Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

Comment by JoshTriplett | Hacker News Reader

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The world you propose gives more power to large site operators, not less, because they're the only ones that could possibly afford the requisite moderation resources. The world you propose does not have functional real-time public communication, because nobody could risk the liability of allowing the posting of content they haven't checked yet. The world you propose is one in which nobody could take the risk of running a community online. The world you propose is one in which the site you're making this comment on cannot exist in a functional way. The world you propose has more governmental restraint on speech, not less; that restraint comes in the form of "we're not actually telling you that you can't administrate your site, but if do something we don't like, we'll just stand back and let you get prosecuted out of existence for the actions of your users". That's just regulation of speech by an indirect means.

> The ask of companies under section 230 is that they be allowed to publish

No. "publish" is a distortion promoted by people trying to use the repeal of Section 230 as a weapon. To the extent liability should exist for speech at all, companies should absolutely be liable for what they publish. They should not be liable for what their users publish. Without that distinction, the Internet cannot exist as a medium for any kind of user-generated content. Centralized services providing curated content would fare just fine, but anything that allows users to interact or contribute would die.

> The question is, what do we get back for allowing them that privilege?

A functional Internet. Websites that contains content supplied by others, that aren't "anything goes" cesspools. An Internet that helps people interact in a read-write manner, not just consume content in a read-only manner.

>> The world you propose gives more power to large site operators, not less, because they're the only ones that could possibly afford the requisite moderation resources

Not true, someone running a small blog can read every single comment that gets submitted. Twitter can't.

>> The world you propose does not have functional real-time public communication, because nobody could risk the liability of allowing the posting of content they haven't checked yet

Not true, even pre-internet the world had functional real-time public communication. We called them telephones. You didn't get cut off if your politics didn't match the phone company's. And if you act as a platform like that on the internet, you could allow the posting of content you haven't checked yet.

Platform or publisher, pick one.

>> The world you propose is one in which nobody could take the risk of running a community online

Not true, there are print communities that publish users' content - people take that risk.

>> "publish" is a distortion promoted by people trying to use the repeal of Section 230 as a weapon

Dictionary definitions of publish: "to make generally known", "to disseminate to the public". No, "publish" is not a distortion, it's a dictionary definition, you just don't like the consequences of that definition.

>> "Without that distinction, the Internet cannot exist as a medium for any kind of user-generated content"

Not true, user generated content exists in print and it should be cheaper on the internet than in print. False claim.

>> A functional Internet

An internet where 3 weeks out from an election, the major providers of information ban information that hurts their political candidate is not a functional internet, it's an Orwellian dystopia.

No. Just no.

> Not true, someone running a small blog can read every single comment that gets submitted.

But they then have to choose between allowing every racial epithet, porn link and scam, and risking a lawsuit because a commenter says something that’s construed as defamatory.

> Not true, even pre-internet the world had functional real-time public communication. We called them telephones.

Telephones are not public communication.

> An internet where 3 weeks out from an election, the major providers of information ban information that hurts their political candidate is not a functional internet, it's an Orwellian dystopia.

It’s interesting to me that the same people who are up in arms about the response to the NY Post story — the veracity of which has been questioned by several prominent publications — had nothing to say when Twitter announced that they would suspend accounts of users wishing the President would die of COVID. If I had to label one of those an “Orwellian dystopia”, it would not be the suppression of pro–ruling party agitprop.

>> But they then have to choose...

Yes, that's correct. They have to choose what content to allow. That's called being a publisher.

>> Telephones are not public communication

I'm guessing that you are too young to have heard of party lines.

But yes, telephones were public communication.

Wishing the president would die of COVID would obviously be allowed under a platform scenario, what law do you think it breaks where a content provider wouldn't publish a wish that the president of the US dies of a disease?

Also, I don't think you know what the term agitprop means.

> Yes, that's correct. They have to choose what content to allow. That's called being a publisher.

If you're really advocating forcing individuals and small communities to choose between filtering spam and risking lawsuits, we'll have to agree to disagree. Hopefully the chilling effects that would have on speech are self-evident.

> I'm guessing that you are too young to have heard of party lines.

> But yes, telephones were public communication.

Unless I'm misunderstanding what party lines are… no they weren't. How would I listen to a conversation happening between two people outside of my local loop?

> Wishing the president would die of COVID would obviously be allowed under a platform scenario, what law do you think it breaks where a content provider wouldn't publish a wish that the president of the US dies of a disease?

This wasn't a hypothetical; it happened last week. Twitter announced it would suspend the accounts of people wishing the president would die, and the people who would go on to cry foul about the NY Post article were curiously quiet.

> Also, I don't think you know what the term agitprop means.

Yes I do.

The rules you're proposing would lead to most blogs closing their comment sections entirely. People simply would not want to take the risk. This situation would not be an improvement over the status quo.

>Not true, even pre-internet the world had functional real-time public communication. We called them telephones.

Telephone calls are private; not public. There are two parties. It's literally against the law for other parties to attempt to become privy to those communications under most circumstances (wiretapping).

Please explain how something like HN works on the telephone.

>Not true, user generated content exists in print and it should be cheaper on the internet than in print.

User generated content does indeed exist in print, where the cost of printing and shipping that content are incumbent on the party that wishes to make their opinion known. When unsolicited or tiresome, we refer to this as junk mail or chain-letters.

> An internet where 3 weeks out from an election, the major providers of information ban information that hurts their political candidate is not a functional internet, it's an Orwellian dystopia.

Or it's a sign that Twitter and FB shouldn't be "major providers of information".

> Or it's a sign that Twitter and FB shouldn't be "major providers of information".

Yeah, it really does seem some times like what Section 230 abolitionists really want is better accomplished through antitrust law. Trying to use liability for unrelated torts as a lever to force sites not to moderate is a very indirect and messy way to get back at the major platforms while creating a lot of collateral damage for smaller sites.

What has twitter done that would even remotely fall under anti-trust laws?

On the other hand using communications regulation does sound kind of obvious when you use the telephone or previous net neutrality disputes as reference points. Although it is ironic that the current anti-NN FCC now wants to push for platform services in the name of neutrality.

They aren't in violation of current anti-trust laws (AFAIK), but if the problem is that companies have grown so powerful that they can control speech, that has parallels to the problem of companies growing so powerful they can control prices. So what I'm suggesting is, why not create new laws that target the biggest platforms, using the same framework as existing anti-trust laws?

Can you explain how twitter is controlling the speech of a newspaper by blocking its article on their platform? Does twitter blocking the article suddenly unpublish it?

Should conventional printing press owners be considered utilities because you might want to post a bunch of posters somewhere, and by refusing to print your posters they censor you?

It doesn't unpublish it, but in the long run it sets up Twitter and Facebook as de facto deciders of what type of content is created. To the extent that newspapers rely on social media for traffic, the editorial decisions of those platforms will silently shape the content of those newspapers. It's the “hidden” aspect of this control that worries me.

The difference in the printing press analogy is that if a printing company won't print my poster, I can take it elsewhere.

Even if there's one poster printing company in town, they have first amendment rights.

You don't lose those for being too successful.

If a poster printing company started making editorial decisions about which posters they printed, they would be at risk of being considered a publisher and as such being liable for the content of the posters they printed.

That isn't true for internet content providers due to section 230.

They are already liable for such things because they make active editorial decisions.

If internet publishers make active editorial decisions, they are also liable. Consider the new york times online.

I gave an example elsewhere that the owner of a physical bulletin board wouldn't be liable for posters on it, even if they occasionally came by and took down ones that they felt should be removed (for any reason).

Section 230 claims that internet sites are more like a physical bulletin board then a newspaper, in that they are remove-later, not review-first models. Aa such they deserve the same liability as physical remove-later systems: relatively few.

>> Yeah, it really does seem some times like what Section 230 abolitionists really want is better accomplished through antitrust law

That's called false dichotomy.

I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make? Yes, you could do both, but you'd still have the collateral damage I mentioned as a negative of the CDA approach. If there's another approach without that downside, why do both?

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