
With SESTA/FOSTA, lawmakers failed to separate good intentions from bad law - jakeogh
https://www.eff.org//deeplinks/2018/03/how-congress-censored-internet
======
moomin
This is the real story:

"While we can’t speculate on the agendas of the groups behind SESTA, we can
study those same groups’ past advocacy work. Given that history, one could be
forgiven for thinking that some of these groups see SESTA as a mere stepping
stone to banning pornography from the Internet or blurring the legal
distinctions between sex work and trafficking."

Too many laws in America are stalking horses for restricting, not just
commercial sexual activity, but all unapproved sexual activity. And the people
who'd be doing the approving don't look like people I want in charge of my or
my kid's sex life.

Child pornography and sex trafficking are both real, serious, problems. We
should deal with them, not work to make it harder for sex workers and horny
teenagers. But for a lot of the pressure groups in this area, the second thing
is _their actual goal_.

~~~
bitL
I think if you want to have a classical non-dying civilization as is known
from history, you have to restrict sexuality and force desirable men to keep a
single wife and vice versa. It might sound silly and not modern, but the
history and its established norms can point out an "algorithm" that preserved
continuation of humanity, despite how horrible it might seem and how taxing it
always was. A question is if our technological advancements are sufficient to
sustain artificial rules that would be otherwise eliminated by evolution in
natural environment, or if it falls apart like all previous attempts to
deviate from a known "stable" model passed by traditions of what worked
before. Not sure I want to be a guinea pig for social engineers either.

See what Tinder did to dating; nobody can have any illusion they are getting a
"premium" faithful partner and it pushes the attractiveness/transaction
narrative and quick disposability to most intimate relationships. Not a way to
build a stable civilization, rather a hyper-competitive cruel society where
nothing is ever enough.

Unless these warts are addressed by a proper patch, our civilization has no
future (IMO). I can wonder about motivations of those groups, whether it is
really continuation of civilization, or just taking advantage of usual
biological idealistic attitude of males to work hard for carrot-and-stick
motivations in a form of a woman they desire, and harvesting that energy for
their own selfish reasons, painting it white as necessary for everybody.

~~~
thaumasiotes
> I think if you want to have a classical non-dying civilization as is known
> from history, you have to restrict sexuality and force desirable men to keep
> a single wife and vice versa.

If we're talking about what's known from history, this is total nonsense.
Polygamy was permitted in China into the 20th century. China was the best
place in the world by a whole host of metrics up to about the 17th century. It
is still known now for the cultural stability it's displayed for the past
couple millennia.

What did you mean by "classical non-dying civilization"?

~~~
127
Polygamy and proximity to the end of a civilization would be a interesting
scatter plot.

~~~
thaumasiotes
How do you think that would work? Whatever you mean by "end of a
civilization", it's going to have nearly zero effect on polygamy. Polygamy is
a marriage practice that people will do, or not do, according to their
culture; changes of government / technology / etc. don't change it.

Going back up to my original example, you see polygamy practiced in China in
the warring states period (ca. 500 - 200 BC), in the early Han (ca. 200 BC -
0), and the later Han (ca. 0 - 200 AD), and the three kingdoms period (ca. 200
- 300), and the Tang dynasty (ca. 600 - 900), and the Song dynasty (960 -
1279), and the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368; wasn't even a Chinese government), and
the Ming dynasty (ca. 1368-1644), and the Qing dynasty (1644-1912; also not a
Chinese government. The Qing actually outlawed foot binding, though this was
not effective.), as well as through all the other intermediate periods not
mentioned in that list.

However you want to count the end of a civilization, there won't be any
relationship at all to polygamy practice; one changes and the other doesn't.

------
cornholio
What exactly is the intention behind this bill? Do they hope the demand for
prostitution will drop, and thus trafficker revenues and incentives? That
seems ridiculous, as demand for prostitution existed throughout human history
and across civilizations, mainly as a cultural artifact.

So we expect the services to simply shift to use other facilitators. Do they
hope the new facilitators will be better for the victims? That, again, seems
misguided: we know for a fact that traditional, pre-internet facilitators,
like pimps and underground brothels, are exceptionally damaging for victims,
physically, emotionally and economically. Any underground, high friction
market, will have large margins for the traders (traffickers) and make the
producers worse off.

Is the intention to drag prostitutes into legality, in supervised
establishments where they can be protected by the state? Shouldn't that start
with a nation-wide ban of anti-brothel laws that effectively force prostitutes
to work underground?

So what exactly is the point of this bill? Denying independent prostitutes
autonomy and forcing them in the hands of traffickers? Did they even ask
themselves these questions? Do they even understand the purpose is harm-
reduction across a whole at-risk social class, not some crusade against a
Hollywood vision of innocence abused?

~~~
narrator
This is a way to shut down any unmoderated online community using a troll
army. The admins on the chans have been warning about this. Notice how this
got passed the same week that youtube started banning legal gun and conspiracy
videos, etc. It's part of a big online purge against free speech.

There are many unfortunate casualties in the current U.S political cold civil
war that's been going on since the last election. They are seeking to
eliminate anything that could lead to further unexpected political outcomes by
going scorched earth on all kinds of online speech.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> This is a way to shut down any unmoderated online community using a troll
> army.

Which is nearly every online community. The economics of accurate moderation
to legal standards are completely unrealistic.

People see hundred billion dollar companies and assume they're swimming in
cash, but most of them have something like ten billion in annual revenue
against a billion users. The total is large but the amount per user is not.

There is zero possibility of paying someone with the legal knowledge to make
accurate balancing decisions to read and evaluate the legality of every user's
posts. And short of that you're going to have huge numbers of false positives
or false negatives.

Pass a law that prohibits false negatives and the result is false positives
through the roof. Past the point that it will shutter legitimate forums.

------
rayiner
Pretty hilarious/depressing WaPo coverage from when the Communications Decency
Act was struck down in the lower court (before it got to the Supreme Court):
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/06/13/c...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1996/06/13/court-
upholds-free-speech-on-internet-blocks-decency-
law/02e2ecfd-50c0-4d36-8d11-b78cdc3ad8e3/?utm_term=.4e57b38cf732).

Love this quote:

> But a leading proponent of the legislation, Bruce Taylor of the National Law
> Center for Children and Families, said yesterday that the court "jumped off
> the bridge" with its "absolute" decision. Saying "the technology overwhelmed
> the court," Taylor predicted the Supreme Court would reject the ruling.
> "They haven't got a prayer of having this upheld on appeal," he said.

These twits are going to win eventually, just slowly.

~~~
jurt
These twits presumably spent two decades drumming up support for their cause
while the tech community failed to give an answer to how the Internet won't
affect society negatively. The results are well deserved.

~~~
themaninthedark
We shouldn't have to give an answer as to how freedom of speech and freedom of
association will affect things negatively.

~~~
jurt2
If aren't prepared to argue your point don't expect people to take you
seriously. There are no lack of opinions on the Internet nor in the world. If
you can't justify your own despite the ever larger resources available to do
so chances are you are wrong. The reason why people on HN don't isn't because
they don't have to, it's because they can't. That is why they are drawn to
places where people agree with them so they can sit and "not understand what
is happening" without facing their own ignorance.

~~~
naiveai
So what you're saying is a vastly less rich and organized populace was never
able to communicate their arguments in a concentrated enough manner so that
Congress would care? Who would've thought.

This argument is stupid. The fundamental freedoms that the internet provide to
the global community are too important to be taken away by old lawmakers with
no understanding of the way Cyberspace works.

~~~
jurt3
"Tech" is one of the richest industries in history. It has literally enabled
people like Elon Musk to create their own private space programs, something
most nation states are unable to do. It is also the industry that, again
literally, is based on building systems to gather, present and organize people
and information.

People in "tech" overall does not want to study other subjects than computer
science, they do not want publish publications with other people, change the
way the Internet works (in their own direction) nor organize with other
people.

There is very little indicating that the support for free speech in "tech" is
any more substantial than any industry's support for what serves them at the
moment.

~~~
naiveai
You're conflating the tech industry (what's with the constant air quotes) with
the kind of people who are concerned about these laws and the effects of the
dangerous precendent they set.

>People in "tech" overall does not want to study other subjects than computer
science

People in a field are fans of that field and want to study it deeply?
Surprises me for sure.

~~~
jurt3
> what's with the constant air quotes

Because I am using the word vaguely to largely mean tech culture.

> People in a field are fans of that field and want to study it deeply?
> Surprises me for sure.

It is not a surprise to me. I am the one arguing that people don't actually
think it is that important. Because usually when you think something is
important you show an interest in it.

There are people interested in technology that also study ethics, law,
psychology or even just things like information systems which are subjects
that raises these questions. But those people are few and far between and
tends to have a more complex view of the issue.

------
gremlinsinc
Congress is a bunch of idiots. Online ads are probably the #1 spot for sex
slaves to be found and returned home. Instead they drive everything to dark
nets and offline methods of acquiring clientele, and thus making it harder to
police and save lives. Not to mention all the freedoms this can potentially
take away.

I'm against sex traffickers as much as the next guy, but this is not the way
to stop them.

~~~
sdrothrock
> Online ads are probably the #1 spot for sex slaves to be found and returned
> home.

I'd never heard of this. I'm not trying to call you out or anything, but do
you have any sources or further reading? I'd be interested in seeing how this
works.

~~~
dangerlibrary
Linked FTA:

[https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2017/08/how-
section-23...](https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2017/08/how-
section-230-helps-sex-trafficking-victims-and-sesta-would-hurt-them-guest-
blog-post.htm)

~~~
sdrothrock
Thank you!

------
zaarn
Welp, this is the (big) straw that breaks the camels back. While I've been
somewhat slowly easing out of having my hosting services in the US, I don't
think I want to even have business with anyone HQ'd in the US anymore.

What if someone phone's them up and says I host sex trafficking? Or I do
something else illegal in the US that is fine in the EU or elsewhere?

I simply don't want the risk of the US gov'd or law interfering with me or my
business.

~~~
Zamicol
Where are you going?

Where can Internet refugees go?

~~~
zaarn
I'm moving all my stuff into Europe. My main Server is hosted at OVH which has
no HQ in the US (OVH in the US is a separate corporation specific to US
customers of OVH).

I'm moving my mail to Protonmail, away from my current mail provider (which I
was planning to do anyway once the contract ran out since they are against
net-neutrality but I'll speed things up now)

My DNS is also currently hosted in the US, via Cloudflare and another
provider. I will move those into OVH too but I'll have to wait for atleast two
contracts to run out for that too.

Considering the GDPR, I guess the EU is the current bastion of privacy and a
free-er internet.

~~~
dareobasanjo
With the passing of the CLOUD act, moving your server or email outside the US
likely won't help. See [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act-
dangerous-ex...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/02/cloud-act-dangerous-
expansion-police-snooping-cross-border-data)

~~~
zaarn
I'm not in the US so if I'm pulling my stuff out of the US, I don't believe
the CLOUD act will bother me.

------
pweissbrod
:%s/sex trafficking/mass shooting/g

:%s/gun control laws/internet censorship/g

\--edit: before you reach for that downvote button - im not conflating the two
crimes they are both depreaved and horrible in their own way. I am noting a
high degree of symmetry in the reaction of a heavy-handed government 'take
away the rights of everyone' to what is isolated incidents of horror.

In one case americans seems willing to relinquish their rights to the
government in the name of safety.

In the other americans seems to consider this overreacting

yet to me they seem to have high degree of symmetry

~~~
mattnewton
Why is the right to skeet shoot with a military weapon in the same breath as
forums for free speech? The splash damage of these two efforts isn’t remotely
comparable.

~~~
harshreality
What is a non-military weapon? If you want to have a meaningful discussion,
please identify the types of guns you have a problem with, and why, and how
you differentiate them from guns you don't have [as much of] a problem with,
and how you intend to avoid running afowl (sorry I couldn't resist) of the 2nd
amendment.

You think the splash damage of free speech isn't significant? It's less
immediate, but _more_ significant. How do you think we got into modern wars
like Iraq and Syria if not for media-supported propaganda, i.e. speech?

~~~
mattnewton
I don’t think knowledge of particular gun types is relevant to my argument- I
am saying that the side effects of banning a particular gun are smaller and
far less profound than making the operators of internet platforms responsible
for the speech of all users on their platform.

I agree with you that speech is more important! That’s why I am saying the
side effects, the splash damage if you will, in limiting platforms where
ordinary people can spread information because they might be used for sex
trafficking, is not remotely comparable to banning a model of gun because it
might be used to shoot a lot of people quickly.

The intended effects and effectiveness of the efforts aside, I think the
potential for unintended side effects in FOSTA is of a completely different
magnitude and nature.

~~~
harshreality
You don't know what the side effects are because you don't know how an assault
rifle is defined (it depends on which legislation you're talking about,
there's no standard definition), and without proposing _specific_ things to be
banned, your proposal is just virtue signalling "I don't like assault weapons
[even though I don't know what they are or how they're distinguished from
handguns]."

Depending on the proposal, a ban on assault rifles is likely either:

\- An ineffective nothingburger, targeting features that don't matter for
lethality, that can easily be removed or changed, or features that can be
built or re-added in a weekend in a garage (which only affects people who
shoot recreationally, and not someone planning a shooting for weeks or months
like mass shooters tend to do).

\- A ban on most semi-auto guns including the vast majority of handguns people
rely on for every day carry and self defense.

If you want to try to have an effective ban without nuking handguns too, you
have to be fairly knowledgeable about guns and machining and _very_ specific
about what you're proposing, and there are likely still holes big enough to
drive a falcon nine through.

And then, if you come up with such a proposal that actually might work, you
have to run the gauntlet of:

1\. It's unconstitutional.

2\. Semi-auto long guns are actually _better_ for self defense than handguns,
the main reasons people use handguns are that long guns are less
mobile/concealable and louder.

3\. What exactly are you going to do about the tens of millions of banned guns
and maybe hundreds of millions of banned magazines for those guns?
Confiscation? Do you _want_ a civil war? No confiscation? Then nefarious
people will have no trouble getting them on the black market.

(chimeracoder's reply is completely right, but I didn't want to take the
detour of getting into the technical definition of assault rifle when it makes
no difference in this discussion.)

~~~
chimeracoder
> You don't know what the side effects are because you don't know how an
> assault rifle is defined (it depends on which legislation you're talking
> about, there's no standard definition)

To clarify:

"Assault rifle" is well-defined with a standard definition. Assault rifles
have been illegal for non-military, non-LEO use for decades (with a
grandfather clause for rifles purchased before a certain date - these are
incredibly expensive due to their rarity and belong mainly to collectors).

"Assault weapon" is completely undefined with no common consensus around what
it refers to, and plenty of inconsistent or self-contradictory definitions in
use.

------
walterbell
While on the topic of censorship, [https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-
proposal-upload-filter...](https://blog.github.com/2018-03-14-eu-proposal-
upload-filters-code/)

 _" The EU is considering a copyright proposal that would require code-sharing
platforms to monitor all content that users upload for potential copyright
infringement (see the EU Commission’s proposed Article 13 of the Copyright
Directive) … Upload filters (“censorship machines”) are one of the most
controversial elements of the copyright proposal … EU policymakers have told
us it would be very useful to hear directly from more developers. In
particular, developers at European companies can make a significant impact."_

~~~
nukeop
Github is perfectly fine with censorship on their platform and they frequently
use it to take down repositories that use language they don't like, it only
becomes a problem when someone else does it to them. That blog post is very
dishonest and manipulative too.

~~~
duskwuff
Can you give a specific example of what you're referring to? I suspect that
you're thinking of situations like the GamerGateOP repository, which was
disabled because it was being used for harassment. (There was no actual code
in the repository; it was simply being used to host a newsletter.)

Besides, what are you trying to argue here? That web sites should be _forced_
to distribute anyone's content?

~~~
nukeop
Webm for retards is one example of censorship on Github. There are plenty of
repositories that have no code in them that are perfectly fine by Github rules
even if they're just pieces of propaganda.

What I'm trying to argue is that they're hypocrites that are only against
censorship when it's applied to them and endangers their profits.

------
coldcode
So if I post something about sex and prostitution research in HN then HN is
liable for some criminal violation if they don't censor it? What kind of
insanity is that? Would that not open the possibility of destroying an online
site with comments (or even something like Medium) deliberately by posting now
"illegal" things?

~~~
gowld
If you find clients for your pimping business via HN, with HN's knowing
consent, then yes, it's a criminal violation.

~~~
hlieberman
Knowing consent that it's used for prostitution isn't required under
FOSTA/SESTA. Merely knowing consent that there's facilitation.

------
EGreg
How many of the commenters read the actual bill, and not just about the bill?
It's quite short, and it's on Congress' website.

I agree with everyone who says this will just drive prostitution underground,
and isn't helpful. However, I am wondering about how hurtful it is to sites
which are not _designed_ to host personals or prostitution advertising.

Dating sites are in a gray area, and they have been vetting people's
descriptions for a long time.

Social networking sites have flagging features, that others can use to flag
profiles for review, under various categories. One of them can be specifically
tailored to make sure this bill doesn't describe them as "reckless disregard".

All other sites that host user-generated content, such as programming forums,
I think, are in no danger.

Again, this is not about the good intentions of the bill vs what it actually
achieves to reduce human trafficking or prostitution. But rather, my comment
is mainly about its effect on the vast majority of sites hosting user-
generated content under section 230.

~~~
hannasanarion
One of the problems is this line in particular:

The term ‘participation in a venture’ means knowing conduct by an individual
or entity, that assists, supports, or facilitates a violation.

"facilitating" means "make easier or less difficult". Hosting a website that
allows people to talk about things, potentially including sex trafficking,
certainly makes it easier, and under this law, any such website would be
liable.

------
wuliwong
It seems like a dirty tactic for a federal law to be passed making websites
that promote prostitution illegal while the legality of actual prostitution is
left up to the individual states to decide. I bet this isn't the first time
this type of tactic has been employed.

~~~
scardine
I think it is more like cigarettes, you are free to smoke your lungs off but
tobacco companies are forbidden to advertise.

Fair enough, I don't want my daughters watching ads about amazing returns for
beautiful girls in the prostitution industry.

~~~
Consultant32452
Would you rather your daughter hooking on the street making barely enough to
stay alive because her pimp takes all the money or in a safe place with
healthcare, police protection, and high earnings?

~~~
scardine
Excellent question!

No, I live in Brazil where prostitution is not illegal but profiting from
prostitutes is.

So brothels and pimping are illegal - although there are plenty brothels, you
only see pimping on very high level escorts and I never saw a place with sex
slaves (but I saw this kind of place in other countries).

So this is my point, prostitution should be legal and physically safe both for
prostitutes and Johns (nobody being beaten, mugged or otherwise ripped off)
the same way tobacco smoking is legal. It is my opinion about safe
recreational drugs as well. And like tobacco, companies should be prevented
from mass-advertising.

------
zerotolerance
The real irony is between SESTA/FOSTA and the CLOUD act we've basically
regulated Internet companies into mandatory consumer violation instead of
protection. There is no end to this. If this extends to telcos then
decentralization will not help. Today, we made the Internet into broadcast
television. Congratulations to AT&T.

~~~
metalliqaz
What do you mean by "mandatory consumer violation"?

------
userbinator
One only hopes the growing gap between the government and its citizens will
reach a breaking point, but unfortunately it seems too many are willing to
stay apathetic and complacent, "because it doesn't affect me" while the
government continues stripping them of their ability to revolt.

Not to mention the clever(!?) technique of naming these bills such that those
opposing them could be seen as supporting the various crimes they are
intending to fight against.

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the
government, there is tyranny."

------
z0r
I was spurred to make a sizable donation to the EFF by recent news (in
addition to my regular per-paycheque) donation and I encourage anyone else
reading this to consider donating as well.

------
fuball63
I agree 100% with everything in the article, but to play devils advocate:

A common thread that appears on HN is the nostalgia laden post about how the
internet used to be "smaller" and more "personal", with forums and chat rooms
ruling the landscape instead of social media. This article mentions that large
internet companies will be able to afford litigation, but medium sized
companies will not. Small communities, however, are able to be moderated by a
small team of humans.

The reason why reddit/4chan/twitter/craigslist/youtube are forced into
sweeping censorship due to FOSTA/SESTA is because they have user bases too
massive to comb through without a clumsy algorithm. They will become the
network broadcast TV; small sites will become the internet reaction to that,
what they were always supposed to be.

Obviously, SESTA/FOSTA is the dumbest way to build a smaller internet, hurts
more user than it helps on massive platforms, and spreads unlawful activity to
even smaller, darker corners of the internet. But grasping for silver linings
here.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Small communities, however, are able to be moderated by a small team of
> humans.

That doesn't change the cost per user. You're essentially talking about having
the users do the moderation, but that isn't enough when it comes to legal
requirements. What happens when they make mistakes because they aren't
lawyers?

If smaller communities take over it won't be because they're more economical,
it will be for the same reasons that piracy sites continue to exist -- they're
in violation of the law but for every one that gets shut down two more pop up.

~~~
fuball63
Good point. Especially the last remark about two or more popping up; that's
really the worst side effect of SESTA/FOSTA.

------
smoyer
Well ... it's what I've come to expect from our federal government.

------
skocznymroczny
That's why free speech basically can't be selective. If it was Reddit banning
/r/the_donald, all of you complaining now would cheer the development.

~~~
TheCapn
For the longest time the argument for banning The_Donald wasn't to silence
their voice. It was to tell their users to fuck off if they can't follow the
site rules. They would constantly manipulate the vote counts or brigade
smaller subs, more recently the spotlight has been about reddit's rules
regarding advocating violence.

The problem was always that they hid behind the guise that they were the
unofficial Donald Trump fanclub when there really never was an alternative one
with a more moderate userbase. The_Donald is fine to exist but they seemingly
refuse to stay in their playpen and ahve their fun, they need to sling mud
throughout the rest of reddit while they're there.

And just to state it, I don't think TD is the _only_ sub guilty of this
behavior. I don't think its even an issue exclusive to politics but I _really_
wish Reddit took a more hard look at their rule enforcement to make things
clear and had clear transparency for their enforcement of the rules.

~~~
jochung
The main reason that "playpen" is the way it is, is because the default news
and politics subs went full Clinton, with moderator and admin approval. It's
also an open secret that SRS and its friends brigade the rest of the site, and
again, admins allow their rule violations to continue.

Reddit is not interested in being a neutral platform, and the constant
scapegoating of the people they drive into containment subs as being the cause
rather than the result is both tiresome and idiotic. If you don't want people
to isolate themselves and radicalize, don't drive them away from mainstream
channels.

One if my main gripes with the current American left is their inability to see
themselves as agents who cause the things they hate.

~~~
romwell
>It's also an open secret that SRS and its friends brigade the rest of the
site

Haven't been there in a while, but an invariant of scrolling through SRS was
that the linked posts had a _high upvote count_ , before and after being
linked from SRS page.

Which is the entire point of SRS - to show what kinds of things that that
group finds objectionable _gets upvoted_ on reddit.

I know that SRS is reddit's favorite bogeyman, but personally, I just haven't
seen any evidence to the claim you made.

Note, I am not saying this to argue with you. I am writing this to provide a
piece of anecdata to the person scrolling through this thread not much aware
of the things being talked about.

------
LifeLiverTransp
Prostitution devalues the defacto-trade currency of relationships- thus every
creature dependent for well-beeing on a relationship, will put agents into
motion to harass the consumers and providers of the "free-drug-trade".

So, yes, your wife is secretly donating money to harass prostitutes.

------
whataretensors
If Facebook, Google, et al didn't want these authoritarian laws passed do you
think they'd make it through?

They are likely purposefully doing this to create a humongous barrier of entry
for new incumbents. And a fresh new way to politically destroy competition.

This is why we need to decentralize as much as possible.

------
kevin_b_er
Let's ask a harsh question: Could a service like Gmail or Hotmail be declared
illegal with this?

~~~
Mithorium
What about airlines with online booking websites? People have travelled for
sex tourism to countries with trafficked sex workers, and it's such a known
phenomenon that there's no reasonable way the operators of an airline could be
unaware of it. And yet, they still sell tickets. By the letter of the law,
that can certainly "make easier or less difficult" the sex trade by
facilitating the transportation of potential customers. Are they then
criminally liable if someone is found to have flown on their airline for the
purpose of sex tourism?

~~~
jstarfish
I don't like the pretense of the law, but the hysteria surrounding this is
truly astounding.

No, Gmail, Facebook, and Travelocity are not complicit in the sex trade by
virtue of the fact that someone can use their services to conduct such
actions. Section 230 still exists. Without it, yes, you might actually be
right, and the internet would implode due to the liability involved in running
any service at all. We already covered this 20 years ago.

The operative word in the new law is "knowingly." If Gmail _knowingly_
provided services to a pimp, if Facebook _knowingly_ hosted a group to
facilitate trafficking, and if Travelocity _knowingly_ sold sex tourism
packages ("we see you're renting a hotel and a car-- would you like to add an
underaged escort?"), then the law applies. Selling someone a ticket to
Thailand isn't a crime. Giving them recommendations on the local brothels
might be.

Backpage is in the shit because they _knew_ they were hosting _child
prostitution ads_ and actively tried to hide it from _police._ Silk Road
couldn't claim 230 because internal documents showed Ulbricht _knew_ he was
facilitating the drug trade (and even _knew_ what the consequences would be!).

The message is clear-- if you're going to run an illegal site, don't
participate in its content or market it for those purposes. Don't seed it or
hire anybody to seed your content. Just stay out of it, run an agnostic
platform and let the users generate their own content (4chan isn't technically
a porn site, after all). If something is brought to your attention, delete it
and document it-- you fulfilled your obligation.

You'd still have deniability as to what your users are up to; after all, you
can't be expected to police all the user-generated content faster than they
can create it.

~~~
deno
> You'd still have deniability as to what your users are up to; after all, you
> can't be expected to police all the user-generated content faster than they
> can create it.

For now… This law is a stepping stone to government–curated mandatory content
filtering.

Facebook & Google are already testing & developing the technology
voluntarily[1].

The government will initially say you don’t have use it, _of course_ , but
maybe if you choose to then you won’t have to worry about that nasty liability
laws…

If it’s voluntarily then there’s no 1st amendment issue, they’ll have their
lawyers argue.

And the people will agree, nodding along in their safe spaces, as even now
they mindlessly repeat that “censorship is legal,” don’t you know, “if the
corporations do it.”

And at first it will be fine. But all that’s left for that censorship dream to
become a sweet reality is just one final missing puzzle piece. To make the
list secret. So close!

How will they do it? Maybe they’ll say that a list of hashes /fingerprints of
illegal content is “facilitating” child pornography, because after all that’s
how Torrents and DHTs work. Is a magnet link not facilitating piracy?

Not convinced? Just then Google will deliver with an AI technology to recreate
images from the Fingerprints, not quite perfect, but the cherry picked
examples resembling the original content just _enough_ to make you feel
uncomfortable[2].

Could the Fingerprints be modified to prevent it? Is it possible they were in
fact designed with this exact goal in mind from the very beginning?

You don’t dare to ask. You are not a PEDOPHILE.

The list becomes secret.

Do you think this is far fetched?[3]

> internal documents showed Ulbricht knew he was facilitating the drug trade

They also showed him ordering hits on people[3] for as long as it was
necessary to serve as a convenient distraction.

[1]
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/11/facebook_fing...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2017/11/facebook_finger.html)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_Uni...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_Kingdom)

[4] [https://freeross.org/2014/08/31/mia-murder-for-hire-
charges/](https://freeross.org/2014/08/31/mia-murder-for-hire-charges/)

------
Beltiras
Big question is if this will actually survive judicial review. I am quite sure
someone will make a test case out of something. There's enough of "offending
material" to make hay off.

------
m1el
Does it mean that websites now must prevent encrypted communication?

U2FsdGVkX18IeqlFqCOknXszPyMqiWSyn99anjBcKIl8bINzaUyWc0Le8lgEcj6t

zoGfSQvhXeaoNfMyrEd9WA==

------
arca_vorago
Here is the question all Americans should ask about legislation: "Is it
constitutional?"

If no. Discard or modify.

~~~
hedora
I’m worried that it is. Most of the legal precedents in the internet space
hinge on the fact that it is impossible for things like search engines to read
every page they index, so mandating they do will ban search engines, and the
courts doubt congress meant to do that. (Sometimes judges will say the law has
to “scale” to new technologies, and then find in the common sense direction,
instead of following the letter of the law)

Google has said that it is now feasible for machine learning algorithms to
police user content, which undermines the legal precedent. Honestly, I’m
surprised this change had to go through congress, since the legal precedents
were on shaky ground to start with.

I think you’ll fund the framers of the constitution did not anticipate the
existence of publishers that cannot even enumerate the things they publish,
and were completely silent on this issue.

A similar oversight occurred with online privacy: The government’s
surveillance apparatus is much smaller than corporate America’s and nothing
stops the government from buying legally available commercial surveillance
data, so they just launder illegal searches through private industry.

(The CLOUD act extends this to launder the searches through foreign
governments, and also expand US law enforcement’s jurisdiction to the whole
planet—that seems much more likely to fall afoul of the constitution. Issues
of sovereignty and protection against foreign influence were clearly well
understood when the constitution was written.)

~~~
Jeema101
Malicious users will always find ways around machine learning algorithms,
though. So if the law makes it impossible for someone to run a legitimate
personals website (as it seems to already be happening with Craigslist), then
doesn't that amount to government-instituted prior restraint on what should be
legitimate free speech?

------
coding123
So does that mean Nevada can sue the federal government because it is legal
there?

------
mr_spothawk
did anybody else get the messages from EFF and ignore them?

------
mattnewton
Now what?

