Section 230
www.eff.org
47 U.S.C. § 230 The Internet allows people everywhere to connect, share ideas, and advocate for change without needing immense resources or technical expertise. Our unprecedented ability to communicate online—on blogs, social media platforms, and educational and cultural platforms like Wikipedia and the Internet Archive—is not an accident. Congress recognized that for user speech to thrive on the Internet, it had to protect the services that power users’ speech.  That’s why the U.S. Congress passed a law, Section 230 (originally part of the Communications Decency Act), that protects Americans’ freedom of expression online by protecting the intermediaries we all rely on. It states:  "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." (47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1)). Section 230 embodies that principle that we should all be responsible for our own actions and statements online, but generally not those of others. The law prevents most civil suits against users or services that are based on what others say.  Congress passed this bipartisan legislation because it recognized that promoting more user speech online outweighed potential harms. When harmful speech takes place, it’s the speaker that should be held responsible, not the service that hosts the speech.  Section 230’s protections are not absolute. It does not protect companies that violate federal criminal law. It does not protect companies that create illegal or harmful content. Nor does Section 230 protect companies from intellectual property claims.  Section 230 Protects Us All  For more than 25 years, Section 230 has protected us all: small blogs and websites, big platforms, and individual users.  The free and open internet as we know it couldn’t exist without Section 230. Important court rulings on Section 230 have held that users and services cannot be sued for forwarding email, hosting online reviews, or sharing photos or videos that others find objectionable. It also helps to quickly resolve lawsuits cases that have no legal basis.  Congress knew that the sheer volume of the growing Internet would make it impossible for services to review every users’ speech. When Section 230 was passed in 1996, about 40 million people used the Internet worldwide. By 2019, more than 4 billion people were online, with 3.5 billion of them using social media platforms. In 1996, there were fewer than 300,000 websites; by 2017, there were more than 1.7 billion.  Without Section 230’s protections, many online intermediaries would intensively filter and censor user speech, while others may simply not host user content at all. This legal and policy framework allows countless niche websites, as well as big platforms like Amazon and Yelp to host user reviews. It allows users to share photos and videos on big platforms like Facebook and on the smallest blogs. It allows users to share speech and opinions everywhere, from vast conversational forums like Twitter and Discord, to the comment sections of the smallest newspapers and blogs.  Content Moderation For All Tastes  Congress wanted to encourage internet users and services to create and find communities. Section 230’s text explains how Congress wanted to protect the internet’s unique ability to provide “true diversity of political discourse” and “opportunities for cultural development, and… intellectual activity.”  Diverse communities have flourished online, providing us with “political, educational, cultural, and entertainment services.” Users, meanwhile, have new ways to control the content they see.  Section 230 allows for web operators, large and small, to moderate user speech and content as they see fit. This reinforces the First Amendment’s protections for publishers to decide what content they will distribute. Different approaches to moderating users’ speech allows users to find the places online that they like, and avoid places they don’t.  Without Section 230, the Internet is different. In Canada and Australia, courts have allowed operators of online discussion groups to be punished for things their users have said. That has reduced the amount of user speech online, particularly on controversial subjects. In non-democratic countries, governments can directly censor the internet, controlling the speech of platforms and users.  If the law makes us liable for the speech of others, the biggest platforms would likely become locked-down and heavily censored. The next great websites and apps won’t even get started, because they’ll face overwhelming legal risk to host users’ speech.  Learn More About Section 230 Most Important Section 230 Legal Cases Section 230 is Good, Actually How Congress Censored the Internet With SESTA/FOSTA Here's an infographic we made in 2012 about the importance of Section 230.

I am seeing a lot of fearmongering and misinformation regarding recent events (CSAM being posted in now closed large lemmy.world communities). I say this as someone who brought attention to this with other admins as I noticed things were federating out.

Yes, this is an issue and what has happened in regards to CSAM is deeply troubling but there are solutions and ideas being discussed and worked on as we speak. This is not just a lemmy issue but an overall internet issue that affects all forms of social media, there is no clear cut solution but most jurisdictions have some form of safe harbor policy for server operators operating in good faith.

A good analogy to think of here is if someone was to drop something illegal into your yard that is open to the public. If someone stumbled upon said items you aren’t going to be hunted down for it unless there is evidence showing you knew about the items and left them there without reporting them or selling/trading said items. If someone comes up to you and says “hey, there’s this illegal thing on your property” you report it and hand it over to the relevant authorities and potentially look at security cameras if you have any and send them over with the authorities then you’d be fine.

A similar principle exists online, specifically on platforms such as this. Obviously the FBI is going to raid whoever they want and will find reasons to if they need to, but I can tell you for near certainty they probably aren’t as concerned with a bunch of nerds hosting a (currently) niche software created by 2 communists as a pet project that gained popularity over the summer because a internet business decided to shoot itself in the foot. They are specifically out to find people who are selling, trading, and making CSAM. Those that knowingly and intentionally distribute and host such content are the ones that they are out for blood for.

I get it. This is anxiety inducing especially as an admin, but so long as you preserving and reporting any content that is brought to your attention in a timely manner and are following development and active mitigation efforts, you should be fine. If you want to know in more detail click the link above.

I am not a lawyer, and of course things vary from country to country so it’s a good idea to check from reputable sources on this matter as well.

As well, this is a topic that is distressing for most normal well adjusted people for pretty obvious reasons. I get the anxiety over this, I really do. It’s been a rough few days for many of us. But playing into other peoples anxiety over this is not helping anyone. What is helping is following and contributing the discussion of potential fixes/mitigation efforts and taking the time to calmly understand what you as an operator are responsible for within your jurisdiction.

Also, if you witnessed the content being discussed here no one will fault you for taking a step away from lemmy. Don’t sacrifice your mental health over a volunteer project, it’s seriously not worth it. Even more so if this has made you question self hosting lemmy or any other platform like it, that is valid as well as it should be made more clearer that this is a risk you are taking on when making any kind of website that is connected to the open internet.

  • SatanicNotMessianicEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    There should be a full write up from a lawyer - or, better yet, an organization like the EFF. Because lemmy.world is such a prominent instance, it would probably garner some attention if the people who run it were to approach them.

    People would still have to decide what their own risk tolerances are. Some might think that even if safe harbor applies, getting swatted or doxxed just isn’t worth the risk.

    Others might look at it, weigh their rights under the current laws, and decide it’s important to be part of the project. A solid communication on the specific application of S230 to a host of a federated service would go a long way.

    I worked as a sys admin for a while in college in the mid-90s, and it was a time when ISPs were trying to get considered common carriers. Common carrier covers phone companies from liability if people use their service to commit crimes. The key provision of common carrier status was that the company exercised no control whatsoever over what went across their wires.

    In order to make the same argument, the systems I helped manage had a policy of no policing. You could remove a newsgroup from usenet, but you couldn’t any other kind of content oriented filtering. The argument went that as soon as you start moderating, you’re now responsible for moderating it all. True or not, that’s the argument made and policy adopted on multiple university networks and private ISPs. And to be clear, we’re not talking about a company like facebook or reddit which have full control over their content. We’re talking things like the web in general, such as it was, and usenet.

    Usenet is probably the best example, and I knew some BBS operators who hosted usenet content. The only BBS owners that got arrested (as far as I know) were arrested for being the primary host of illegal material.

    S230 or otherwise, someone should try to get a pro bono from a lawyer (or lawyers) who know the subject.

    Edit: Looks like EFF already did a write up. With the amount of concerned people posting on this optic, this link should be in every official reply and as a post in the topic.