[pfschell]

It's time to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Either internet companies can exert editorial control like this, or they can be free of the consequences of the libel, criminal threats, and intellectual property crimes they are party to. But not both.

[ChrisSD]

Note that they didn't exert any control. It was discussed between colleagues. The email chain contained many warnings not to do this. Ultimately nothing came of it.

[golemotron]

The central issue is whether they can exert control They obviously can.

[ww520]

Is that considered conspiracy?

[ChrisSD]

No. Why would it be? At an absolute minimum conspiracy requires some agreement. Which they didn't have here. This also seems to have been an open discussion so there was no secrecy amongst those who did agree.

[ww520]

IANAL, according to Section 1(1) in [1] for UK, the threshold is for two persons to agree to have the law applied to them. It doesn't require all to agree. And from 1(1)(b), it's not necessarily for the conspired act to be carried out under some circumstance.

For U.S. [2], the threshold for conspiracy against the U.S. government is similar or lower. Item (2) "they interfere or obstruct legitimate Government activity" sounds a lot like what the Google employees were doing.

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1977/45/section/1

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_against_the_United_...