From Tech's Realm:  Comments on making all social media companies liable.

 

If social media companies were completely liable and Section 230 (paragraph 26) was changed, then all of the smaller websites that offer niche content would all close because these websites, like Tech's Realm, were created by hobbyist that love what they do, and because of that, they do all of this for free, take on all of the expenses to offer a nice space for people. They wouldn't be able to stay open for fear of lawsuits.

Just saying.....I agree, small niche websites could no longer survive the internet and the Republicans with their misguided attempt to control what they don't like about FB and Twitter, will get exactly the opposite.  All of the specialty websites will be closed and FB and others will continue their dominance in the end.

The smarter way to correct any "wrong" from section 230 is to modify it with care, if you really have too, so the smaller niche websites can survive without severe repercussions of frivolous lawsuits.

Webmasters and Admins; are you watching the two cases, from Florida and Texas being heard on the Supreme Court dockets today?

Tech's Realm Discussion on Section 230.

If section 230 is altered, that webmasters, website owners of niche websites are now liable, there's no way specialty forums and niche social websites could flourish in that environment threat. How can we be liable for a member's content? Grant it, follow your TOS and remove content that violates your TOS, but seriously? Am I the only one seeing the true threat to our websites?

Original article and post located on Tech's Realm:

https://www.techsrealm.com/groups/topic/view/group_id/2/topic_id/20/post_id/45

Hi,

I'm a bit new to all of this, but how would this affect me running a website from the UK?

Obviously I want to try my best to moderate and eradicate any inappropriate content but does Section 230 (paragraph 26) apply worldwide or just to the US?

Mark Ransome said: Hi, I'm a bit new to all of this, but how would this affect me running a website from the UK? Obviously I want to try my best to moderate and eradicate any inappropriate content but does Section 230 (paragraph 26) apply worldwide or just to the US?
Hi Mark, Section 230 applies to the US. With the protection of Section 230, webmasters have the ability to operate a website without being under threat of member content liability to a certain point.* All US websites in the US are required to comply with the EU's-UK's GDPR and subject to some liability, however, the webmasters can mitigate their liabilities by adhering to their own Terms of Service rules and conscious moderation as you mentioned.


*In the US (because of Section 230) content created by the member is their content as we are not publishers. A lot of the lawsuits recently are challenging paragraph 26 of Section 230 (below in bold) implying that websites are publishers, but that's only because FB and Twitter have been under pressure due to their moderation practices.


EU's GDPR https://www.gdpreu.org/


The US websites are subject to the rules of the GDPR if the US websites have members from the EU. Facebook has had numerous lawsuits concerning their violations of the EU GDPR along with antitrust, data harvesting and deceptive practices. An endless list of lawsuits.


A new FB lawsuit triggered by the GDPR:


https://techcrunch.com/2023/01/10/digital-rights-ireland-gdpr-lawsuit-facebook-data-scraping-breach/


There is partisan political motivation surrounding Section 230 in the US which stems from the Trump era presidency with the known complaints of "fake news", conservatives only being moderated, excessive "one-sided" shadow banning etc.


The Republican's now have the majority in congress. I would expect the Republican's to push forward their agenda to alter Section 230 in some way. I've written to my senator about this two years ago, but not even sure he understood my point. Small website owners and hobbyist website owners in the US cannot operate as publishers if Section 230 is amended because of the liability. My voice was not heard on that point, hence the reason why I keep up with government shenanigans...um...news on this law.


Link to the Communications and Decency Act of 1996 (CDA) from Cornell Law School:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230


Here's what congress wants to change to affect liability of content on website owners (I put in bold the phrase congress wants change in terms of liability):


(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material

(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.


I've read that if congress changes Section 230 (also subject to senate approval legislation and then the president must sign for it to become new law) that the law would change to only affect large websites. My question to that is where is the cut off "on large websites"? This is my concern because it's just too gray, leaving open to too much judicial flexibility and subjective interpretation. Hope I helped a bit....in the EU you don't have to worry about the CDA-Section 230, however, you have to be GDPR compliant and I'm sure a few other privacy standards.

Oh, That's a lot for me to take in, not very good on things like this as you are. I'll try to keep up with this as best I can, but you're right about what is classed as a large website, who can be the judge of that, and say for example, there is a limit placed on the amount of posts to qualify as a small website, does that mean that we would have start deleting older content to stay within limits?

Mark Ransome said: Oh, That's a lot for me to take in, not very good on things like this as you are. I'll try to keep up with this as best I can, but you're right about what is classed as a large website, who can be the judge of that, and say for example, there is a limit placed on the amount of posts to qualify as a small website, does that mean that we would have start deleting older content to stay within limits?
All excellent points...that's the muddied part of it that bothers me too, at who's discretion, who's authority, would each of our states define and interpret this law differently (we have that issue here in the states, one state may have stricter laws then another on the same crime), and how sad to even think we would have to remove some of our content to not qualify as a big website? The other development I see with this is that the US would adopt similar laws as the EU's GDPR. Not saying these laws are not necessary, as privacy is big and how a member's content and privacy is handled is extremely important, just that the US may use the GDPR as a benchmark.

No worries on having to keep up, I'm pretty much looking for any news on it as much as possible and I'll share what I learn as news headlines appear. Which reminds me, our Supreme Court was supposed to review two cases from Texas and Florida that are at the heart of this issue. If they determine these cases have "standing" then they will move forward. I'll have to check on those opinions from yesterdays hearings?

We've been riding this merry go round since I started a website, back in 2008. It is always something coming up to worry about. This isn't anything new really.


The problem is, all these non-tech old hats make rules based on the dust between their earlobes. They know absolutely nothing about tech. Watch the testimony of Zuckerberg to Congress a year or two ago to see what I mean.


If all the tech people took a stand, the tide would turn and perhaps someone with tech knowledge would be making the rules. Just a thought.


About 3 or 4 years ago, Australia made a ruling regarding website content. The law there allows anyone who creates content to be paid by anyone who publishes their content without their permission. Google and other search engines were in an uproar as that would put them liable. Any of us who have photos, blog links, or any content from other sites posted on our own sites are liable if someone in Australia decides they want to be paid for that content.


It's the same with Article 230 if they change it without knowing what they are doing. We end up holding our breath for the anvil to drop. Time for a change? Yeah.

I meant to post the above at Tech's Realm. Oops.

Techi Jedi said: We've been riding this merry go round since I started a website, back in 2008. It is always something coming up to worry about. This isn't anything new really. The problem is, all these non-tech old hats make rules based on the dust between their earlobes. They know absolutely nothing about tech. Watch the testimony of Zuckerberg to Congress a year or two ago to see what I mean. If all the tech people took a stand, the tide would turn and perhaps someone with tech knowledge would be making the rules. Just a thought. About 3 or 4 years ago, Australia made a ruling regarding website content. The law there allows anyone who creates content to be paid by anyone who publishes their content without their permission. Google and other search engines were in an uproar as that would put them liable. Any of us who have photos, blog links, or any content from other sites posted on our own sites are liable if someone in Australia decides they want to be paid for that content. It's the same with Article 230 if they change it without knowing what they are doing. We end up holding our breath for the anvil to drop. Time for a change? Yeah.


I would like the non-tech-no-nothings to move on over and let the real-tech experienced (not the tech-overlords/technocrats), but the real tech people with real backgrounds to be listened too. I do recall Zuck's testimony. Astonishing on Australia's laws on website content O.M.G.

If "they" frick-up Section 230, it could be total paralyzing for sure. Time for change...change that makes sense. I suppose I will be writing another letter to my senator again....sigh.

Update on the SCOTUS decision of both Florida and Texas lawsuits pending. SCOTUS decided to delay these lawsuits and perhaps indefinitely or at least into 2024.

Supreme Court delays Florida and Texas laws that force Social Media platforms to host content.

The cases – viewed as a bellwether for internet speech and private
rights in the face of government power – may now not be heard until the
next term and closer to the heat of the 2024 US presidential election.
Both laws remain blocked in the meantime.

CNN link to this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/23/politics/supreme-court-delay-texas-florida-social-media-laws/index.html />