Section 230 Does NOT Mean That Online Publishers Have Different Rules
from the common-sense-is-dead dept
Portfolio has a long article about the ongoing battle between two former law school students who were (reasonably) upset at other law school students making fun of them and making rather extreme statements about them on the law school forum site Auto Admit. We've covered this case before -- and think that pretty much everyone has blown the story out of proportion. Almost nothing that was said appears to have actually been defamatory. Obnoxious, sophomoric, disgusting and hurtful -- yes. But not necessarily defamatory (or illegal). And, in pursuing an attack on the site, the women only called a lot more attention to the issue, and ramped up the complaints. Ignoring it almost certainly would have made the issue die down and go away. However, the lawsuits will go on (I mean, of course -- we're dealing with a bunch of lawyers here...). However, I did want to address one thing in the article that is quite troubling:Were Google and AutoAdmit newspapers or television stations, Heller and Iravani would have had a ready remedy: They could sue. Someone printing or airing falsehoods or statements likely to defame or cause extreme emotional distress couldn't then simply walk away. But different rules apply to internet intermediaries: Websites like Google and AutoAdmit merely deliver content rather than producing it themselves. Just over a decade ago, seeking to encourage the free flow of information on the internet and itself under pressure from telecommunications companies, Congress passed legislation stating that such websites could not be sued for carrying defamatory material. The measure in question is Section 230(c) of what has surely become one of the most striking misnomers on the books: the Communications Decency Act of 1996.I've heard this attack on Section 230 before and it's wrong. Very, very wrong. There aren't "different rules" that apply (other than in the very technical sense that Section 230 applies online). The point of Section 230 is to enforce common sense. The reason you can blame a newspaper or a television station for defamation is because they have control over what content goes out over the air. The reason Section 230 was put in place was the fear that clueless people (apparently including the author of the article) would think that online tools were somehow the same as publishers who pick and choose every bit of content that goes out. Section 230 is just there because there are too many people without the common sense to recognize that allowing people to sue the service provider would be like suing Nikon if someone beats you up for taking their picture. Or suing Ford if someone rammed you with their car.
In all of those cases, it's about someone using a tool to do something illegal. And so you sue the person using the tool and not the tool itself. All Section 230 does is make that clear. It's just common sense. And yet here we have Portfolio repeating the myth that "the rules are different." They're not. The women in question had every right to sue the individuals who posted the comments (though, you could argue that they would have been a lot better off just letting the idiocy in the comments die out, rather than calling extra attention to it with a lawsuit), but it's common sense that the tool that was used to post those comments is just the service provider and shouldn't have any liability.
This is important, because we're increasingly seeing people suggest that Section 230 needs to be changed somehow -- perhaps even putting in place the DMCA's awful (and all too often abused) "notice-and-takedown" provision. Can you imagine how widely that would be abused in cases of defamation? Especially when people seem to think that any content they don't like must be defamatory? It would be a disaster and would tie up tons of resources for any online site. I can speak from experience on this. Not a day goes by when we don't get angry emails from people who complain about some comment posted on our site, demanding that the comments be taken down. Usually there's no obvious defamation or anything. It's just that the complaining emailer (or caller) is pissed off that someone doesn't like them or posted something true about them. If we had a legal liability in dealing with these complaints, it would cost us a ton of time and resources for no good reason at all.
Section 230 isn't a problem. It doesn't treat anyone "differently." It's just there to enforce common sense for the clueless. For someone to be liable for something against you, such as defamation, it should be the person who actually did the deed -- not the platform that hosted the comment. The fact that some are trying to use this case as an example of why Section 230 needs to be changed is problematic. It seems that they're letting their emotional viewpoint get involved, and believe that because they don't like something online, (a) it must be illegal and (b) someone must get blamed. Unfortunately, being a jerk still isn't illegal online, and liability should be applied to those actually liable. Hopefully those with cooler heads will prevail and keep Section 230 in place, recognizing that it isn't setting up "different rules," but is merely enforcing common sense.
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Filed Under: defamation, liability, section 230
Companies: autoadmit
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Re:
*Ducks*
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Schenck v. United States
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Re: Schenck v. United States
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Re: Schenck v. United States
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Well..
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It is different
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Re: It is different
I don't agree.
I think the actual rules are the same: if you are making the active decision whether or not to publish the content, you are liable. If not, you are not. The *rules* are the same.
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Re: It is different
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Re: Well-played
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Re:
Manufacturers such as Ford can be sued for liability due to product defect. If someone runs over you because they are drunk then Ford isn't liable. If someone runs over you because the brakes failed due to a faulty design then Ford is liable.
In the case of gun manufacturers I believe the suits weren't based on product defect but rather that the gun manufacturers were knowingly selling guns they new were being resold through illegal channels. No one is arguing the guns were defective. The guns shoot metal out a high velocity just like advertised.
Suing Google or Yahoo for defamatory content posted by users is akin to suing PaperMill for someone printing a threatening letter on their paper. So as long as the paper does what is it is advertised to do, which is to hold pencil or ink markings for reasonable amount of time then PaperMill isn't liable for what markings people choose to place on their product.
What is at issue here is many people mistakenly believe the internet is content publishing mechanism when in fact is a simply a communications platform. Each person who posts content on the web is the 'publisher', the internet is a communications channel used to distribute the publisher's content. We don't expect the phone companies to screen every call for illegal or defamatory content nor would we tolerate the invasion of privacy if the phone companies attempted to do so. Therefore, we should not expect search engines, web sites, etc to police content.
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Internet platforms are meant to facilitate communication.
Firearm manufacturers were sued because their weapons were shooting, injuring, or killing people.
The internet platforms because someone thought that some of the communication was offensive.
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TV analogy
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Finally, some sense
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Re:
Court rulings in the past have found that this doesn't matter (reasonably so). It shouldn't be the tool provider's responsibility to deal with the actions of its users. That would be like requiring Ford to make sure no one drove drunk. It might be a good idea for Ford to do this, but it's not a requirement under the law.
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Better Analogy
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Section 230
Internet Website providers, unlike newspapers, are in a different position reqarding control over who publishes what. Consequently, their liability should be different.
Where your argument fails is that at under Section 230, there is no point at which ANY liability attaches to the ISP or Website provider, no matter how much notice is given to them. If someone is publishing and republishing libelous statements and the Website host or ISP knows that this is going on, under Section 230 there is no duty to stop it no matter how much damage is being done to someone's reputationdamage through false and libelous statements.
No liability equals no accountability which leaves the Internet anything but, a Communication Decency vehicle.
The Internet is no longer the wild west of free speech. It is time to but some decency back into it. The only way to do this is to hold those Website hosts and ISP's accountable at some point after being given sufficient notice, that their site is being used to destroy a person's good name, the foundation of a decent society according to the US Supreme Court.
Indeed, unlike yesterdays news, Website publications stay on line forever. Until the website host starts removing libelous remarks, everyone is at risk of being attacked for any or no reason.
Everyone should be accountable at some point for damage and harm they are causing. ISP's and website hosts are no exception and should be held to some degree of accountablity
at some point.
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Re: Section 230
Similarly, consider these comments, here. In my opinion, there is no way that Techdirt can have someone qualified read every post. Imagine you were an owner of techdirt. Would you really trust anyone else but a lawyer to review problematic posts before posting them? No, you wouldn't. You would simply shut down the forum because the comments don't bring in that much revenue and would rapidly become prohibitively expensive.
I don't think that inviting lawyers in is the way to solve this. Think about the current state of medical malpractice and the costs that it imposes on our health care system.
Besides, my understanding of the pre-230 law was that there was already a clear distinction between "publishers" of content and "distributors." Section 230 just says that we are closer to distributors than publishers since we can't afford to have a qualified person review every post before it is posted.
.... And who would want to wait for their post to be moderated before posting, anyway? We just need to be smart enough to know that anonymous sources shouldn't be trusted.
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It was defamation
Moreover, the website owners and administrators did keep a record of IPs for their own amusement and to use against their opponents (e.g. by claiming that a law professor who criticized the site had gone looking for nasty material -- they identified him through the IP associated with his law school). They deliberately stopped keeping those records when they feared a lawsuit was in the works, in order to prevent the identities of the defamatory commenters from being discovered. Similarly, they would moderate the site in order to prevent "outing" of the real names of users whom they liked, but would not moderate the site to remove lies about non-users of the site.
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Child sex trafficing
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