user content anyway).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 19 2017, @07:21PM (1 child)
Call it something like:
"Stupid shit that's possible because IP as a protocol is fundamentally centralised in its application."
The moment that we fix that single issue, so much of this crap just falls by the wayside, including the vast majority of net neutrality concerns, regulatory interference and freedom of speech concerns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 20 2017, @04:20AM
I'm not a librarian, so a lot of the technical details are over my head, but I use the services of the global library network quite frequently. The first branch libraries were open by 2033. They were started by HAM radio operators during the year of hell as a news service, but they came to be known as libraries due to the amount of disjointed, salvaged information to which they provide free, digital access.
I understand that the underlying protocol is fundamentally decentralized. Communications between branches are slower than was possible at the height of current technology, but a mistake we never intend to repeat is the centralization of information.
Centralization implies control. Men with power gravitate towards the levers of control.