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From: Techdirt
Content moderation is a can of worms. For Internet infrastructure intermediaries, it’s a can of worms that they are particularly poorly positioned to tackle. And yet Internet infrastructure elements are increasingly being called on to moderate content—content they may have very little insight into as it passes through their systems.
The vast majority of all content moderation happens on the “top” layer of the internet—such as social media and websites, places online that are the most visible to an average user. If a post violates a platform’s terms of service, the post is usually blocked or taken down. If a user continues to post content that violates a platform’s terms, then the user’s account is often suspended. These types of content moderation practices are increasingly understood by average Internet users.
Less often discussed or understood are the types of services facilitated via actors in the Internet ecosystem that both support and exist under the upper content layers of the Internet.
Many of these companies host content, supply cloud services, register domain names, provide web security, and many more features of what could be described as the plumbing services of the Internet. But instead of water and sewage, the Internet deals in digital information. In theory, these “infrastructure intermediaries” could moderate content, but for reasons of convention, legitimacy, and practicality they don’t usually do it on purpose.
However, some notable recent exemptions may be setting precedent.
Amazon Web Services removed Wikileaks from their system in 2010. Cloudflare kicked off the Daily Stormer. An Italian court ordered Cloudflare to remove a copyright infringing site. Amazon suspended hosting for Parler.
What does all this mean? Infrastructure may have the means to perform “content moderation,” but it is critical to consider the effects of this trend to prevent harming the Internet’s underlying architecture. In principle, Internet service providers, registries, cloud providers and other infrastructure intermediaries should be agnostic to the content which passes over their systems.
[...] Policymakers must consider the unintended impacts of content moderation proposals on infrastructure intermediaries. Legislating without due diligence to understand the impact on the unique role of these intermediaries could be detrimental to the success of the Internet, and an increasing portion of the global economy that relies on Internet infrastructure for daily life and work.
[...] Conducting impact assessments prior to regulation is one way to mitigate the risks. The Internet Society created the Internet Impact Assessment Toolkit to help policymakers and communities assess the implications of change—whether those are policy interventions or new technologies.
Policy changes that impact the different layers of the Internet are inevitable. But we must all ensure that these policies are well crafted and properly scoped to keep the Internet working and successful for everyone.
Austin Ruckstuhl is a Project & Policy Advisor at the Internet Society where he works on Internet impact assessments, defending encryption and supporting Community Networks as access solutions.
Should online content be controlled ? If yes, Is there a better way to censor online content and who should have the authority to do so ??
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @03:03PM (17 children)
I'm relatively conservative and I do not support censorship regulations. I'm horrified at what governments did to Wikileaks and also Bradly Manning because of the release of the Collateral Murder video and whatnot. Everyone makes Chelsea Manning out to be the bad guy but the government gets a pass for trying to hide such shenanigans.
I voted for George Bush Jr. twice and I deeply regretted it after seeing that video (I'm also upset he passed the (un)patriot(ic) act, disagree with water boarding and Guantanamo Bay and so many things that George Bush did that I disagree with that I'm not going to list here).
Don't equate the republican establishment with your average every day conservative.
While I disagree with Trump on some things as well I also think Biden is very horrible and corrupt and don't think the media is fair to Trump relative to Biden. When that drone strike in Afghanistan hit the wrong person/group had that been Trump in charge the media would have blown up and never stopped saying Trump is a murderer, Trump trump trump, blah blah blah but Biden almost gets a pass relative to Trump. It's very obvious and dishonest and people fall for it.
They're still trying to say Trump Trump Trump and finding something to blame him for (ie: for CIA Developed Plans to Kidnap or Kill Julian Assange, Per Report they keep mentioning Trump Trump Trump but when something bad happens under Biden they say nothing. Didn't Trump consider pardoning Assanage and Snowden at one time and it was the democrats that didn't want them pardoned and even threatened that pardoning them would increase their odds of impeachment? (though the Republicans in Congress also didn't want them pardoned either). I'm still disappointed in Trump for not actually pardoning these two and I predicted then that it's obvious Biden won't do it. At least one potential Biden supporter in the comments here said we'll see .... I'm still waiting. Biden is no better than Trump no matter how the media spins it, he won't pardon these two and so far I've been right).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @03:09PM
Increase Trump's odds of impeachment *
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 29 2021, @03:23PM (7 children)
Trump pledged to stop 'endless wars' but his airstrikes in Afghanistan increased civilian deaths by 330% since 2016 [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @03:30PM (5 children)
As I've mentioned before, I don't defend Trump on everything. I think there are many valid things to criticize him for and I didn't vote for him and wouldn't. I just don't like how the media is light on Biden but heavy on Trump and they often criticized Trump for the wrong reasons (ie: trying to call him a white supremacist because his father allegedly discriminated against people. When pointed out that Biden himself didn't want his son to enter a school that Biden called a 'mixed jungle' Biden supporters would turn around and say something like 'how long ago was that'. But Trump gets criticized for something that his father supposedly did a long time ago. It's the double standards that I'm tired of).
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @04:58PM (2 children)
Trump was objectively worse than Biden, and Biden sucks. I hear plenty of negative stiff about Biden, you're just a trumper trying the whole gaslight and project routine. Pretending you're objective and middle ground is just setting up favorable context for your narrative. Fuck. Off.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @06:37PM
"Trump was objectively worse than Biden"
For what? By which measure? What standards are you applying?
From where I'm sitting, Biden appears to have chosen his legacy to be making Trump look like a very stable genius adept at playing four-dimensional chess.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Wednesday September 29 2021, @07:14PM
Same here... on CNN, MSNBC, John Oliver..... you know, all those places that reputedly only bash Republicans and only put Democrats in the best light. It works a bit different when you want your political figure to represent you as opposed to cheerleading that individual through thick and thin.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @07:09PM (1 child)
I think the white supremist thing you could look at day 1 of his campaign: "Mexico is not sending its best..."
There are enough other instances, like the "Very fine people on both sides" and "stand back and stand by."
Not to mention his support of monuments to the confederate traitors.
We don't need to look all that far back, he kept on it all throughout.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 05 2021, @04:45PM
Why do you [Democrats / other TDS Sufferers] keep loping off the part where he specifically condemned White Supremacists right before that?
"we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence. It has no place in America."
"Well, I think the driver of the car is a disgrace to himself, his family, and this country. And that is -- you can call it terrorism. You can call it murder. You can call it whatever you want. I would just call it as the fastest one to come up with a good verdict. That’s what I’d call it. Because there is a question: Is it murder? Is it terrorism? And then you get into legal semantics. The driver of the car is a murderer. And what he did was a horrible, horrible, inexcusable thing."
https://www.politifact.com/article/2019/apr/26/context-trumps-very-fine-people-both-sides-remarks/ [politifact.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @01:24AM
Biden pledged to stop funding genocide in Syria. He's still funding it though.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Tork on Wednesday September 29 2021, @03:38PM (2 children)
How corrupt would you find Biden to be if he loses the next election and calls on his followers to take out Kamala before the swearing-in ceremony?
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @05:28AM (1 child)
Can you link to a call from Trump to take out Pence, or Pelosi, or any other individual? Was there an actual assassination attempt? Or, were there just a bunch of pissed off people disrupting a day's business? FFS, you guys have wild imaginations.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday October 01 2021, @03:16AM
Almost: https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/20/politics/trump-pence-election-memo/index.html [cnn.com]
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/09/man-threatened-shoot-pelosi-capitol-riot-guilty.html [slate.com]
https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/national-international/capitol-rioter-who-said-she-wanted-to-shoot-nancy-pelosi-pleads-guilty-to-misdemeanor/2624841/ [nbcchicago.com]
You'll argue, which is fine, but I'm gonna remind you that you said this: "I also think Biden is very horrible and corrupt", and since your news sources clearly ain't showing you any of this the "BuT TeH MeDiuH" argument isn't going to raise my hackles.
Competence is not a defense, the cops were there. And writing them off as "disrupting a days business" says a lot about how far away from my point you're trying to drag me. I was one of the people that watched this live as it happened, spare me the "it's your imagination" bullshit. You KNOW you had to spend a good deal more energy defending this crowd than anyone did criticizing them.
I answered your question, now it's your turn. Mine was a hypothetical so it doesn't matter if you agree with my response or not, you're on the hook. As a courtesy I'll quote it.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 29 2021, @03:53PM (2 children)
uhm ... off topic? I mention Snowden, Assanage, Bradly Manning, Wikileaks, all of that relates to Internet censorship and whatnot.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Wednesday September 29 2021, @04:16PM
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday September 29 2021, @04:30PM
Yes, offtopic.
The majority of your post is about the alleged persecution of Trump and even the tangentially related stuff like Manning has nothing to do with ISP's roles in content moderation.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 30 2021, @03:46AM
There are a bunch of things you can actually measure to draw some conclusions about which politicians are actually good at governing like:
- How many of their constituents are dying?
- How many are experiencing disabling injuries or illnesses?
- What is the change in the S&P 500 and other financial instruments?
- How many of their constituents who want to work are unable to get a job?
- How many of their constituents who want to work are unable to find work that makes use of their training?
- How much do their constituents get paid for work, on average?
- What are the reported profits of businesses in their jurisdiction?
- How frequent are various forms of crimes? How many people are killed or permanently disabled due to crime? How much financial loss is there due to crime?
- How many of people the politician hired were found guilty of criminal acts committed both before and during holding those positions?
- How much money did the government in question spend annually?
- How much of a surplus or deficit did the government in question have annually?
- How many of their constituents are in poverty (unable to pay for basic physical needs like food and housing)?
- How many of their constituents went bankrupt last year?
- How many government personnel under their control were killed or injured in the line of duty?
- What percentage of their constituents over age 12 are illiterate or innumerate?
I'm sure you can think of some more you might use.
How important each of those measurements is important to you is of course a matter of your own political priorities, and it's absolutely true that these measurements are going to be fuzzy and imperfect, but there are still very clear trends you can discover if you look into the numbers. Think of it this way: For any politician you have the power to vote for or against, you're one of their thousands of supervisors, and it's part of your job to evaluate their performance. As a competent supervisor, you don't only use metrics, but you sure as heck would look at them as a potential place to start your evaluation.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JustNiz on Friday October 01 2021, @12:57AM
What you don't seem to understand is that ALL governments are inherently corrupt. The USA is absolutely no different.
The system itself weeds out any politician that isn't primarily motivated by selfish greed. THis means anyone with actual principles (i.e. who would do the best job) will literally never get the chance.
The last thing any politicians want is to put someone in power that would actually clean house, because their own asses would be first up against the wall and they know it.