CDA 230 - possibly the end of NS?

[Parxland]

This was going to happen eventually. Our politics has opened the way for malicious people to manipulate US law over time, and now the people in power have the opportunity to strip away even more of our meager internet privileges.

The DOJ has proposed revisions to CDA 230 recently. For elaboration:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice- ... 230-reform
https://www.wired.com/story/fight-over- ... e-know-it/

I'm going to be straightforward and issue a disclaimer this is going to be a biased post against any revisions/revocation. Call me pro-cda230. That's because while the idea of revising 230 is bi-partisan, though the semantics differ by party, it's bad for everyone. Nobody benefits except politicians, maybe because they can censor negative content.

CDA230 is what allows you to post content on the web, on social media, and platforms like nationstates, without the publishers being held liable for what's posted. Likewise, it allows websites like nationstates to moderate content without being sued for censoring people's opinions.

With the current (proposed) revisions by the DOJ, anybody that posts content on the web that's not "politically neutral" can be held liable for it and sued in US courts. Any "platform" like nationstates can be sued if they ever try to moderate content on their platform that's not in "good faith".

It's no exaggeration to say that NS would not survive this. There'd be to much risk to Max being sued for EVERYTHING he owns the moment a volunteer mod does something that could be construed "in bad faith" ( the term of "bad faith" is vague as fuck) or somebody posts something offensive. Either that or Max chooses to let NS go the way of 8chan, with any posts possibly containing every slur imaginable, with swastikas and sick fringe porn galore. Basically, they'd have to shut down the site or allow all the spam. There'd be no inbetween without walking a tight-rope.

It'll be the same situation for every website and every internet user that makes content (i.e. that includes writing anything on social media, chatrooms, or just any website). Nobody will be protected anymore by anonymity. Nobody.

For a more articulate, friendly explanation for what the fuck is going on, here's a helpful youtube video from a channel called extra credits: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UNJ9XfPrWI

Discuss the recent CDA 230 stuff. Usually there's an opinion here, but it's kind of obvious to discern what my opinion is already.

I thought the servers were in Switzerland along with all his Nazi gold..

Nope, there has to be some infrastructure in the US to support the majority of people that visit this website. Can you imagine how hard it would be to connect and how high the pings would be if people had to connect to Switzerland from the United States? Pings of at least 130, which would time out pages all the time for anybody with less than stellar US/DS.

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

I forgot to mention since it's important, but NS has servers in america. Therefore, the content of this website falls under US law. Now, if Max removed any server in US territory then you'd be right. He might have to restrict access from anybody in the US too.

Oh also NS falls under US law because americans use this website. So even if there were to be no servers in the US, NS would still be liable for shit, because america.

[The Black Forrest]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

[WayNeacTia]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

If it passes, we should start seeing nations like "NSA Bot 1, NSA Bot 2, ect....." showing up on the site.

[Tranzoria]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

The same Americans who have, like 20-40% of this site.

[Bombadil]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

Then may I say I am fully behind this whatever it is..

(j/k)

[Parxland]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

I forgot to mention since it's important, but NS has servers in america. Therefore, the content of this website falls under US law. Now, if Max removed any server in US territory then you'd be right. He might have to restrict access from anybody in the US too.

Oh also NS falls under US law because americans use this website. So even if there were to be no servers in the US, NS would still be liable for shit, because america.

[Bombadil]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

I forgot to mention since it's important, but NS has servers in america. Therefore, the content of this website falls under US law. Now, if Max removed any server in US territory then you'd be right. He might have to restrict access from anybody in the US too.

I thought the servers were in Switzerland along with all his Nazi gold..

[Bengal and Assam]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

The Commonwealth, Replacing America as beacon of freedom in the Anglophone world one step at a time...

[Parxland]

I forgot to mention since it's important, but NS has servers in america. Therefore, the content of this website falls under US law. Now, if Max removed any server in US territory then you'd be right. He might have to restrict access from anybody in the US too.

I thought the servers were in Switzerland along with all his Nazi gold..

Nope, there has to be some infrastructure in the US to support the majority of people that visit this website. Can you imagine how hard it would be to connect and how high the pings would be if people had to connect to Switzerland from the United States? Pings of at least 130, which would time out pages all the time for anybody with less than stellar US/DS.

BTW, if the servers run in Canada, then IDK what'll happen. The US & Canada are neighbors and have good relations though, so I don't expect much resistance from the Canadian government for Americans determined enough to sue a given platform despite the servers being in another country. Again, Americans visiting the website also counts. For this game to be safe it'd need complete insulation from the US.

[The Black Forrest]

Eh? Max is an Australian. I think the web server runs in Canada?

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

If it passes, we should start seeing nations like "NSA Bot 1, NSA Bot 2, ect....." showing up on the site.

Having been part of the DoD and having had to deal with the NSA....they try to hide their existence.

[Aeritai]

This is very troubling to hear I have made some good friends on NS and if it bans Americans from using it then I would be disappointed. But I am also kinda skeptical as well since people were saying that Net Neutrality would ruin the internet, but nothing happen.

So hopefully this doesn't pass

[Heloin]

If it passes, we should start seeing nations like "NSA Bot 1, NSA Bot 2, ect....." showing up on the site.

Having been part of the DoD and having had to deal with the NSA....they try to hide their existence.

We're pretty good at it, thank you.

[The Black Forrest]

Having been part of the DoD and having had to deal with the NSA....they try to hide their existence.

We're pretty good at it, thank you.

Oh you are NSA? How long?

[Parxland]

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

What'd happen to Americans who partake of this site. Surprising, but I actually know a lot less about this CDA 230 stuff than I like.. and I'm the bleeding OP railing about it! You come across like you're more knowledgeable.

[The Black Forrest]

The only people who could be hurt by this are the americans who partake of the site.

What'd happen to Americans who partake of this site. Surprising, but I actually know a lot less about this CDA 230 stuff than I like.. and I'm the bleeding OP railing about it! You come across like you're more knowledgeable.

Nothing like a legal judgement where we would have to pay money. Most likely Max would pull the US servers and block access to his site if this came to be a “real” thing.

[Heloin]

We're pretty good at it, thank you.

Oh you are NSA? How long?

Oh, long enough.

I may be government employee, but on the stateside and environmental side just so you know.

[Aeritai]

What'd happen to Americans who partake of this site. Surprising, but I actually know a lot less about this CDA 230 stuff than I like.. and I'm the bleeding OP railing about it! You come across like you're more knowledgeable.

Nothing like a legal judgement where we would have to pay money. Most likely Max would pull the US servers and block access to his site if this came to be a “real” thing.

I hope it doesn't become a thing I have grown attached to this website it would be a shame if I couldn't access it again.

[The Black Forrest]

Nothing like a legal judgement where we would have to pay money. Most likely Max would pull the US servers and block access to his site if this came to be a “real” thing.

I hope it doesn't become a thing I have grown attached to this website it would be a shame if I couldn't access it again.

Oh it won’t. We are still a long way from being China with the goverment controlling the Net.

[The Black Forrest]

Oh you are NSA? How long?

Oh, long enough.

I may be government employee, but on the stateside and environmental side just so you know.

Ohhhh. I was in what used to be called Internetworking Security.

The NSA pissed me off. They would break into my systems just because they were bored i guess. One time I got pissed and broke into one theirs and trashed it. They tried to recruit me after that.

[Purpelia]

Me thinks the OP can't read. Because reading the link you provided I get the exact opposite of what the OP says. Seriously, point by point:

Incentivizing Online Platforms to Address Illicit Content

The first category of recommendations is aimed at incentivizing platforms to address the growing amount of illicit content online, while preserving the core of Section 230’s immunity for defamation claims. These reforms include a carve-out for bad actors who purposefully facilitate or solicit content that violates federal criminal law or are willfully blind to criminal content on their own services. Additionally, the department recommends a case-specific carve out where a platform has actual knowledge that content violated federal criminal law and does not act on it within a reasonable time, or where a platform was provided with a court judgment that the content is unlawful, and does not take appropriate action.

This paragraph basically says:
1. If a platform is told by a court to take something down and they don't they get punished.
2. If a platform knowingly and deliberately allows content that is illegal to be on it they get punished.

Now, that is not great as I'd rather not have any censorship of the internet but it's hardly anything that we don't have already.

Promoting Open Discourse and Greater Transparency

A second category of proposed reforms is intended to clarify the text and revive the original purpose of the statute in order to promote free and open discourse online and encourage greater transparency between platforms and users. One of these recommended reforms is to provide a statutory definition of “good faith” to clarify its original purpose. The new statutory definition would limit immunity for content moderation decisions to those done in accordance with plain and particular terms of service and consistent with public representations. These measures would encourage platforms to be more transparent and accountable to their users.

A platform has to have explicit and plainly understandable terms of service and not some sort of lawyerspeak byzantine vague ones like Youtube has now. Great, this is a great thing and should be applauded.

Clarifying Federal Government Enforcement Capabilities

The third category of recommendations would increase the ability of the government to protect citizens from unlawful conduct, by making it clear that Section 230 does not apply to civil enforcement actions brought by the federal government.

If a platform breaks some law and the government acts to protect you from that they should be able to do so. Again, how is that a bad thing?

Promoting Competition

A fourth category of reform is to make clear that federal antitrust claims are not, and were never intended to be, covered by Section 230 immunity. Over time, the avenues for engaging in both online commerce and speech have concentrated in the hands of a few key players. It makes little sense to enable large online platforms (particularly dominant ones) to invoke Section 230 immunity in antitrust cases, where liability is based on harm to competition, not on third-party speech.

THIS IS FANTASTIC. THIS IS HUGE AND GREAT AND I LOVE IT. It literally says Google and it's ilk can't claim protection from being broken up because they are a monopoly.


So overall I do not see anything the OP says and frankly think this is a great bill overall.
As for the news article I won't even read that as it's obvious how this bill is a massive and serious threat to Google and the other tech giants who abuse the current state of affairs to become and maintain a monopoly over the internet. And thus they will sponsor news articles to fight it.

[Saiwania]

Broadly speaking, I'll be in favor of whatever will more enable me to post however I want to within reason. One side wants to enable or coerce websites to do more self censorship/moderation whilst another side wants the end users protected from more if not most censorship from websites. Mainly far rightists complaining how the level of hatred/bigotry/etc. that is allowed to be expressed isn't quite enough.

I'm inclined to agree in that too many platforms have taken the Liberal standard as their default code of conduct expected of users because they're primarily based in Silicon Valley or other super Liberal locales where people are expected to be too tolerant and permissive from my perspective.

If the US servers are pulled and Americans get banned from participating, I suppose such people could try VPNs or whatever other technology trickery that exists to get around it. But I expect nothing to really come of it. Net Neutrality's abolition didn't really change anything for the worse. This could be just as overblown.

My personal opinion is that it is neither the government nor the websites' place to do anything about any content online, with the sole exception of what happens to be illegal where a server is located. The politicians should butt out of this, being that most don't understand the online spaces anyways. Ideally, the status quo will continue if change in either direction is bad and the current one is working the best out of any outcome. That is perhaps yet to be determined in that change could be given a chamce if we're not afraid of it. I find that things rarely stay bad forever. Eventually something that doesn't work out well enough gets fixed or improved, if not discontinued because of changing priorities and the shifting power of different interest groups.

[Tinhampton]

With the current (proposed) revisions by the DOJ, anybody that posts content on the web that's not "politically neutral" can be held liable for it and sued in US courts. Any "platform" like nationstates can be sued if they ever try to moderate content on their platform that's not in "good faith"... It'll be the same situation for every website and every internet user that makes content

Why do you imagine that the new Section 230 would now apply to somebody writing a bunch of articles (without comments oftte) on his website?

...NS would not survive this.

It wasn't supposed to survive the Net Neutrality repeal, either... or the EU Copyright Directive... or maybe the EU Link Tax and SOPA/PIPA too before they got struck down, I can't quite remember because I wasn't here at the time. Why do these doomsday predictions always seem to crop up every two years?

There'd be to much risk to Max being sued for EVERYTHING he owns the moment a volunteer mod does something that could be construed "in bad faith" ( the term of "bad faith" is vague as fuck)

The new Section 230 never mention the term "bad faith" and codify a definition of "good faith" moderation. It also does not contain any mention of the word "political[ly]" (see supra). :pikathink:

[Purpelia]

You people do realize that all this is about giving americans more freedom and not less? That is to say, the whole discussion is NOT about censoring you but about stopping so called "platforms" from doing it?

Put simply by laws that are already in place and have been for quite some time in order for a website, be that Youtube, Google, Facebook or Nationstates to qualify for CDA 230 protection it has to be neutral toward its content. That is to say, it can remove kiddie porn or beheading videos but it can't punish, demonetize or ban you for posting anything that is legal. So if I upload two propaganda videos, one liberal and one nazi to Youtube in accordance to laws that already exist Youtube is NOT allowed to censor one and promote the other. If that happens than they demonstrate that they are not a free public platform but are in fact a publisher that picks and chooses the flavor of content they want and loose CDA 230 protection. This is all already on the books. The problem is that tech companies get around it by lobbying and by having vague and byzantine rules that let them pretty much do what they want. This bill is simply a means to combat that.

No american will ever be sued for posting things that are not politically neutral. Rather platforms will be sued for not being politically neutral and allowing americans to post any and all political views.

The only way this would effect NS is that Max would be unable to ban anyone who is openly stating controversial or generally disliked political views as long as that someone obeys the other rules of the forum. And given that we have a right wing discussion thread open and kicking I don't see how that would change anything. At most the forum would have to revise the swastika flag policy.

[Saiwania]

The only way this would effect NS is that Max would be unable to ban anyone who is openly stating controversial or generally disliked political views as long as that someone obeys the other rules of the forum. And given that we have a right wing discussion thread open and kicking I don't see how that would change anything. At most the forum would have to revise the swastika flag policy.

I'll admit as much, that I'd be happy as a clam if this law managed to get the Trolling rule thrown out. But I don't expect too much from this. What is political and what isn't is so vague as to be impossible to establish in practice, because people will interpret things different unless everything is clearly spelled out.

[Heloin]

You people do realize that all this is about giving americans more freedom and not less? That is to say, the whole discussion is NOT about censoring you but about stopping so called "platforms" from doing it?

Put simply by laws that are already in place and have been for quite some time in order for a website, be that Youtube, Google, Facebook or Nationstates to qualify for CDA 230 protection it has to be neutral toward its content. That is to say, it can remove kiddie porn or beheading videos but it can't punish, demonetize or ban you for posting anything that is legal. So if I upload two propaganda videos, one liberal and one nazi to Youtube in accordance to laws that already exist Youtube is NOT allowed to censor one and promote the other. If that happens than they demonstrate that they are not a free public platform but are in fact a publisher that picks and chooses the flavor of content they want and loose CDA 230 protection. This is all already on the books. The problem is that tech companies get around it by lobbying and by having vague and byzantine rules that let them pretty much do what they want. This bill is simply a means to combat that.

No american will ever be sued for posting things that are not politically neutral. Rather platforms will be sued for not being politically neutral and allowing americans to post any and all political views.

The only way this would effect NS is that Max would be unable to ban anyone who is openly stating controversial or generally disliked political views as long as that someone obeys the other rules of the forum. And given that we have a right wing discussion thread open and kicking I don't see how that would change anything. At most the forum would have to revise the swastika flag policy.

You haven't made a compiling argument for it honestly. Websites are now forced to host nazis, racists, and conspiracy theorists doesn't sound like a net positive.