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posted by janrinok on Wednesday September 29 2021, @02:06PM   Printer-friendly

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 ??


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 30 2021, @03:06AM (5 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 30 2021, @03:06AM (#1183015)

    How many startups run their own infrastructure down to the fibers?

    Several organizations I've worked for have run their own infrastructure from the monopolistic ISP connection on back to the servers and racks and wiring. And the ISP is under common carrier-like regulations, so they shouldn't be able to legally stop you based solely on the content you're putting out there (and based on some of the stuff these companies were hosting, I can assure you they really don't care unless they have a very very good reason). If you have a good locally-located data center who is willing to work with you, or enough capital to build a data center of your own, that certainly helps, but for small-scale startups you can not-totally-infrequently find what amount to glorified closets somewhere in their office space with a rack of servers and a front-facing router / firewall that also handles the usual office traffic.

    Is it harder? Yes - you'll need a bit more in-house admin skill to run it since your admins will have to handle physical layouts and network topography in a way they didn't really have to when the cloud provider was doing that for them. Is it more expensive? Probably yes, at least up-front, but that may be offset by lower ongoing costs since you're getting fewer services from an outsourced provider, and it's definitely not so much of a cost that you can't do it for something like $25K to get started.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 30 2021, @05:11AM (2 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 30 2021, @05:11AM (#1183030) Journal

    but for small-scale startups

    Thanks for the encouragement. But, what we need is not a set of tin cans with strings, we need a monster public address system that can broadcast as loudly as the progressives.

    • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday September 30 2021, @01:51PM (1 child)

      by Thexalon (636) on Thursday September 30 2021, @01:51PM (#1183099)

      So what you're saying is: "I don't want to do the work to build my own monster public address system, so instead I want to force other people to let me use theirs." Got it. Never mind that conservative viewpoints also already have a bunch of public address systems already, from Fox to OAN to Sinclair Broadcast Group to many other outlets.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday September 30 2021, @08:07PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 30 2021, @08:07PM (#1183177) Journal

        I said no such thing. I've pointed out that the bar for entry is high. I might even say that it is astronomically high. Maybe I should ask over on Gab how many dollars has changed hands to get where they are now. A billionaire might not miss that money, but regular people won't accumulate that kind of money in 10 lifetimes.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @05:13AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 30 2021, @05:13AM (#1183032)

    So, more than 25k is the price of free speech in a modern context?

    Just step back and think about this. Really hard. Think really, really hard.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 03 2021, @07:37AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 03 2021, @07:37AM (#1183853)

      You'll be shocked to know how expensive a printing press was in 1776.