
Internet firms’ legal immunity is under threat - JumpCrisscross
https://www.economist.com/news/business/21716661-platforms-have-benefited-greatly-special-legal-and-regulatory-treatment-internet-firms
======
tankenmate
And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people send
using their services. The big difference of course is that digital services
are much closer in effect to being a broadcast service, and the costs are much
much lower than phones or snail mail.

So to say that these policies are exceptionalism is bending the truth, when in
fact it is a faulty, leaky, middle ground between old world information
transmission systems; private (phones), semi public (snail mail, think spam,
political pamphlets), and public (mainstream media).

We live in an imperfect world and this is yet another example. The pendulum
will nevertheless swing the other way for a while.

~~~
wang_li
>And yet phone companies and postal services aren't liable for what people
send using their services.

Phone companies and postal services don't directly profit from the contents of
conversations, letters, and packages. Google, Facebook, and so on, directly
profit from the content, not from providing the service.

~~~
fraserharris
Counter: if your phone service was free, but you had to listen to a pre-call
ad every time you answer the phone, do you think the phone company is now
liable for damages caused by the content of the call?

~~~
JustSomeNobody
You mean from all the broken windows from having chucked my phone because of
the crappy ads?

------
schoen
The article regards this change as almost a foregone conclusion, while
mentioning that "Internet activists and the firms themselves may deplore" the
loss of §230.

If you're reading this and you're in one of these categories, you can do
something rather than just deplore the change. For example, get your company
to write or sign on to amicus briefs in §230 cases explaining why not being
liable for user activity is important to you.

Also, all different kinds of organizations can endorse or advocate for

[https://www.manilaprinciples.org/](https://www.manilaprinciples.org/)

------
rrggrr
The immunity must be limited to sites that are neutral, in the same way that
non-political religious organizations are tax-exempt. Why? Because to claim
that a site isn't responsible for a user's content is fine, until the site
starts editing, censoring or weighting certain points of view. When the site
loses its neutrality it ceases to be a conduit of content and instead becomes
content. Indemnification from liability for a specific point-of-view is, I
feel, an abridgment of free speech and I believe it is unconstitutional.

~~~
fictioncircle
> The immunity must be limited to sites that are neutral, in the same way that
> non-political religious organizations are tax-exempt. Why? Because to claim
> that a site isn't responsible for a user's content is fine, until the site
> starts editing, censoring or weighting certain points of view. When the site
> loses its neutrality it ceases to be a conduit of content and instead
> becomes content. Indemnification from liability for a specific point-of-view
> is, I feel, an abridgment of free speech and I believe it is
> unconstitutional.

1) Yeah that works great until someone uploads content about children being
sexually abused and you can't take it down because taking it down is a non-
neutral action (censorship).

2) Same, but non-consensual pornography of someone's ex.

3) Same, but advocating a clear and immediate desire to commit violence.

4) Same, but "fighting words" (a well known exemption when said to someone's
face to free speech protections).

5) Same, but obscenity.

There are some very, very massive flaws of that nature with your position and
I'd continue but I think you are getting the idea. Such things don't _only_
impact the speaker and therefore create a situation where the provider should
(in theory) censor them.

Similarly, such things have been ruled to be outside of the bounds of "free
speech" in the US by the judicial system.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
Liability is not the same thing as a court order. If you sue someone for libel
and win, and the libel is hosted on YouTube, YouTube can't say "nope, Section
230" and keep hosting it. The court can order them to take it down. YouTube
just doesn't owe you any damages, you have to take that up with the user.

> Indemnification from liability for a specific point-of-view is, I feel, an
> abridgment of free speech and I believe it is unconstitutional.

That would be the case if the government was deciding who could be indemnified
based on content, but that isn't what's going on.

Consider what you would be doing to search engines. Their entire purpose is to
sort content by relevance. There is no opinion-free way to do that, otherwise
every search engine would have exactly the same results. You want to impose
liability on Google and Bing because they index the whole internet and the
internet has bad stuff on it?

~~~
ebcode
> You want to impose liability on Google and Bing because they index the whole
> internet and the internet has bad stuff on it?

Yes. If you found some, i don't know, child pornography, say, lying in the
street, then went around showing it to people saying, "hey, look what I
found", that would be considered illegal/repugnant/stupid, right? Why should
that same action analogized to the digital domain be any less
illegal/repugnant/stupid? I don't think it is.

~~~
michaelmrose
Analogies are often useful tools to explicate things by relating them to
already understood concepts but utterly useless to make useful proofs or
arguments because it oversimplifies to the point of uselessness and misses the
ways things differ.

These arguments via analogy are so worthless, so without substance that it is
usually a massive waste of time to try to explain to the originator the ways
in which the analogy differs from reality so I will simply ask you to come
back with an argument based on reality instead.

------
anigbrowl
Previous periods of overbearing law enforcement in the face of rapidly
changing technology imho had a lot to do with the flourishing of open source
and the multiplication and widespread adoption of federated protocols.
Subsequent changes in the political environment (not least the collapse of
Soviet-style communism and the end of the Cold War) led to a moderately happy
marriage between convenience and consumerism in which the web flourished and
provided wins for both consumers and capitalists.

I feel the emerging need now is for lean protocols and tools that allow us to
effectively filter unwanted content and to view and manipulate metadata
structures, both inherent and emergent. If you're looking for inspiration in
places other than the commercial sphere, much interesting work on digital
ontologies has been emerging from the EU in recent years.

~~~
summerdown2
> If you're looking for inspiration in places other than the commercial
> sphere, much interesting work on digital ontologies has been emerging from
> the EU in recent years.

This sounds interesting - do you have any recommended reading / websites here
you would suggest?

~~~
anigbrowl
Here's a few links to get started, but I haven't kept up to date with the
field for 2 ro 3 years so they're probably not ideal.

[http://www.semantic-web-
journal.net/system/files/swj329_0.pd...](http://www.semantic-web-
journal.net/system/files/swj329_0.pdf)

[http://www.mirelproject.eu/members.html](http://www.mirelproject.eu/members.html)

[http://eurovoc.europa.eu/drupal/sites/all/files/EuroVocConfe...](http://eurovoc.europa.eu/drupal/sites/all/files/EuroVocConference_Opening_Speech_by_GSarto.pdf)

I got really into semantic web stuff for a year or so several years back. I
was disappointed that SW doesn't seem to have gone anywhere but I still think
there's a lot of great work being done that's worth people's attention.

------
chris0x00
I was briefly concerned before dismissing this all as absurd. Surely we aren't
more likely to hold tech companies responsible for the actions of their users
than we are to hold gun manufacturers responsible for theirs.

~~~
tormeh
There are reasonable(-ish?) people who do hold gun manufacturers accountable
for what their products are used for. That's not absurd at all.

~~~
michaelmrose
It is actually pretty absurd. If you think guns shouldn't be in the hands of
most people and guns lead to bad things happening its still ridiculous to go
after people for manufacturing legal products just because most of the US wont
let you ban them. The desired end astoundingly unlikely and doesn't justify
the nonsensical means.

Worse the lawyers involved in such things no that all it serves to do is to
suck up money from suckers to enrich the lawyers.

------
RangerScience
> The argument that they do not interfere in the kind of content that is shown
> was a key rationale for exempting them from liability.

It seems like this might be the "correct" point; at least when considering
"who" is responsible for content - that the degree to which you (the service
provider) picks and chooses content is the degree to which you are responsible
for the effects of showing that content.

In an ideal implementation, such a link also correlates with organizational
size: FB of today can both afford to be liable for the content shown, and can
afford the work to be responsible about it. FB when it started could not.

A better example might be Tinder - When it started, would it be reasonable for
Tinder to police its users for asshole behavior? Now that Tinder is
established, it is reasonable for them to _not_?

------
revelation
_it carried over to service platforms_

No, it never did, Uber just made that up. The whole basis of this article is
plain false, no other words for it.

(Dito Amazon, who have brazenly been selling and even _shipping_ electronic
waste that passes no basic safety standards. No uttering of "marketplace
seller" changes the legal reality.)

~~~
codyps
A bit clearer with the full quote:

> Although limiting liability online was intended to protect sites hosting
> digital content, it carried over to service platforms

~~~
breischl
The intent of TFA is clearer, but it's still false. AirBnB and Uber didn't get
some legal limitation of liability, they just started doing something new and
asserted that they weren't liable. Turns out some jurisdictions agree, and
others don't. But nobody thought that Common Carrier or the CDA exemptions
applied to cars or apartments.

------
adventured
If they shred the legal immunity, the only platforms remaining will be the
giants. It would be the ultimate moat for Facebook, Google, etc.

I've been waiting for two decades for the monsters in DC (and their many
accomplices) to legislatively make it impossible to wake up in the morning
with a normal business idea (not talking Napster here) and decide to just
build it without having to go through an endless parade of
legal/political/regulatory/licensing concerns. It doesn't appear to be far
away now, the government monster is always hungry, always expansive, always
looking to dig its claws into any bastions of free movement.

My suggestion to younger entrepreneurs out there: get it while you can. This
glorious period of having so much freedom to create/build - no permission
required - will probably seem like a distant fantasy in another decade. There
is no scenario in which they aren't going to add more and more friction to the
process, putting themselves in-between you and building things online as just
another layer of control.

~~~
just2n
Why would this necessarily mean they're getting rid of all legal immunity? I
think we have plenty of examples outside of the digital world where legal
immunity is maintained.

The digital world currently has an excessively powerful version of this --
even when they're not neutral, they're still immune, which definitely needs to
be fixed.

------
Keverw
What is the reality that taking away the legal immunity could really happen?
Wouldn't the community, non-profits and big internet companies lobby against
this, call up all their congress and senators like just how we stopped SOPA
and PIPA?

Cases like this are the few I'd approve of corporate lobbying for(which I'm
usually against personally). I do not like the idea of censorship myself. Is
someone posting hateful stuff? Unfollow or block them. I feel like censorship
should be used in rare cases.

------
eternalban
> GOOGLE, Facebook and other online giants like to see their rapid rise as the
> product of their founders’ brilliance. Others argue that their success is
> more a result of lucky timing and network effects—the economic forces that
> tend to make bigger firms even bigger.

(Take it easy with that down arrow button :) but yet others see their rapid
rise as sponsored fronts for Intelligence.

[p.s. & I would be delighted to be presented with thoughtful replies that show
/why/ the above view can not possibly be true.]

~~~
benchaney
I think people are down lying you because your comment adds nothing to the
discussion. Not because they necessarily disagree with you.

~~~
eternalban
How could you possibly say that it is not relevant to OP?

If the handful of uber social network platforms are in fact run by
intelligence, then /minimally/ articles such as OP are whitewashing these
platforms. More fundamentally, they are just herding us to accept corporate
"champions" that may in fact be under the control of unaccountable arms of the
same corporate-statist regime.

------
hyperion2010
Well this would only help incumbents, the little guys are unlikely to ever be
able to police user content at scale or at cost.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
And it's not just the hosts. Consider what this does to a host's incentive to
take on a small customer. If you're a small entity you wouldn't be able to
find hosting.

------
shmerl
So this is pushed by DRM freaks, who dream about censoring everything, and
making others pay for this abusive policing.

~~~
SFJulie
There is an old french word for DRM laws: patente.

The ancester of patent.

Edicted by the authoritarian delusive king known as Louis XIV (a probable
model of Kim Jung Il) when printing came. The purpose was to control
publication in exchange for oligopoly on content. To make colonial wars, Louis
made an awful amount of debts that would take centuries to pay.

It resulted in France being under-educated (price of books where 300x what
they costed), making the church, the editors, the king and the authors/artists
happy.

Until a wild theater and colporteurs appeared ignoring the administrative
borders and leaking the contents in cheaper ways. They shipped the contents
coming from all Europa but forbidden on the local territory. Boring pamphlets
about the possibility of living in a world where the random of birth would
matter less than merits.

Then, from Jacqueries to Jacqueries, one day, the 90% that couldn't live
because of an excessive fiscal pressure on the poorest while the richest did
not wanted to pay asked for the convocation of the Third State to discuss the
fiscal equity problem ... somewhere around 1789.

History may not repeat itself, but is sure does have some hiccups...

------
known
Whta's the difference between Communications Decency Act and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indemnity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indemnity)

------
awinder
Why do people have to quote fake news like it's an invented problem? I guess
there could be some disagreement on the scope of the problem, but there's
inevitably a better-trained person in this world who will be researching and
becoming a subject matter expert on this in the coming years on it's effects
and breadth.

~~~
problems
It essentially is an invented problem, which was immediately abused by both
sides of the political spectrum, so an absolute version of it is hard to nail
down.

There's little or no proof I've seen that shows any significant number of
people actually believe the stuff on small sketchy sites in question
originally - and then the term definition got expanded to seemingly include
any slightly misinformed MSM article.

~~~
rtpg
There's some proof, in the amount of shares (non-ironic ones) that these
websites would get on Facebook.

The abuse of the term is infuriating because the "fake news" websites are so
clear cut, there shouldn't even be a debate. Some websites just make up facts
to write a story, as their main source of stories. And there's no way CNN,
Breitbart, MSNBC, any of them fit the claim.

~~~
ern
In hindsight, the term Fake News wasn't a good one. "Organized [foreign]
disinformation" is both more descriptive and would have been less easily
appropriated and diluted.

------
milesrout
You shouldn't be liable for what your users say and do.

You sure as hell should be liable when your buggy crappy software costs people
money.

------
wang_li
There is some absurdity in the safe harbor provisions that cover people
outside of US legal jurisdiction and also that provide protections even when
the provider has no actual business relationship with the customer or even any
idea who the customer actually is.

I've felt that an argument could be made that safe harbor provisions should
only apply when the service provider can provide an actual identity associated
with an account and that that person is within US legal jurisdiction.

~~~
fictioncircle
> I've felt that an argument could be made that safe harbor provisions should
> only apply when the service provider can provide an actual identity
> associated with an account and that that person is within US legal
> jurisdiction.

1) How would they be able to verify that identity for a reasonable cost
without being opened up to a DDoS vulnerability against their finances?

2) What happens when every country does it based on local jurisdiction and the
internet gets balkanized?

~~~
wang_li
#1 is like asking "how can this industrial chemical company be profitable if
they can't just dump their waste in the sewers?" If a business model is only
profitable because they can externalize some of the problems associated with
that model, it does deserve certain scrutiny and those who are harmed by the
model should have some recourse.

#2 has already happened.

~~~
fictioncircle
> #1 is like asking "how can this industrial chemical company be profitable if
> they can't just dump their waste in the sewers?" If a business model is only
> profitable because they can externalize some of the problems associated with
> that model, it does deserve certain scrutiny and those who are harmed by the
> model should have some recourse.

I'm not aware of any other business that is legally required to record every
customer and link them to RL identities. You can still buy things with cash.

So yeah, that is a terrible and blatantly false analogy.

You are basically saying "Everyone has to be a subscription service with
verifiable identities."

Why are you on a site you believe morally shouldn't exist?

> #2 has already happened.

Not in the Western world.

~~~
wang_li
>I'm not aware of any other business that is legally required to record every
customer and link them to RL identities. You can still buy things with cash.

Go buy a gun sometime. Or non-prescription cold medications that contain
pseudoephedrine. Or prescription medications. Or auto insurance.

However, my response was not about identities specifically, but about whether
society should really care if the things that it requires organizations to do
as a prerequisite of doing business are inexpensive. Sometimes we make the
judgment that it really is worthwhile to require a pharma lab to spend half a
billion dollars before we let them sell their new pill to the public.

>Not in the Western world.

Do you not consider Europe as part of the Western world?

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/french-
go...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/sep/21/french-google-right-
to-be-forgotten-appeal)

