[BobbyJo]

Maybe needing an army of moderators is just the cost of doing business when it comes to hosting user content. I'm weary of that change being made, but really, I don't see a viable alternative, or a good argument against it. If you can't moderate content at some scale, then maybe you just shouldn't host content at that scale.

I think there may be a light, or a deeper darkness, that comes out of this though. We may see a lot of investment in automation for catching this kind of content.

[nullc]

So you'd be okay with HN shutting down?

I'm not involved with HN, but it seems likely that many smaller venues esp ones that aren't big money makers, including most mailing lists and small sites like HN would be advised to discontinue operating if exposed to this kind of extraordinary liability over content which they had no knowledge of.

"Actual knowledge" should be your preferred approach to your concern... but nothing will probably solve your problem because extremely well funded platforms are substantially immune to the law in any case, just as they're immune to common decency.

[tomcam]

Wait, hacker news is moderated quite actively and skillfully. Not trying to be a smart ass, I just don’t know what point you’re making.

[ryukafalz]

And instantly every chat and email service without millions of dollars to throw at content filtering is forced to shut down.

No, they’re not social network type services like Facebook or Twitter, but... section 230 doesn’t discriminate between types of online services!

[vharuck]

Section 230 has been used to defend a library when a child used it's computers to access pornography.

It's not all chatrooms and social media. Restricting the internet to be run by people able to manage their own websites would hurt. Ebay would have to manually review every account and listing. Good luck finding a user review website like Rotten Tomatoes. No more Straw Polls. No more GitHub.

[ryukafalz]

> Restricting the internet to be run by people able to manage their own websites would hurt.

It goes deeper than that, I think. Do VM hosting companies also rely on Section 230 immunity? Do ISPs? (They’re not Title II common carriers anymore!) Would providers of this nature be required to monitor what their users do as well?

I don’t believe either of these have been tested in court, but I think there’s at least the potential here to make it much, much harder to manage a website.

[girvo]

So the big platforms get to have an even larger moat. Surely you can see an issue with that?

And automated systems have their own huge problems.

[stickfigure]

I think maybe you got the wrong lesson out of reading 1984?

[BobbyJo]

I think conjuring that book is hyperbole. I don't think making people responsible for the legality of content they host is some crazy oppressive overreach of government power. The laws about what content is legal or illegal are pre-existing, these rules just shift the burden of enforcement in recognition that the government being the sole source of rule on massive distributed platforms isn't feasible. We tried, we failed. The bad guys ruined a good thing like usual.

[stickfigure]

The laws about what actions are legal or illegal are pre-existing, the telescreens and mandatory neighbor reporting just shift the burden of enforcement in recognition that the government can't effectively police the distributed masses.

Fixed that for you.

[BobbyJo]

Thanks, that seems like the point I was trying to get across.

[jackcosgrove]

Moderation is the secret sauce of user-generated content. You shouldn't allow for user generated content if you aren't prepared to moderate it. It seems many people still don't understand that this is the biggest problem facing social media. Not scaling, not engagement, but moderation.

[strbean]

If we started with this approach from the beginning, we wouldn't even have social media or sites like Wikipedia. Enshrining it in law just means only the existing players can play the game.

[BobbyJo]

How so? Wikipedia is a bad example as it is probably one of the most heavily moderated sites on the web. Social media is still 100% possible, it'll just be impossible to scale overnight as you'll have to scale moderation efforts with your username.

[ryukafalz]

Wikipedia is heavily moderated, but primarily by volunteers. Do you think that would be sufficient if the Wikimedia Foundation was liable for anything bad that users might post? That’s putting a lot of trust in your community, and the consequences of volunteer moderators slipping up or missing something are pretty big.