Reddit has been systematically deleting and banning users who share pictures of Tiennamin square. Tencent has a massive investment in reddit. We are at the mercy of the CCP and u/spez
IANAL but there’s suppose to be a blurb in there about not exercising too much control over the content. The more moderating decisions the admins get involved in, the greater the risk in going afoul of this. Once the company has editorial control, they lose the Section 230 protections.
However, since it’s been clarified that the mods did it rather than the admins and it was over the John Oliver rule, that means none of the above applies and it’s not a violation.
Section 230 isn’t about an amount of editorial control. It’s simply not the case that a business is labelled as either a publisher or a platform. Instead, any individual piece of content on the site might be deemed to have been published by the owners of the platform or not.
Thanks for this. I may have worded the above badly. I never meant to imply that it was the case that a business is labelled as either a publisher or a platform under Section 230, but rather this would be an instance where they lose such protections on this particular piece of content as a consequence of this one decision.
Here is what others on the fediverse have pointed out in regards to editorial control and Section 230:
I don’t think any of us are using the "If you said “Once a company like that starts moderating content, it’s no longer a platform, but a publisher” argument.
Rather, we’re using the "If you said “Section 230 requires all moderation to be in “good faith” and this moderation is “biased” so you don’t get 230 protections” one.
So, let’s assume for the sake of argument that the misunderstanding on the original story was actually the true story. (I.e. admins deleted the content, not mods for the John Oliver rule).
It’s interesting though that according to the techdirt article that something like the above has never been tested in court. And the bit about a judge trying to figure out “good faith” and the massive 1st amendment issues therein makes sense. I think the techdirt article goes too far in stating that arguing for a moderation against good faith wouldn’t help - it’s never made it to a court after all so we don’t have any examples on how a court would rule when asked to decide on that point.
But considering how reddit has traditionally operated - unless there was a legal requirement like DMCA compliance or IP violation, they left all moderating decisions to the volunteer mods - to make a special exception in this case to their usual hands-off policy - and specifically to make a decision that even the mods disagreed with - likely would give reddit quite the headache in trying to argue that they acted in good faith.
Let me reword what I originally wrote for clarity so we can understand how this part got misinterpreted:
IANAL but there’s suppose to be a blurb in there about not exercising too much control over the content (actually i was wrong about this, as it was about) [moderating in good faith]. The more moderating decisions the admins get involved in, the greater the [chance] in going afoul of this. Once the company has editorial control [is deemed to not be moderating in good faith], they lose the Section 230 protections [for that or those particular moderating decisions].
How are they not in violation of Section 230 at this point? They are clearly moderating for a specific political point of view…
…how is that a violation of section 230?
IANAL but there’s suppose to be a blurb in there about not exercising too much control over the content. The more moderating decisions the admins get involved in, the greater the risk in going afoul of this. Once the company has editorial control, they lose the Section 230 protections.
However, since it’s been clarified that the mods did it rather than the admins and it was over the John Oliver rule, that means none of the above applies and it’s not a violation.
You’re wrong about Section 230.
Section 230 isn’t about an amount of editorial control. It’s simply not the case that a business is labelled as either a publisher or a platform. Instead, any individual piece of content on the site might be deemed to have been published by the owners of the platform or not.
Thanks for this. I may have worded the above badly. I never meant to imply that it was the case that a business is labelled as either a publisher or a platform under Section 230, but rather this would be an instance where they lose such protections on this particular piece of content as a consequence of this one decision.
Here is what others on the fediverse have pointed out in regards to editorial control and Section 230:
https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/66676/The-entire-r-MildlyInteresting-mod-has-just-been-REINSTATED-again-without#entry-comment-293617
https://kbin.social/m/RedditMigration/t/72348/Reddit-Admins-Deny-Subreddit-Users-the-Right-to-Vote-for#entry-comment-333575
https://kbin.social/m/fediverse/p/526492/A-few-days-ago-I-suggested-that-once-Meta-s-Threads#post-comment-932539
I don’t think any of us are using the "If you said “Once a company like that starts moderating content, it’s no longer a platform, but a publisher” argument.
Rather, we’re using the "If you said “Section 230 requires all moderation to be in “good faith” and this moderation is “biased” so you don’t get 230 protections” one.
So, let’s assume for the sake of argument that the misunderstanding on the original story was actually the true story. (I.e. admins deleted the content, not mods for the John Oliver rule).
Still IANAL but my layperson’s understanding is would be that (even though no court has gone this way yet) Section ©(1) isn’t as relevant because no one is disputing that reddit is not source of the picture. Obviously it was the OP who was the source - in fact OP could be the party on the other side of this hypothetical court action. But since there’s no dispute to settle through Section ©(1) then we must move on.
Section ©(2)(B) should not apply because reddit removed the picture. It’s not a case of reddit enabling or making that picture available, but the opposite. And providing the technical means for other to remove it (although this actually applies to this example in the real world because they gave the mod the tools to do that and the mod was the one who actually did it) in hypothetical example, reddit did it themselves - through an admin, who is an employee of reddit, who’s actions represent reddit’s own actions here.
So we do seem to have crafted a case where the focus should be on Section ©(2)(A).
It’s interesting though that according to the techdirt article that something like the above has never been tested in court. And the bit about a judge trying to figure out “good faith” and the massive 1st amendment issues therein makes sense. I think the techdirt article goes too far in stating that arguing for a moderation against good faith wouldn’t help - it’s never made it to a court after all so we don’t have any examples on how a court would rule when asked to decide on that point.
But considering how reddit has traditionally operated - unless there was a legal requirement like DMCA compliance or IP violation, they left all moderating decisions to the volunteer mods - to make a special exception in this case to their usual hands-off policy - and specifically to make a decision that even the mods disagreed with - likely would give reddit quite the headache in trying to argue that they acted in good faith.
But again IANAL.
Let me reword what I originally wrote for clarity so we can understand how this part got misinterpreted: