Sponsored Content




Intermarkets' Privacy Policy
Support


Donate to Ace of Spades HQ!



Recent Entries
Absent Friends
Bandersnatch 2024
GnuBreed 2024
Captain Hate 2023
moon_over_vermont 2023
westminsterdogshow 2023
Ann Wilson(Empire1) 2022
Dave In Texas 2022
Jesse in D.C. 2022
OregonMuse 2022
redc1c4 2021
Tami 2021
Chavez the Hugo 2020
Ibguy 2020
Rickl 2019
Joffen 2014
AoSHQ Writers Group
A site for members of the Horde to post their stories seeking beta readers, editing help, brainstorming, and story ideas. Also to share links to potential publishing outlets, writing help sites, and videos posting tips to get published. Contact OrangeEnt for info:
maildrop62 at proton dot me
Cutting The Cord And Email Security
Moron Meet-Ups

NoVaMoMe 2024: 06/08/2024
Arlington, VA
Details to follow


Texas MoMe 2024: 10/18/2024-10/19/2024 Corsicana,TX
Contact Ben Had for info





















« At Least 42 People Presumed Dead in Lee County as Media Rushes to "Katrina" Ron DeSantis | Main | In Vermont, Female Volleyball Players Banned from Their Own Locker Room Because They Complained About a Transgender Teammate Who Made an "Inappropriate" Remark To Them »
October 03, 2022

Supreme Court Accepts Cases Challenging s.230 Immunity for Tech Monopolies

This is a dangerous case. This isn't a win for Team Freedom, I don't think.

The Supreme Court said Monday it would take up a case that could fundamentally change the way Google and other tech companies are governed by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects them from lawsuits over content created by users.

In 2015, Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old U.S. citizen studying abroad in France, was murdered by ISIS terrorists who fired into a crowed bistro in Paris. Her family filed suit against Google, arguing that YouTube, which Google owns, aided and abetted the ISIS terrorists by allowing and promoting ISIS material on the platform with algorithms that helped to recruit ISIS radicals.


Lawyers for the Gonzalez family argued in their petition to the High Court that "despite extensive media coverage, complaints, legal warnings, congressional hearings, and other attention for providing online social media platform and communications services to ISIS, prior to the Paris attacks Google continued to provide those resources and services to ISIS and its affiliates, refusing to actively identity ISIS YouTube accounts and only reviewing accounts reported by other YouTube users."

Google is arguing that its platforms are protected by the Section 230 portion of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provides a legal shield to internet companies against lawsuits for "third-party" content posted on their platforms.

I say it's a dangerous case because this seems to me to be a case where Section 230 is actually intended to provide immunity. And I'm afraid the court might, in affirming that, over-affirm that point, and wind up granting these monopolies the power they claim they have, which is an untrammeled right to censor, whether in good faith or bad, without any liability whatsoever, and to make what are clearly publisher decisions, including about what stories to elevate and which to suppress and what headlines to themselves write -- again, with total immunity afforded to no other publisher in the world.

It's also dangerous because the argument that "the algorithms must be changed to stop speech that 'causes harm'" is the leftist censor mafia's entire argument, and that is the central legal claim of this case. If the family pressing the lawsuit prevails on its theory that the tech companies are at fault for not tweaking their "algorithms" to suppress "harmful content," then all the tech companies will say that their censorship of "anti-trans" and "anti-gay" and "anti-woman" and "anti-minority" and "anti-Muslim" and anti-etc. content is no longer just their choice -- it's required by US law as mandated by the Supreme Court.

Stochastic terrorism you guys!

A good outcome would be for the Court to affirm that s.230 immunizes platforms against harms caused by the writings of third parties -- but then adds dicta (advisories not directly related to the case or necessary to the ruling) that such immunity is available only to platforms when behaving as platforms, and only when they are acting in good faith.

Maybe add a footnote reminding that s.230 caveats its immunity on the premise that moderation will be done in "good faith."

That could then be used as precedent in a later ruling.


digg this
posted by Ace at 01:22 PM

| Access Comments




Recent Comments
Wolfus Aurelius, Dreaming of Elsewhere [/i] [/b]: "Morning, insomaniacals! I actually slept about en ..."

Braenyard: "Stefanie Lambert, an election integrity attorney w ..."

Epobirs: "The offending file(s) will usually make itself obv ..."

Epobirs: "Max Gail (Wojo) is apparently still around. He has ..."

Braenyard: "I don't mind renaming a file but going through 50 ..."

Epobirs: "New Tricks was more a more conventional police pro ..."

Epobirs: "I've usually gotten around the problem by copying ..."

Jim[/i][/b][/s][/u]: "New Tricks was the Brit version of Barney Miller, ..."

irongrampa: "Sitting here listening to music, mostly oldies tha ..."

publius, Rascally Mr. Miley (w6EFb): ">> says you have 3 files with names too long for ..."

Epobirs: "New Tricks was on a lot longer than that. 2003-201 ..."

Braenyard: "Those 4bbl Holley's are light on the gas if you're ..."

Recent Entries
Search


Polls! Polls! Polls!
Frequently Asked Questions
The (Almost) Complete Paul Anka Integrity Kick
Top Top Tens
Greatest Hitjobs

The Ace of Spades HQ Sex-for-Money Skankathon
A D&D Guide to the Democratic Candidates
Margaret Cho: Just Not Funny
More Margaret Cho Abuse
Margaret Cho: Still Not Funny
Iraqi Prisoner Claims He Was Raped... By Woman
Wonkette Announces "Morning Zoo" Format
John Kerry's "Plan" Causes Surrender of Moqtada al-Sadr's Militia
World Muslim Leaders Apologize for Nick Berg's Beheading
Michael Moore Goes on Lunchtime Manhattan Death-Spree
Milestone: Oliver Willis Posts 400th "Fake News Article" Referencing Britney Spears
Liberal Economists Rue a "New Decade of Greed"
Artificial Insouciance: Maureen Dowd's Word Processor Revolts Against Her Numbing Imbecility
Intelligence Officials Eye Blogs for Tips
They Done Found Us Out, Cletus: Intrepid Internet Detective Figures Out Our Master Plan
Shock: Josh Marshall Almost Mentions Sarin Discovery in Iraq
Leather-Clad Biker Freaks Terrorize Australian Town
When Clinton Was President, Torture Was Cool
What Wonkette Means When She Explains What Tina Brown Means
Wonkette's Stand-Up Act
Wankette HQ Gay-Rumors Du Jour
Here's What's Bugging Me: Goose and Slider
My Own Micah Wright Style Confession of Dishonesty
Outraged "Conservatives" React to the FMA
An On-Line Impression of Dennis Miller Having Sex with a Kodiak Bear
The Story the Rightwing Media Refuses to Report!
Our Lunch with David "Glengarry Glen Ross" Mamet
The House of Love: Paul Krugman
A Michael Moore Mystery (TM)
The Dowd-O-Matic!
Liberal Consistency and Other Myths
Kepler's Laws of Liberal Media Bias
John Kerry-- The Splunge! Candidate
"Divisive" Politics & "Attacks on Patriotism" (very long)
The Donkey ("The Raven" parody)
Powered by
Movable Type 2.64