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by bananashake
4528 days ago
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> That may be true, but remember that if you have the right to host whatever legal content you wish, then the first step toward losing that right is to not defend it. Sometimes that requires defending scoundrels. Making a UGC revenge porn site doesn't need to be defended by anyone. I feel like your comment is a troll. I shouldn't be arguing with a troll and I expect HN to not have them. I'll stop at that. |
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I doubt anyone reading this comment would condone the operation of such a nasty site or have much sympathy for someone who ran one. Nevertheless, it is important to be clear about why we feel such behaviour is morally wrong and should be penalised. What principle(s) are being violated here? Our legal systems in the West tend to depend heavily on precedents, so the reasoning behind a judgement is in a very practical sense as important as the decision itself.
Personally, I think much of this issue could be dealt with very clearly. I believe stronger privacy laws are long overdue in many contexts, and as one example, criminalising the collection or distribution of intimate imagery of another person without their explicit consent is appropriate. Combine that with the well-established legal concepts of attempting to commit a crime, being an accomplice, and incitement, and situations like revenge porn sites are black and white criminal offences as far as the original uploaders are concerned, and the usual legal means should be available to investigate sources and track down the offenders.
There is a second issue here, which is more what I think sillysaurus2 was going after: should a site that hosts user-supplied content have any responsibility for the nature of that content? I don't think the answer to this is "pretty clearly no" in the way the GP post described, because one could certainly make a reasonable, logical argument for an alternative model where if you're going to publish potentially damaging information to a wide audience then you have some sort of due diligence obligation first.
However, I don't personally think that would be the best model, because it would impose severe and possibly prohibitive burdens on many beneficial activities. I prefer a "common carrier" model, where merely conveying someone else's information does not in itself incur any liability if the service doing it has no knowledge of or control over that information. However, the rules about aiding and abetting/incitement should also apply, so if you run a site promoting illegal behaviour or you knowingly allow your site to be used for illegal activities without taking reasonable steps to try to prevent it, you're on the hook as well. Again, this makes operating a dedicated revenge porn site a black and white offence (actually, many black and white offences, for which the penalty should IMHO be correspondingly severe) but without necessarily imposing burdens on modern communications networks that would be harmful to the generally valuable function they serve.