tw.tter

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
Post Reply
plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by plodder » Mon Nov 14, 2022 8:37 pm

dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 6:44 pm
plodder wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 6:02 pm
Define “publish”
The law does that quite clearly and better than I can. Exercising significant editorial control is the main distinction between publishing and distribution though.
I'm not talking about the law, I'm talking about what you think. What if a newspaper chose not to exercise significant editorial control (whatever that means) and just printed whatever people sent them, as an experiment. Would they stop being a publisher?

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by plodder » Mon Nov 14, 2022 8:42 pm

dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 8:03 pm
Stephanie wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 7:13 pm
I guess plodder is the current forum black sheep?

From my perspective, he's not raising unreasonable questions - there have been lots of concerns about some of the content going around on social media and how that should be tackled. That doesn't mean getting rid of section 230, but I do think there should be room to talk about these things without the conversation being shut down to this extent.
Yes, it's a well known contentious problem, with extensive discussion of the enormous complications around it. Which is why just saying "if you push some content, you are the publisher of everything you distribute" is so irritating as a conversation starter.
what's irritating is the straw men from people who can't move on from quoting the law like it's gospel or something. I mean, it's managing to make the internet completely f.cking sh.t so perhaps it needs looking at.

monkey
After Pie
Posts: 1906
Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 5:10 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by monkey » Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:20 pm

plodder wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 8:37 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 6:44 pm
plodder wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 6:02 pm
Define “publish”
The law does that quite clearly and better than I can. Exercising significant editorial control is the main distinction between publishing and distribution though.
I'm not talking about the law, I'm talking about what you think. What if a newspaper chose not to exercise significant editorial control (whatever that means) and just printed whatever people sent them, as an experiment. Would they stop being a publisher?
That exists, online at least. That's what websites like substack or medium do. Both have many journalists and "journalists" putting out their work on them.

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by plodder » Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:22 pm

right. and in that regard I'd just see them as being high-risk newspapers when it comes to dodgy stuff being published. And if there's a sliding scale between the Guardian at one end, Medium in the middle and facebook / youtube / twitter at the other end I'd be interested to know why the one should be treated differently from the other, where the lines are drawn etc. Because the ones at the unregulated end are making a shitload more money.
Last edited by plodder on Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:24 pm

monkey wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:20 pm
plodder wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 8:37 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 6:44 pm


The law does that quite clearly and better than I can. Exercising significant editorial control is the main distinction between publishing and distribution though.
I'm not talking about the law, I'm talking about what you think. What if a newspaper chose not to exercise significant editorial control (whatever that means) and just printed whatever people sent them, as an experiment. Would they stop being a publisher?
That exists, online at least. That's what websites like substack or medium do. Both have many journalists and "journalists" putting out their work on them.
It's also no different from what we, or any other forum, does. It's also what Reddit does.

ETA: and what wordpress.com does.

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: tw.tter

Post by Woodchopper » Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:32 pm

People are discussing US law. But European law is a bit different.

The new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) includes far more stringent requirements than found in US law regarding the responsibility that owners or administrators have over their digital networks.

In particular, 'very large' networks with more than 45 million users are deemed to have some responsibility for what material appears in users feeds. Those networks are required to conduct risk assessments regarding systemic risks (such as amplifying illegal content such as hate speech) and they have to implement proactive mitigation procedures to limit access to material which poses a systemic risk. Article 35 on risk mitigation includes reference to "adapting their algorithmic systems". So large networks have to do more than just respond to reports, they need to be aware of what material on their networks poses risks and adapt their systems to mitigate the spread of such material. If they fail to do so they could be fined billions.

There is concern in the US that the European law will have a profound effect upon freedom of expression in the US, for example:
The law, while written to protect EU residents, will almost certainly lead social media firms to change their moderation policies worldwide. Thus, with the DSA, the EU will effectively be doing what the First Amendment ostensibly prohibits our own government from doing: regulating the editorial judgments made by social media platforms on which Americans communicate with each other.

[...]

Large social media firms will increasingly contend the DSA, rather than independent, in-house policies, requires they remove certain content. That means an American politician’s conspiracy-filled Facebook post will create legal liability for Meta. The company might then take it down to avoid huge fines in Europe. Similarly, a YouTube video posted by Christian nationalists or COVID misinformation shared on TikTok could be taken down because of DSA concerns.

If American lawmakers had rolled up their sleeves and done the difficult work of identifying a narrow path between protecting online spaces and safeguarding First Amendment rights, we wouldn’t be left to speculate about the impact a law written by and for those on another continent will have on our own marketplace of ideas.

Under the DSA, the spectrum of ideas that flow in online spaces, for better or worse, will narrow. The threats of massive fines create substantial incentives for firms to, out of caution, remove content and speakers that could lead to EU penalties. Experience shows these types of laws lead to over-corrections, encouraging taking down content and creating almost no incentives for fostering an expansive space for the exchange of ideas.

https://slate.com/technology/2022/10/di ... ation.html

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:44 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:32 pm
People are discussing US law. But European law is a bit different.

The new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) includes far more stringent requirements than found in US law regarding the responsibility that owners or administrators have over their digital networks.

In particular, 'very large' networks with more than 45 million users are deemed to have some responsibility for what material appears in users feeds.
Right now, Mastodon is only a million or two users. But even if the Fediverse became as big as Twitter, it still probably wouldn't have anything like a million users on any single server. So would this law make "Mastodon" (no such service actually exists, btw) a service/network, or each individually owned and operated instance a service? Remember that any particular server can choose which other servers to federate with, and block specific content. Similarly, I presume that individual email providers aren't lumped together as a single service.

That model provides a way for even Twitter to get around this law - just assign the users in each country to independently run Twitter GmbH, Twitter Ltd, Twitter LLC, etc. and federate those services together. Probably the US Twitter would pass that limit, but be outside the EU. It's unlikely that any particular Twitter inside the EU would though. What I don't know is if the Twitter algorithm could survive that change in structure. But I'm sure there are ways to do something a bit like it.

User avatar
EACLucifer
Stummy Beige
Posts: 4177
Joined: Fri Dec 13, 2019 7:49 am
Location: In Sumerian Haze

Re: tw.tter

Post by EACLucifer » Mon Nov 14, 2022 10:09 pm

I mean part of the problem is assuming that everything can be handed over to machine learning.

Because you absolutely will be removing and banning entirely blameless people because some algorithm thought what they were doing was similar to what a nazi or similar was doing. And missing a lot of the people that do need to be banned, for that matter.

To pick an example, I know several people who have been told by Twitter that their profile or header image is a hate image - can't remember the exact wording, but it's a category of offense they have and they demand the picture be removed - yet none of them did contain hate imagery. However, they did have something in common. They were all Jewish. They all had the Star of David in the images in question. I'm curious as to whether it was spurious mass reporting - because anyone who is visibly Jewish online gets absolutely f.cking mobbed by cretinous antisemites - or if the use of the Star of David in antisemitic stereotypes of Jews had lead the algorithm's in question to conclude it was a Nazi symbol, because Nazi's used it to attack the people who identify with it.

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: tw.tter

Post by Woodchopper » Mon Nov 14, 2022 10:38 pm

dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:44 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:32 pm
People are discussing US law. But European law is a bit different.

The new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) includes far more stringent requirements than found in US law regarding the responsibility that owners or administrators have over their digital networks.

In particular, 'very large' networks with more than 45 million users are deemed to have some responsibility for what material appears in users feeds.
Right now, Mastodon is only a million or two users. But even if the Fediverse became as big as Twitter, it still probably wouldn't have anything like a million users on any single server. So would this law make "Mastodon" (no such service actually exists, btw) a service/network, or each individually owned and operated instance a service? Remember that any particular server can choose which other servers to federate with, and block specific content. Similarly, I presume that individual email providers aren't lumped together as a single service.
A very quick skim suggests that services that are 'mere conduits' eg email don't have stringent regulations. The focus of the law is on social networks rather than on email (which can be a network but a very slow one).

As for Mastodon, I don't know. The regulations apply to 'platforms' with over 45 million users. They are defined as:
‘online platform’ means a hosting service that, at the request of a recipient of the service, stores and disseminates information to the public,
So they are interested in a service rather than a specific legal entity that provides it.

In general there is a lot of compliance stuff which would be manageable for a company but may well be a burden for hobbyists running a Mastodon server. But some of the sections have an 'Exclusion for micro and small enterprises' (though not the regulations covering very large networks). I don't know whether Mastodon would count as the language refers to commercial operations rather than networks run by volunteers.

I get the general impression that the Act is there to regulate businesses and they didn't think about other kinds network.
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:44 pm
That model provides a way for even Twitter to get around this law - just assign the users in each country to independently run Twitter GmbH, Twitter Ltd, Twitter LLC, etc. and federate those services together. Probably the US Twitter would pass that limit, but be outside the EU. It's unlikely that any particular Twitter inside the EU would though. What I don't know is if the Twitter algorithm could survive that change in structure. But I'm sure there are ways to do something a bit like it.
I doubt very much that Twitter, Facebook etc could get away with that. As mentioned, the regulations focus upon the provision of a service, and asI understand it the network is a service.

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Mon Nov 14, 2022 11:17 pm

In actual Twitter news, rather than long running arguments, it looks like Musk has turned off 2FA on Twitter. Not removed it, just turned off the system that delivers SMS one-time codes.

That means that if you use 2FA (which you should in some form), you may not be able to log in any more.

https://twitter.com/IanColdwater/status ... 4841952257

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Mon Nov 14, 2022 11:49 pm

dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 11:17 pm
In actual Twitter news, rather than long running arguments, it looks like Musk has turned off 2FA on Twitter. Not removed it, just turned off the system that delivers SMS one-time codes.

That means that if you use 2FA (which you should in some form), you may not be able to log in any more.

https://twitter.com/IanColdwater/status ... 4841952257
This is only SMS based 2FA. Others forms are currently still working.

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by plodder » Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:44 am

dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:44 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:32 pm
People are discussing US law. But European law is a bit different.

The new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) includes far more stringent requirements than found in US law regarding the responsibility that owners or administrators have over their digital networks.

In particular, 'very large' networks with more than 45 million users are deemed to have some responsibility for what material appears in users feeds.
Right now, Mastodon is only a million or two users. But even if the Fediverse became as big as Twitter, it still probably wouldn't have anything like a million users on any single server. So would this law make "Mastodon" (no such service actually exists, btw) a service/network, or each individually owned and operated instance a service? Remember that any particular server can choose which other servers to federate with, and block specific content. Similarly, I presume that individual email providers aren't lumped together as a single service.

That model provides a way for even Twitter to get around this law - just assign the users in each country to independently run Twitter GmbH, Twitter Ltd, Twitter LLC, etc. and federate those services together. Probably the US Twitter would pass that limit, but be outside the EU. It's unlikely that any particular Twitter inside the EU would though. What I don't know is if the Twitter algorithm could survive that change in structure. But I'm sure there are ways to do something a bit like it.
The simpler and more sensible solution would be to break up the big platforms to encourage competition in moderation to more quickly find the sweet spot. This would also force the rival platforms to talk to each other to create the potential for aggregated platforms. All the problems we see ultimately come because of the huge size of a handful of platforms.

User avatar
Bird on a Fire
Princess POW
Posts: 10137
Joined: Fri Oct 11, 2019 5:05 pm
Location: Portugal

Re: tw.tter

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:58 am

plodder wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:44 am
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:44 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:32 pm
People are discussing US law. But European law is a bit different.

The new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) includes far more stringent requirements than found in US law regarding the responsibility that owners or administrators have over their digital networks.

In particular, 'very large' networks with more than 45 million users are deemed to have some responsibility for what material appears in users feeds.
Right now, Mastodon is only a million or two users. But even if the Fediverse became as big as Twitter, it still probably wouldn't have anything like a million users on any single server. So would this law make "Mastodon" (no such service actually exists, btw) a service/network, or each individually owned and operated instance a service? Remember that any particular server can choose which other servers to federate with, and block specific content. Similarly, I presume that individual email providers aren't lumped together as a single service.

That model provides a way for even Twitter to get around this law - just assign the users in each country to independently run Twitter GmbH, Twitter Ltd, Twitter LLC, etc. and federate those services together. Probably the US Twitter would pass that limit, but be outside the EU. It's unlikely that any particular Twitter inside the EU would though. What I don't know is if the Twitter algorithm could survive that change in structure. But I'm sure there are ways to do something a bit like it.
The simpler and more sensible solution would be to break up the big platforms to encourage competition in moderation to more quickly find the sweet spot. This would also force the rival platforms to talk to each other to create the potential for aggregated platforms. All the problems we see ultimately come because of the huge size of a handful of platforms.
Isn't this basically how mastodon works? Different servers with different moderation policies, able to exchange content on an aggregated platform (or to block each other if the content is too problematic).

With the added point that "the sweet spot" is likely very different for different users, so there's clearly some value in having a diverse moderation marketplace, as long as you can overcome the disadvantages of smaller/fragmented networks.
We have the right to a clean, healthy, sustainable environment.

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: tw.tter

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:25 am

plodder wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:44 am
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:44 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:32 pm
People are discussing US law. But European law is a bit different.

The new EU Digital Services Act (DSA) includes far more stringent requirements than found in US law regarding the responsibility that owners or administrators have over their digital networks.

In particular, 'very large' networks with more than 45 million users are deemed to have some responsibility for what material appears in users feeds.
Right now, Mastodon is only a million or two users. But even if the Fediverse became as big as Twitter, it still probably wouldn't have anything like a million users on any single server. So would this law make "Mastodon" (no such service actually exists, btw) a service/network, or each individually owned and operated instance a service? Remember that any particular server can choose which other servers to federate with, and block specific content. Similarly, I presume that individual email providers aren't lumped together as a single service.

That model provides a way for even Twitter to get around this law - just assign the users in each country to independently run Twitter GmbH, Twitter Ltd, Twitter LLC, etc. and federate those services together. Probably the US Twitter would pass that limit, but be outside the EU. It's unlikely that any particular Twitter inside the EU would though. What I don't know is if the Twitter algorithm could survive that change in structure. But I'm sure there are ways to do something a bit like it.
The simpler and more sensible solution would be to break up the big platforms to encourage competition in moderation to more quickly find the sweet spot. This would also force the rival platforms to talk to each other to create the potential for aggregated platforms. All the problems we see ultimately come because of the huge size of a handful of platforms.
That would be a solution. However, there remains the problem of how to manage a network of aggregated platforms which have different moderation policies. There are tradeoffs between having access to other users in other nodes and whether a single node can meaningfully have a distinctive moderation policy. Too much openness and users are going to see all the sh.t that their node wants to remove, whereas meaningfully distinctive moderation will shut off parts of the network. Limited networks may be a problem for some. Of course we can do without Nazis, but it becomes more difficult if some nodes want to use the network for work and don't want to see NSFW stuff such as swearing, p.rn, discussions about sex etc.

There isn't an answer and these discussions go back to the origin of the internet. Twitter is open to all, Facebook has closed and open areas, Mastodon appears to mostly open but with some nodes excluded from others.

These theoretical problems become practical ones when someone has to consider compliance with laws and regulations. If the network is to be regulated (and that appears to be what the regulators want) then its likely that there needs to be common policies and protocols. It may be that only single large networks are able to cover the costs and practicalities of compliance.

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by plodder » Tue Nov 15, 2022 9:58 am

I was thinking more that facebook would be split into several competing companies, as would twitter, youtube etc. They need splitting up, they're far too big and we're currently seeing all the downsides of monopolies (including the failure of imagination they induce).

There would then be an immediate need for the various smaller platforms to be able to communicate with users outside their space (unless they wanted to be outside the wider ecosystem, e.g. become specialist sides like Vimeo), therefore an equivalent of RSS aggregation would happen. Musk calls this theoretical construct App X which basically does everything you need it to.

In my mind the solution to having different comms feeds (at the moment I have 4 emails, whattsapp, messenger, instagram, FB, twitter, SMS etc - it's a pain to manage and breaking up the big tech firms would make this far worse) is to have them all land in a single aggregating app, or perhaps two or three apps (one for work, one for friends etc), so I guess I agree with Musk on this general point.

Whether it's technically viable or not - well, there's no shortage of money being made by these firms and they have the best engineers. All they need is motivating.

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Tue Nov 15, 2022 11:06 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 8:58 am
plodder wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 4:44 am
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 9:44 pm

Right now, Mastodon is only a million or two users. But even if the Fediverse became as big as Twitter, it still probably wouldn't have anything like a million users on any single server. So would this law make "Mastodon" (no such service actually exists, btw) a service/network, or each individually owned and operated instance a service? Remember that any particular server can choose which other servers to federate with, and block specific content. Similarly, I presume that individual email providers aren't lumped together as a single service.

That model provides a way for even Twitter to get around this law - just assign the users in each country to independently run Twitter GmbH, Twitter Ltd, Twitter LLC, etc. and federate those services together. Probably the US Twitter would pass that limit, but be outside the EU. It's unlikely that any particular Twitter inside the EU would though. What I don't know is if the Twitter algorithm could survive that change in structure. But I'm sure there are ways to do something a bit like it.
The simpler and more sensible solution would be to break up the big platforms to encourage competition in moderation to more quickly find the sweet spot. This would also force the rival platforms to talk to each other to create the potential for aggregated platforms. All the problems we see ultimately come because of the huge size of a handful of platforms.
Isn't this basically how mastodon works? Different servers with different moderation policies, able to exchange content on an aggregated platform (or to block each other if the content is too problematic).

With the added point that "the sweet spot" is likely very different for different users, so there's clearly some value in having a diverse moderation marketplace, as long as you can overcome the disadvantages of smaller/fragmented networks.
Yes, it is how Mastodon and the wider Fediverse works (There are other Fediverse services that can interact with Mastodon instances/servers). There's a fairly complex interaction between users blocking instances, specific instances blocking somewhat problematic instances for all their users, and the vast majority of instances blocking certain other instances - e.g. the NeoNazi ones and the transphobic ones.

noggins
Snowbonk
Posts: 571
Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:30 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by noggins » Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:23 pm

dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:53 pm
noggins wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:50 pm
Pushing is editorial control. Pushing is publishing. The end.
Do you think a bookshop that promotes certain books over others in its stores is publishing? Can you sue a newsagent for defamation if they put a defamatory issue of the Daily Mail in a prominent place?

In reality, there's a particular level of editorial control that's needed in order to have liability. Pushing unedited content does not meet that standard.
Your analogy is stupid. A bookshop is a seller of material. There are plenty of laws to regulate what they buy and plenty for what they sell.

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:47 pm

noggins wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:23 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:53 pm
noggins wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:50 pm
Pushing is editorial control. Pushing is publishing. The end.
Do you think a bookshop that promotes certain books over others in its stores is publishing? Can you sue a newsagent for defamation if they put a defamatory issue of the Daily Mail in a prominent place?

In reality, there's a particular level of editorial control that's needed in order to have liability. Pushing unedited content does not meet that standard.
Your analogy is stupid. A bookshop is a seller of material. There are plenty of laws to regulate what they buy and plenty for what they sell.
Are there? How do they differ from those governing Twitter?

Particularly as regards defamation.

Both take written material from third parties without exerting editorial control over the contents, promote certain materials over others, and make a profit doing so.

User avatar
Woodchopper
Princess POW
Posts: 7057
Joined: Sat Oct 12, 2019 9:05 am

Re: tw.tter

Post by Woodchopper » Tue Nov 15, 2022 1:51 pm

dyqik wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:47 pm
noggins wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:23 pm
dyqik wrote:
Mon Nov 14, 2022 1:53 pm


Do you think a bookshop that promotes certain books over others in its stores is publishing? Can you sue a newsagent for defamation if they put a defamatory issue of the Daily Mail in a prominent place?

In reality, there's a particular level of editorial control that's needed in order to have liability. Pushing unedited content does not meet that standard.
Your analogy is stupid. A bookshop is a seller of material. There are plenty of laws to regulate what they buy and plenty for what they sell.
Are there? How do they differ from those governing Twitter?

Particularly as regards defamation.

Both take written material from third parties without exerting editorial control over the contents, promote certain materials over others, and make a profit doing so.
I don't have time to look into it but I assume that UK booksellers would need to comply with the various laws and regulations covering what kind of books they can sell, such those laws concerning hate speech, support for terrorist organizations and certain types of p.rnography. There's probably other categories. A bookseller that exported would also need to be aware of laws in other countries, such as laws on Nazi or Soviet symbols found in several European countries. These are complex issues as there is usually a exception for legitimate use of the material (eg academic study of racist movements).

I also assume that bookshops would be covered by legislation designed to prevent anti-competitive practices (eg a bookseller couldn't conspire with a publisher to limit the sales of books from another publisher).

Shops selling second-hand goods often have additional local authority regulation (as they can be used to sell stolen property).

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:16 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 1:51 pm
dyqik wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:47 pm
noggins wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 12:23 pm


Your analogy is stupid. A bookshop is a seller of material. There are plenty of laws to regulate what they buy and plenty for what they sell.
Are there? How do they differ from those governing Twitter?

Particularly as regards defamation.

Both take written material from third parties without exerting editorial control over the contents, promote certain materials over others, and make a profit doing so.
I don't have time to look into it but I assume that UK booksellers would need to comply with the various laws and regulations covering what kind of books they can sell, such those laws concerning hate speech, support for terrorist organizations and certain types of p.rnography. There's probably other categories. A bookseller that exported would also need to be aware of laws in other countries, such as laws on Nazi or Soviet symbols found in several European countries. These are complex issues as there is usually a exception for legitimate use of the material (eg academic study of racist movements).

I also assume that bookshops would be covered by legislation designed to prevent anti-competitive practices (eg a bookseller couldn't conspire with a publisher to limit the sales of books from another publisher).

Shops selling second-hand goods often have additional local authority regulation (as they can be used to sell stolen property).
The first part is also true of internet services. There's no magic difference between text on paper, text on screen, words on tape or words in an online video as far as dissemination laws go.

Twitter and YouTube do have to block e.g. Nazi propaganda in Germany, and child p.rn in most jurisdictions.

I don't believe that a bookshop would get in trouble for anti-competitive practices like those you mention unless it held a dominant monopoly on the entire book sales market. Even Amazon can probably avoid that in most places, due to the wide availability of competing bookshops.

Twitter and YouTube also have to comply with the DMCA to prevent copyright theft on their platforms.

plodder
Stummy Beige
Posts: 2981
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 1:50 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by plodder » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:29 pm

"just like a bookshop" is ridiculous. These firms swing elections and cheerfully allow themselves to be manipulated in order to do so. They have an enormous sway over the global conversation and significant control of the global advertising and marketing market.

They do not typically pay for the content they host and subsequently sell on as "engagement" and in doing so try and absolve themselves of any responsibility for it.

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:33 pm

plodder wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:29 pm
"just like a bookshop" is ridiculous. These firms swing elections and cheerfully allow themselves to be manipulated in order to do so. They have an enormous sway over the global conversation and significant control of the global advertising and marketing market.

They do not typically pay for the content they host and subsequently sell on as "engagement" and in doing so try and absolve themselves of any responsibility for it.
Obviously they aren't just like bookshops in all respects. But they are in many respects as far as dissemination of prohibited or defamatory materials go under those laws.

By the way, Twitter had a tiny fraction of the advertising market, even before the event.

noggins
Snowbonk
Posts: 571
Joined: Wed Nov 13, 2019 1:30 pm

Re: tw.tter

Post by noggins » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:41 pm

We arent plagued by rogue bookshops, are we?

User avatar
dyqik
Princess POW
Posts: 7526
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2019 4:19 pm
Location: Masshole
Contact:

Re: tw.tter

Post by dyqik » Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:47 pm

noggins wrote:
Tue Nov 15, 2022 2:41 pm
We arent plagued by rogue bookshops, are we?
No. Apart from the Christian Science Reading Rooms, anyway.

But if you want to deal with rogue social networks, you need to understand what your proposals do to non-rogue networks and internet services, and how they can and can't be implemented under the rule of law without massive suppressing free speech and enabling government oppression.

User avatar
jimbob
Light of Blast
Posts: 5276
Joined: Mon Nov 11, 2019 4:04 pm
Location: High Peak/Manchester

Re: tw.tter

Post by jimbob » Tue Nov 15, 2022 3:06 pm

Meanwhile thread pointing out that not having a Data Protection Officer anymore is a violation of GDPR, so the legal stuff could be happening soon to it


https://twitter.com/RebekahKTromble/sta ... BnHXSYwY9A
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

Post Reply