Communications Decency Act §230 "reform" - Yeah that's what lets this site exist. Say what you will but what the SJWs are proposing is diabolically brilliant...

[Spooky Bones]

Bruce Schneier has on his blog a brief post with a bunch of links regarding "a serious debate on reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act."

He says:

(click through for links) I am in the process of figuring out what I believe, and this is more a place to put resources and listen to people's comments.

The EFF has written extensively on why it is so important and dismantling it will be catastrophic for the Internet. Danielle Citron disagrees. (There's also this law journal article by Citron and Ben Wittes.) Sarah Jeong's op-ed. Another op-ed. Another paper.

Here are good news articles.

Reading all of this, I am reminded of this decade-old quote by Dan Geer. He's addressing Internet service providers:

Hello, Uncle Sam here.

You can charge whatever you like based on the contents of what you are carrying, but you are responsible for that content if it is illegal; inspecting brings with it a responsibility for what you learn.

-or-

You can enjoy common carrier protections at all times, but you can neither inspect nor act on the contents of what you are carrying and can only charge for carriage itself. Bits are bits.

Choose wisely. No refunds or exchanges at this window.

We can revise this choice for the social-media age:

Hi Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/everyone else:

You can build a communications based on inspecting user content and presenting it as you want, but that business model also conveys responsibility for that content.

-or-

You can be a communications service and enjoy the protections of CDA 230, in which case you cannot inspect or control the content you deliver.

Facebook would be an example of the former. WhatsApp would be an example of the latter.

I am honestly undecided about all of this. I want CDA §230 to protect things like the commenting section of this blog. But I don't think it should protect dating apps when they are used as a conduit for abuse [this refers to doxing people off tumblr.] And I really don't want society to pay the cost for all the externalities inherent in Facebook's business model.

There's a lot to digest between the articles, his brief post, and the comments and I will not even start to try to cover it all (the comments are the best part of his blog.) I'll just post my hottest of takes. What's frightening is how many of these smart, civil libertarian crypto types actually believe that "reform" of CDA §230 would be good. Now, I'm all for some application of the standard that your degree of moderation implicates you (the tooth have been taken out here though and it certainly would be used against Facebook or Google differently than it could concievably be used against Null.) Some. A company like Facebook or even Tinder should absolutely get heavy penalties for actual crimes like CP, precisely because they do not only monitor but present themselves as arbiters of truth to some degree (well, maybe not Tinder.) Their very Orwellian claims should be their downfall. Facebook is apparently where large majority of CP complaints are filed, although one imagines that these are much more likely only a few pictures, versus Tor sites?)

Needless to say, though, any commonsense reform would be ceding ground to very political elements. So it's off the table for me.

Interesting person that shows up is Danielle Keats Citron. She is a lolcow orbiter of John Walker Flynt. She recently joined BU law.. She wrote a screed in Slate attaking §230[/url] which looks to be a recent theme (legal paper--much better done than the other article, edit. which was actually taken from Congresional testimony which is why it sounds fucking exceptional, spoken word tends to.) She's not the best writer in the short form at least but she's not dumb even if she got caught up somehow with Wu. One of the reasons I say she's not dumb is she's subtler than the average SJW. She has a great end-round around the first amendment, as it is in this century: Repeal and replace §230 with something that will require "reasonable moderation", left undefined. Allow hate speech or political speech of whatever flavor to qualify. Go after sites that don't police hate speech with charges that would've been unthinkable under §230, in the context of other shit, while letting regular providers like Facebook go ahead w/whatever, so jail Watkins and Hotwheels after the mosque attack. Have no need to make a first amendment issue. This is diabolically brilliant and no doubt the end game of the current discussion as it, like all the other current year nonsense, is political.

Citron's book chapters include:
“Why Combating Online Abuse Is Good For Free Speech,” in Free Speech in the Digital Age. Oxford University Press
“Platform Justice: Content Moderation at an Inflection Point.” in Hoover Institute Aegis Series.
“The Surveillance Implications of Combatting Cyber Harassment.” in Cambridge Handbook of Surveillance Law.

 

[Gustav Schuchardt]

I think telling Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube that if they exercise editorial control they lose CSA Section 230 protection would be awesome.

Another option would be to say that even though they are private companies they are de facto 'public squares' and cannot discriminate based on viewpoint. This is apparently why airports can't kick out the Moonies.

Interesting person that shows up is Danielle Keats Citron. She is a lolcow orbiter of John Walker Flynt. She recently joined BU law.. She wrote a screed in Slate attaking §230[/url] which looks to be a recent theme (legal paper--much better done than the other article, edit. which was actually taken from Congresional testimony which is why it sounds fucking exceptional, spoken word tends to.) She's not the best writer in the short form at least but she's not dumb even if she got caught up somehow with Wu. One of the reasons I say she's not dumb is she's subtler than the average SJW. She has a great end-round around the first amendment, as it is in this century: Repeal and replace §230 with something that will require "reasonable moderation", left undefined. Allow hate speech or political speech of whatever flavor to qualify. Go after sites that don't police hate speech with charges that would've been unthinkable under §230, in the context of other shit, while letting regular providers like Facebook go ahead w/whatever, so jail Watkins and Hotwheels after the mosque attack. Have no need to make a first amendment issue. This is diabolically brilliant and no doubt the end game of the current discussion as it, like all the other current year nonsense, is political.

I guess this the counter-argument - any reform of Section 230 will be used to hunt down people who run 'alternative' sites for 'hate speech' while FB, Youtube, Twitter, etc are free to censor all they want.

 

[AnOminous]

My only policy preference on § 230 is hands off. And as for that Citrus cunt, she should remember we also have a Second Amendment before going after the First.

 

[TruthSeekingDaimon]

Well looks like this is relevant again.

 

[ditto]

Bruce Schneier seems like a good egg. But he does have a cringy antifa sticker on his laptop.

 

[AnOminous]

Bruce Schneier seems like a good egg. But he does have a cringy antifa sticker on his laptop.
View attachment 1766004

It's from Woody Guthrie's guitar probably 50 years before any of the current batch were born.

 

[TurdFondler]

It's fairly obvious to me that this is part of a ploy by the current heavy hitters to ensure a perennial walled garden.

The fact Facebook, Google and all the rest aren't shitting in their pants tells you all there is to know. They've got pockets deep enough to be exempt from the fallout but it absolutely ensures any competition will be ruthlessly crushed.

It would be absolutely literally impossible to hatch another Facebook or Google or really to change the internet in a meaningful way with the proposed changes.

If it goes through the internet will very much look like early AOL, a sort of proprietary walled-in playground.

It's the culmination of years of work. Most phones need Google's blessing to even work, chromebooks are locked down to the average user and your web browsing experience almost invariably ends up going through Google in some capacity. Once they hobble any potential competition it'll be probably a generation before there's a threat.

 

[LurkTrawl]

The government just doesn't want anywhere anyone can talk without being ruthlessly monitored and censored, the big social media companies don't want the competition.

They've probably wanted this for years, they just didn't have the excuse to do it. Expect more talk about "healing the political divide" and "fighting misinformation" as this goes into action, it'll probably be the go-to justification for exempting Twitter, YouTube, et al.

 

[Press_Play2002]

The government just doesn't want anywhere anyone can talk without being ruthlessly monitored and censored, the big social media companies don't want the competition.

They've probably wanted this for years, they just didn't have the excuse to do it. Expect more talk about "healing the political divide" and "fighting misinformation" as this goes into action, it'll probably be the go-to justification for exempting Twitter, YouTube, et al.

I can confidently argue that not only have several members of the US Government wanted this(or something similar and equally draconian) as early as 1995, but they've also been making slow, insidious and steady progress and ground after the passing of the DMCA 22 years ago. The most depressing part is that we already lost the war before anyone of reasonable awareness and long-term know-how was even old enough to throw any tantrums until now. And those who were old enough remained silent or got distracted by how unashamedly open Web 1.0 was to notice properly. Even Schneier's article in terms of timing is 80% pure late-sauce.

Say hello to the Cowardly Old World once more. I mean, why hold yourself accountable when you can just change laws to make yourself unfuckable while leaving the rest to be ready for raping? Especially considering that the most vocal opponents to your anti-fun campaign who claim that the halls will be stormed at dawn with the horns or revolution should anything close to the loss of internet freedom happens, are in reality, the least likely to take up arms and do anything about it. After all, virtue-signalling is much easier and leagues more comfortable than actually fighting one of the largest militaries on Earth in the front lines.

 

[Duke Nukem]

My only policy preference on § 230 is hands off. And as for that Citrus cunt, she should remember we also have a Second Amendment before going after the First.

Honestly, we might not have a choice. Trump is a retard for going after it, especially for his reasoning, but Biden/Harris is going to be a hundred times worse.

The government just doesn't want anywhere anyone can talk without being ruthlessly monitored and censored, the big social media companies don't want the competition.

They've probably wanted this for years, they just didn't have the excuse to do it. Expect more talk about "healing the political divide" and "fighting misinformation" as this goes into action, it'll probably be the go-to justification for exempting Twitter, YouTube, et al.

We ask for so little, yet we get called evil racist Nazis because of it.