urza9814 's Techdirt Comments

Latest Comments (301)

• On the post: Home Owners Association Threatens Residents With Lawsuit For Online Criticism

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 01:19pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: A HOA isn't bound by the 1st Ammendment

  Yeah, I might be mistaken on that actually, not sure. Wikipedia indicates that you can be imprisoned for up to ten years for misappropriation of trade secrets under the Economic Espionage Act of 1996...but looking at the actual text of the act I don't actually see that. Same goes for the Uniform Trade Secrets Act which has been adopted by several states...lots of websites saying you can be arrested for violating that, even pointing to that law as a reason you might get arrested for violating an NDA specifically, but I still don't see it in the law itself...

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 12:22pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Like fixing a papercut through amputation

  Your filter could also block a user. It just depends on your rules.

  Yes, it certainly could.

  Also note that you said you get a lot LESS spam. Not no spam. Therefore your filter makes mistakes filtering out the spam from legitimate mail. That's kind of the point of this discussion. Any automated system is going to fail since it isn't going to be able to determine nuance, context and/or meaning.

  You are missing my point entirely. I don't want everything filtered, I don't want all filtering removed. I want the end user to be free to chose the level of filtering they want.

  You are making no sense. The current network is the Internet. The node is Facebook. You can leave the Facebook node and go to the MySpace node. How does that differ from your example? Or do you mean MySpace and Facebook should be allowed to post to each other's sites?

  Yes. Exactly like email currently works and has worked for decades. Why is that so difficult to understand? Email used to be a bunch of isolated networks just like social networking is today. Email shifted from closed, isolated protocols to open interconnected ones, so why can't social networking do the same?

  How would that work? Let's say you are a racist. Facebook bans your racist speech so you switch to MySpace which allows it. Why on god's green earth would Facebook allow your racist speech just because your broadcasting it from MySpace? Why wouldn't they block it at their border per their rules which caused you to leave in the first place?

  Why doesn't Google just block any email I send to their users since I found their policies bad enough to leave? Because they have customers who do want those mails, and because they don't want to fundamentally break the protocol on which they were built. Now, in a world of diaspora* pods instead of Facebook, would there be DSA pods that refused all content from Stormfront pods and vice-versa? Sure. And if you want to cut those people off, go ahead and join one. But there would also be pods in the middle that allow you to have friends on both sides. That's the point. ANY system will fail, as you said yourself. It will fail because people are different. They want different policies, and they even interpret the same policies in different ways. How do you think someone can construct one single policy -- any policy, even "absolutely zero moderation" -- that will please everyone? It can't be done, that's why we're having this discussion, and we'll have to KEEP having this discussion until we fundamentally change something about the environment in which it is occurring.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 09:56am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  So since you're so eager to call me a tyrant, how about you show me a quote of where I actually said I supported such a policy? Try reading the whole thread before you reply instead of inventing your own context.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 09:44am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Like fixing a papercut through amputation

  For the record, not everyone with an email address has both the resources and the technical know-how to set up and run their own email server.

  This is why I talk about hundreds or thousands of nodes, not hundreds of millions of them. There's a pretty huge area in between "ever person using the same one service" and "every service being used by only one person". Notice that while a TON of people just use Gmail, any of us can still set up our own email server if we want to, we can share it with our friends if we want to (FWIW, I'm not the only person using my email server, it's small but it does have a couple other users), and we can still email those Gmail users if we want to. You can't do any of that with any of the major social networking platforms.

  Also, I do believe that Techdirt has mentioned a similar idea to what you propose about Facebook working more similarly to emails, where you use nodes or “protocols” instead of platforms.

  Yup, exactly the same idea. Although I wasn't a huge fan of that article as I think it misrepresents the true work that needs to be done. Yes, we need protocols instead of platforms. But the problem isn't building those protocols -- we have PLENTY already. The problem is getting the general public to start using the things. Which, as you said, is mostly about human nature rather than any technical development. If I had a solution to that, I'd be implementing it already...

• On the post: Home Owners Association Threatens Residents With Lawsuit For Online Criticism

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 08:21am

  Re: Re: A HOA isn't bound by the 1st Ammendment

  They can bring a suit as an individual with an actual defamation claim, but they cannot forbid speech nor fine anyone for speech.

  Why not? Assuming the contract is written properly* then it seems like it's basically an NDA, and you can certainly be sued for violating an NDA. In some states you could even go to prison. *Of course, in this case I would imagine the contract WASN'T written properly in that context, otherwise there would be no reason to try to implement a new policy for it...

• On the post: Home Owners Association Threatens Residents With Lawsuit For Online Criticism

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 08:14am

  Re:

  I dunno man, they are insane and I don't get why anyone would sign that contract...but they did, and now they are dealing with the consequences. Saying that a buyer "can't opt out of it" is like saying the buyer of a smartphone can't opt out of iOS. Once you've bought the iPhone, that's true, but who is forcing you to buy the iPhone or buy the HOA home? It's not like an HOA moves into the neighborhood and forces you to sign up when you're already living there. I think in many cases it's the HOA that legally owns the land, and THEY can do what they want with it. Either way, I find it hard to have a ton of sympathy for someone who agreed to those terms when they moved in. Maybe if people stopped agreeing to the HOA terms and agreeing to pay them dues there wouldn't be so many of them. People sign up because they WANT to be able to do this sort of thing to others, then they whine about how unfair it is when someone does it to them instead.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 07:20am

  Re:

  I never said we should create that law, I merely presented it as another mistake that might be made by some idiot politician.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 07:08am

  Re: An authoritarian/corporate wet-dream

  There is a significant difference between a platform tracking what you do on that one platform and being tracked everywhere, and if platforms/companies are trying to track your actions past their platform the argument should be to limit that if not outright shut it down, not accept and normalize it.

  Facebook, Google, and others already do track what you do on a huge number of other websites. Everywhere you see "Login with Facebook" or "Like this on Facebook" or "Share to Facebook"...those Facebook icons come with tracking code. You are being watched, even when you aren't on their site, even if you don't have an account.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 07:00am

  Re: Re: Re: Like fixing a papercut through amputation

  They can and already do do that, now take the issue that already exist with a platform like that an increase them exponentially by dumping all of the decisions on the users. Just got three hundred spam message? Have fun going through and blocking them all, knowing you're going to be doing the same thing tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.

  You do understand that "filters" are not the same thing as "blocking a user", right? Have you ever run your own mail server? Because I do. It runs off an old laptop in my living room. I set up the spam filters myself. And I've never had to go through hundreds of messages to pick out the spam from the legitimate content. That's just not how any of this works. Although I suppose you could do it that way if you're some kind of masochist...?

  I certainly hope you don't use a spam filter for your email if you don't want other people telling you what you can see, and instead do all the filtering and blocking yourself.

  Yes, as mentioned above, I do actually, and have for about five years now. It's great. I used to lose a TON of mail to the spam filter back when I was with gmail, and spam was still getting into my inbox too. Now I get less spam, and have never had a single legitimate message filtered out.

  Alright, running with this idea, what happens when one of those services/platforms gets an overwhelming majority of users on it thanks to the rules/standards it sets? You can't tell people they can't use it, as you've expressed the desire to allow them to move from service to service as they want, so you're stuck with a 'node' where the majority of people are using it and following the standards it set, much like the current situation.

  The difference is that if people don't like the way that node is filtering/moderating, they can leave the node without leaving the network. Right now I have to choose between blindly accepting whatever choices Facebook wants to make, with no possible recourse, or not talking to most of my friends again. FWIW, I did take the latter option...

  Hold on, what civil liberties are they violating again? You yourself pointed out that they can host or not host whatever they want, so what exactly is the problem again with private platforms doing just that?

  I never said they were. Read that paragraph -- and probably the thread it's a part of -- again. It's a hypothetical. IF we deem them to be an essential monopoly, THEN continuing to operate the way they currently do would make them guilty of civil rights violations.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 30 Jan, 2020 @ 06:44am

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Platform size is not the problem but rather that a few people who think that they the guardians of society making lots of noise until somebody does something to make their problem go away is the real problem, And once they have killed one target, they move onto the next one.

  That can also be understood as a problem of platform size and design. It's not resilient. One node gets shut down and the whole service is gone. Try playing whac-a-mole with a thousand different nodes, especially when a good portion of them are offshore, and a good portion are some minor in his parents' basement that's gonna be a PR and procedural nightmare to go after. Try nuking the content when there's a hundred different servers caching it, all operated by different owners or agencies. How many years and how many millions of dollars have been spent trying to kill torrents? How well is that going? Distributed systems are very hard to attack in that way.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 01:43pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  Oh, and you still need section 230 to allow those separate companies to operate.

  Right. Read the parent posts. I was arguing against the idea that Facebook et al should not be allowed to moderate because of their size. If their size is such that we must require them to provide a right to free speech within their platform, then they need to be a government entity, because private corporations are not required to obey free speech laws. So they should be free to moderate, as section 230 allows. I never stated any opposition to section 230. This is an "A vs B, pick C" situation. On one side people say moderation must be strictly regulated, because of how large and powerful the platforms are. On the other side, people say reasonable moderation can't be done because of how large and powerful the platforms are, and we must allow them to take down whatever they want for whatever reason they want, or be inundated with trolls and spam. How about we go with none of the above? Let's build hundreds of nodes, each with their own moderation policies. Some will have humans reading every single post; some will have big automated systems with varying levels of dispute resolution; some will just be a firehose of filth. Users can pick whichever level they desire. If the nodes with more extensive moderation are more expensive to run, they can charge a fee, and the end users can determine if that fee is worth paying. Or they might decide that, for all their flaws, the automated systems provide great value. Moderation is a "problem" because we've essentially decided that we need to have a single moderation standard for all of humanity. That seems pretty obviously infeasible, so why do we keep arguing about how to accomplish it? If the goal is impossible, find a new goal.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 01:29pm

  Re: Like fixing a papercut through amputation

  resulting in massive damage to free speech

  No it won't. Whether or not a private company chooses to publish your speech has no impact on your free speech rights.

  and the platforms that you just handed over to the government are overrun in short order by trolls and other people posting repulsive but perfectly legal content, driving everyone else away.

  Yeah, just like our public schools and public libraries and public parks...oh wait, no, those are just fine. If it was a problem though, I would imagine the result would be development of user-side solutions. Why do you think users are incapable of determining what they want to see without Facebook's help? Why do we need Big Brother to tell us what we should read and watch and discuss? Of course, my ultimate preference would be NONE OF THE ABOVE. I want private services that aren't allowed to become so large and powerful. Federated social networking, where each node can set and enforce its own standards, where each user can set up their own filtering and access mechanisms, where users can freely move from one service to another. "Laboratories of Democracy" for the modern era. But if the services are seen as essential (which I strongly disagree with -- my Techdirt profile is the closest thing I have to an active social media account) and we decide we REALLY want it to be one big monolithic provider..then yes, it should be the government, and they should allow anything that is legal. Because the alternative is a privately owned and operated quasi-government entity that is kept separate from government solely so it has the legal right to violate civil liberties. And that's just a stupid idea and an EXTREMELY dangerous precedent.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 01:14pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  The US has no controls on emigration that I know of. Maybe you are a special case.

  Off the top of my head: strict identification standards and restrictions for specific persons of interest (whether formally accused of anything or not).

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 01:11pm

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:

  As I said before,how will Facebook and Twitter be broken up? Their size is in the people who use them, not the assets they control.

  Couldn't a similar thing have been said of Bell back in the day? And the approach to breaking them up would be more or less the same -- federate the network. Facebook probably already has the tools to do this mostly in place -- it's not like they're running on one server or one datacenter, they clearly have systems in place to allow those servers to communicate between each other. You'd need to extend those protocols pretty significantly, but it's surely possible. Many other services have already successfully created such systems. Although splitting out Instagram and (to a lesser extent) Oculus isn't a terrible idea either...

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 12:53pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  You know, if you don't like what the US Government does, you can just move to another country. What's the big deal?

  Only if the US Government allows me to. At the moment, they would not.

  Yes, it is absolutely a matter of size, and the power it gives you over others. The whole public-versus-private distinction isn't as cut and dried as you seem to think, but the important issue is that, public or private, once something gets to a certain size and enjoys a certain amount of power, it needs to be controlled.

  You know, once upon a time, the belief was that no private company should be allowed to reach that amount of size and power. That's why we created monopoly and anti-trust legislation. It's a shame nobody seems willing to use that particular tool anymore...but if these services are really so essential to society then perhaps we ought to exercise our right of eminent domain and turn them into federal agencies. That is the proper way to bind a company to obey the constitution and uphold civil rights. You aren't going to fix the problem by thinking up some new regulation when the problem only exists because of people ignoring existing regulation. They'll just ignore the new ones too.

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 12:42pm

  Re: Re: I have great hopes for the repeal of 230...

  It would certainly be an interesting alternative... I think it would prevent any companies from getting into social networking...or at least any domestic companies. But I'm not sure if I can consider that a bad thing. There's two possible outcomes in my mind, depending on how the prosecution goes once the major companies are gone. One option is you get non-profit distributed systems that crop up, where the service provider isn't actually storing or transmitting any content themselves, so they can't be prosecuted. It's possible though that the prosecution would then turn to individual users who end up transmitting the data. In that case you end up turning social networking into torrents or darkweb, where you've got a bunch of questionable offshore service providers and a web of encrypted tunnels. That'd be pretty cool, but it'd also remove about half the user base and probably result in two thirds of what's left getting a TON of viruses and malware....but it'd be fun for a couple of us ;)

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 12:29pm

  Re: Re: Re:

  Not if it's worded as "you are directly liable for anything you publish" rather than "you must moderate anything you publish". But the end result would be the same. No company would dare publish user content without moderating it under such a system. You are assuming that they will either leave 230 entirely intact, or remove it entirely and not replace it. If they decide they need to go a bit further to "fix" the "problem", then who knows where that would end up...

• On the post: Time Magazine Explains Why Section 230 Is So Vital To Protecting Free Speech

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 12:03pm

  Re:

  Depends who they're kicking out, just like any other private property. I'm not coming over to your house if I hear you've been kicking out anyone you think might be homosexual, but if I hear you've been kicking out Nazis, I'll gladly come help. It's one thing when we're talking about government censorship, where they might throw you in prison for the rest of your life if they don't like what you've said. But as long as the worst they can do is kick you off their website, I'm not sure I see the problem. And frankly, I think this whole idea is a large part of what is wrong with our society today. Everyone acts like you just have to let jerks be jerks and you can't say anything or do anything about it. Acting like all that matters is money, and if someone is giving you money, you shouldn't care if you're serving Adolph Hitler himself. Screw morality, it's all about the profits. We collectively need to stop acting like we have to help people who are only trying to screw us over. Yes, you should let people be themselves, let them exercise their human rights, and not try to force them to do or not do something...but you also shouldn't let them force you to do or not do something that you don't agree with either. You think the KKK is going to let someone else publish an article about the benefits of diversity in their quarterly newsletter? Probably not. So why do we feel like we're required to let them publish in ours? What's the difference, really? Is it because Twitter is a big company? Is it some perverted idea of a "duty to shareholders"? Or just an inability to distinguish between large corporations and national governments? I don't get it...

• On the post: Facial Recognition Company Clearview Lied About Its Crime-Solving Power In Pitches To Law Enforcement Agencies

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 29 Jan, 2020 @ 11:36am

  Re: Re: Just because its there doesn't mean you should use it

  I think there is a pretty clear distinction -- Clearview isn't searching for the images online, it's searching for them on its own internal database. Which means these photos have been copied from the original location and included as part of their application, and are then being distributed to various law enforcement departments. IMO it's more like the difference between sending a link to a song on YouTube vs downloading that song and uploading it to a torrent site. In the end it could be the same people getting the same content, but one way is legal and the other is not.

• On the post: Stop Blaming Algorithms For Misinformation And Threats To Democracy; The Real Problem Is Societal

  

  urza9814 ( profile ), 28 Jan, 2020 @ 12:55pm

  Re: Re: Re: ... and guns don't kill people.

  ...are you implying that people wouldn't be killing each other if nobody had guns? The gun analogy seems perfect to me. People kill each other. Some of them use guns, some of them don't. Nobody buys a gun and goes "Well, I wasn't planning on killing anyone before I bought this, but I guess I'll have to now!" People believe awful things. Some of them get/post those awful things from/to social media, some of them don't. Nobody gets on social media and goes "Well, I wasn't a white supremacist before, but now that I've got Facebook I sure will be!"

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