Comment by diego_moita | Hacker News Reader

Comment by diego_moita | Hacker News Reader

Good! We need to go further in this direction.

If magazines, newspapers, movies and TV stations are liable for what they publish why shouldn't social media also be?

The "but it is only transportation of information, like telephones" argument is just ridiculous. It is valid for email at best, it is not valid for social media. They already routinely practice filtering of what is posted.

We shouldn't expect the U.S. to advance this cause. Their congress is too deep in the pockets of lobbyists to be accountable to public interest. It has to come from the E.U. and responsible governments.

Edit: this is a repetition of history. There are a lot of tragic examples of tragedies sparked by publications meant to extract profits from people's paranoia and fear. The most famous one is the witch hunt started by the book Malleus Maleficarum[1] that caused more than 30 000 deaths. We created means to contain these abuses in new media too. The genocide of Rohingya people could have been avoided if Facebook were liable for it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum

Yours is an argument to entirely wipe away user content and corporatize the whole of the Internet, a return to the days of TV and Radio. Where, in your world, could citizens find a platform willing to allow them to share their opinions, creations, and find the like-minded?

Wow! Did you really read all of that in my comment?

I'd like to know where did I say that, because I can't find it.

It is the end result if you expect the same level of liability as a newspaper or magazine. Every single thing you see in one of those was deliberately put there by a person (well... at least it used to be). If an agent of the print publication deliberately put something in the publication, then the liability falls on the publication and/or that person.

Social media is not the same. The content being posted is not vetted by any agent of the platform, so the liability at least in part falls of the person who posted it. You could argue that the platform should share some liability that is waved as long as they at least try "hard enough" to police their platform, with whatever definition of "hard enough" is chosen. But no automated filter will be perfect, so if you demand the same level of liability as a print publication you are effectively outlawing social media entirely.

Your position is clear: if responsible governments (lol) punish platforms for what commoners post on them, platforms wishing to survive will, sensibly, not allow commoners to post. Moderation is not enough, as unapproved things will always make it through the cracks.

The deep distrust of unmoderated, un-nannied communication is also apparent:

>The "but it is only transportation of information, like telephones"

>argument is just ridiculous. It is valid for email at best,

>it is not valid for social media. They already routinely practice

>filtering of what is posted.

The at best you use to describe the freedom of communication in email shows that your position has no bottom: everything and anything the masses express, even in private communications, must be policed. You also do not understand that freedom of speech in the US is not moderated or regulated by the government, and is something enjoyed by the people, not just interest or power groups, which adds to the authoritarian vibe of your post.

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