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from the glad-we-are-not-hosted-down-under dept.
CNN shut down its Facebook page in Australia after court liability ruling:
CNN shut down its Facebook page in Australia on Wednesday, after an Australian court ruled that media outlets are liable for defamatory user-generated comments.
[...] The deteriorating effects of the court's ruling on online speech in Australia serve as a warning of what's to come if U.S. lawmakers succeed in their efforts to weakening protections against such legal decisions in the United States.
[...] The court's ruling previews the grim future in store if U.S. politicians get their way and dismantle Section 230, the keystone U.S. law that shields websites from liability over user-generated content. Without it, social media platforms and any other website with user-generated content—especially those without Facebook's deep pockets—would likely die. Both Republicans and Democrats, President Joe Biden included, would like it dismantled.
Should the person doing the defaming be liable, or the owner of the page the defamation is posted on be liable?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Username on Friday October 01 2021, @10:22AM (20 children)
Just need a law like:
Websites that censor content will be liable for all content, since they've proven they have the means to censor, and consider content dangerous enough to be removed. They are being authoritative, removing agency from the user, and are taking responsibility for that user. Websites that cannot, or do not censor content will not be liable for content. Since they do not think it is dangerous, or do not have the means. The user themselves are in control, the user is liable.
So, if you want control over people, you need to take responsibility for those people. If you don't want control, it's not on you, it's on the people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01 2021, @11:46AM (2 children)
providing the platform makes you involved.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01 2021, @12:36PM (1 child)
Does providing food and water make you involved too?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 02 2021, @12:26PM
you got me reading damnit. now iagree with further up that a publisher enacting any level of censorship is an editorial voice and should be liable, whereas the original author is on hook forvast majority blame. just howthat amplification of a party like facebook especially when actively (ai) pushing a statement, is a new world or perhaps bringing a publisher back to editor or even author status.
see also http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2012/449.html [bailii.org]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stretch611 on Friday October 01 2021, @11:55AM (7 children)
So does moderation here on SN count as censorship? Way to involve everyone on this site with mod points. And before you say yes or no, remember you do not decide this but 12 people who may not even understand the internet decide at a trial.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 01 2021, @12:16PM
I was wondering when SN would get dragged into this.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01 2021, @01:48PM (5 children)
How that? Moderations don't remove a comment from the site.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 01 2021, @04:32PM (3 children)
Have the admins removed anything?
I do know we have the spam filter. Does pre-emptively censoring posts count? Should that strip us of CDA 230 protections for the next time APK threatens me with violence?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01 2021, @07:46PM
No, SN shouldn't be liable. For one, it's a massive stretch to treat APK's threats as anything resembling being credible. He's a chickenshit who thinks he can intimidate everyone with his words, while hiding behind his keyboard. But everyone knows he's too inept to carry out any threats that go beyond online harassment and intimidation. Next time he decides to spread misinformation about COVID and vaccines, perhaps I'll finally create an account and correct all of his misinformation. No doubt it will enrage him enough to follow me around for a month or two on SN and cause him to hold a grudge for decades. But the last thing I'd do is actually take APK's threats seriously.
Also, it's important to distinguish between what's technically feasible versus what is practical to do. Virtually every site has the technical capability to delete content. SN could certainly modify the database to remove comments or edit them to remove their content. There certainly could be times they might need to remove or edit comments, like if a particular comment is causing pages to render improperly. In the past, there were bugs in Slash that would allow comments to contain text that would break the rendering of pages, execute Javascript, or display images. It is certainly plausible that SN might want to delete such comments, then fix the vulnerabilities that allow those comments to be posted. However, the ability to do this and the occasional use doesn't mean it's practical for SN's staff to go through and examine every comment on the site to check if it merits being edited or deleted.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01 2021, @10:11PM
The answer to your first question is yes, as it is for the second. The last questions is that as Zeran pointed out, section 230 of the CDA is the only thing keeping SN from being liable.
(Score: 2) by Username on Saturday October 02 2021, @02:06PM
Let's say SN censors all those negative posts for you. Now, let's say some random user starts threatening me, and for political reasons SN doesn't censor those posts. Only those that make you feel threatened. SN should be held liable. We've all seem them censor for you. We all know they have a process in place to do so, and I have a reasonable expectation for them to censor such content for me as well. They are being the authoritative gate keeper. Now if they never censor anyone, I have no expectation of protection.
(Score: 2) by stretch611 on Saturday October 02 2021, @05:26PM
Moderations do not remove content, but they do affect visibility of the comment.
Also, for logged in accounts, a lot of downmods will prevent a user from being able to comment.
While the first one is not as overt as the second, both can be considered as types of censorship.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Friday October 01 2021, @02:19PM (2 children)
A website policing and removing bad content should not make them liable for bad content that they fail to identify.
It's like saying, if I try to help a homeless person on the street, I automatically become obligated to help every homeless person on the street.
If you think a fertilized egg is a child but an immigrant child is not, please don't pretend your concerns are religious
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01 2021, @04:05PM (1 child)
> A website policing and removing bad content should not make them liable for bad content that they fail to identify.
The problem is that an ideologically motivated site owner could be very effective at removing content that they disagree with. While using the cover of, "we do what we can, but we can't catch all of it," as their excuse for leaving up e.g., xenophobic hate speech that the site owner agrees with.
A Rupert Murdoch site's comment section is going to be moderated in a very different manner than a comment section run by the ACLU.
So, now your back to needing external policing of comment sections, which is its own can of worms.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday October 01 2021, @04:25PM
That sounds like freedom of speech to me.
(from my admittedly American perspective)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday October 01 2021, @03:31PM
It's always on The People® They alone are responsible for what they do, for what they choose to believe, to be controlled or not be controlled is a personal choice. "The devil made me do it" is not an excuse
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 01 2021, @10:15PM (2 children)
So repealing Section 230 then? Welcome to the death of the Internet.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Saturday October 02 2021, @04:52PM (1 child)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 03 2021, @04:33AM
Because the rest of the world is better, right? Many Internet companies are based in the US precisely because it allows them to get around other countries' stricter laws. You also have to consider the interaction between laws in different countries. And all of that is before they get the calls of "see even the USA tightened down their regulations." No, getting rid of Section 230 would be the mortal blow to the Internet, how long everyone could live in denial of the spreading necrosis is another.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Sunday October 03 2021, @10:59PM (1 child)
I would rather a website does not allow the posting of CP. In your scenario, all websites would remove the ability to moderate to avoid liability, but would also open the gates to 4chan (which others call Hell).
Actually, the most likely outcome of all is simply no comments section at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 04 2021, @08:04AM
If you extend the thinking all the way out, you have a number of people commenting on this website cheering on the idea that the very website they are commenting on get rid of all its comments or completely open the door to all the garbage comments they loathe.