Section 230 should remain.
Like pretty much any business regulation, it should be scaled to the size and ability of the organization to which it applies. Should Facebook and Youtube be compelled to do more against hate speech and videos, given their influence and revenue? Yes. Should every random blog, website and smaller network be held to the same standard?
No.
6
Changed? How about it if this section is repealed? And throw the Graham-Leach-Bliley Act into the same trash bin.
1
The solution isn't that hard. If you go to court and get a judgment for speech that isn't protected by the First Amendment (i.e., defamation, harassment, incitement to violence), platforms should lose their section 230 protection for allowing such speech to remain on their platforms.
For instance, say someone writes a false social media post about another person and it goes viral. If the subject of the post sues and wins a case for defamation, the social media platform (and all other platforms to which the disinformation spread) may be held liable if they don't take down the false information immediately.
Most of the truly vile things that happen on the internet would be either crimes or torts if committed outside "the internet". There's no reason why there should be a distinction between the internet and real life with respect to what is illegal or tortious.
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These are impossible requirements. "Acceptable" speech is a moving target. What is acceptable to one person may not be acceptable to another and vice versa.
The only possible course of action is to prevent ANY speech from entering the internet. That means it would cease to exist.
The legal basis would change permanently and at a whim. Imagine what rules Trump would implement, because all the anti-Trump rhetoric here in the NYT could easily be classified as hate speech by him and his supporters.
What would come after that?
The first amendment is too important to give up, but I do not have a solution either.
3
For the many of us whose peers are on our screens, peer pressure will be there too. This can’t really be legislated any more than guns. “Normal” never was, but there is always hope, that conversation, exercise, and healthy debate will find their way back to family, school and society.
When we abuse our liberties by attacking other people’s lives and liberty when end up losing our freedom.
Liberty only works when people respect each other.
5
Anti-slavery "rhetoric" would be considered hate speech? By who? Slave owners and those who cherry picked the Bible for passages about slaves obeying their masters?
Speaking of freedom from oppression, whether bondage or economic, isn't hate speech as aimed at groups for simply how they were born.
2
Silicon Valley companies have played a slimy double game on this issue.
They have blatantly censored political speech that they don't like (mostly right leaning speech) therefore becoming de facto content editors.
Yet when things go bad they claim legal immunity under the ruse that they are "merely open tech platforms" and everything is the users' responsibility.
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@Gabe
The vast majority of the "right leaning speech" that gets censored is pretty "slimy" itself. The truly harmful speech on the internet is asymmetrically towards the right, so the cries of political censorship is just the right wing working the ref.
5
GOOD! This has gone well beyond the pale and irresponsible behavior on behalf of ISPs should be held legally accountable.
That doesn't limit the right of speech, it assigns adult responsibility to potential and actual vehicles of hatred, fake news and propaganda, as it should be.
5
They should all be treated as publishers. Period.
5
Artificial intelligence or AI can now out-think the best chess and poker players in the world. Computer algorithms have become self-learning by recording causes and effects and making adjustments. Can't we at least try to design algorithms that in real time provide probabilities that certain manifestations of hate speech (the cause) will lead to criminal acts? Humans could make final decisions about whether to take down a website but as it stands, we are not doing a good enough job of correlating hate speech with violence.
1
An article in the NY Times about the difference between our "free speech" and Germany's and France's "free speech" is really worth reading in conjunction with this article.
"The El Paso Shooting Revived the Free Speech Debate. Europe Has Limits."
America could - and should - pay attention to how these differences could make substantial inroads into stopping the spread of hate speech and domestic terrorism.
Please read it.
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@Mimi
Except that in Europe this is being used as a political instrument inasmuch as it is being used to suppress opposing political opinions. There is definitely no free speech in Germany anymore.
3
@Kara Ben Nemsi
Germany has a unique history that it is very, very aware of.
2
Freedom of speech is hard. Would the anti-slavery rhetoric of old been considered hate speech back in the day? Of course. How about anti-British speech in the colonial days? Sure enough. How about the civil rights movement? Black Panthers?
There always will be a fringe that advocates hate and violence. When it crosses the line into inciting violence, arrest them. That's what the laws already do. But criminalizing publishing of "hate" speech just sounds like a tool for oppression down the road.
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