Google bans Podcast Addict app over non-approved Covid-19 content

This is the result of out-sourcing juristic work to private companies:

If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods, then private companies should not have a say in what is allowed/not-allowed on their platforms. This is work for the courts and police to decide and enforce.

If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They have every right to kick you out if they don't like your face. It's their property. You are a guest.

I think we need constituted digital public spaces and platforms with:

- democratic footing (users are in charge)

- public ownership

- division of power (politicians =!= judges =!= police)

- effective policing

In such a system it would be for independent courts to decide which Apps can be distributed and which not. Those courts would be bound to a constitution/body of law, which applies to all parties a like.

Yes, this will be expensive. Yes, you will have to give up some privacy. But you will be a citizen in a society, and not a stranger playing in a backyard.

Maybe the current platforms can be coerced into a system which approximates the above. But I have my doubts. I hope in 200years people will have figured this out, and will look back to this age as the digital dark ages.

If they want to be private someone will take them to court for advertising drugs or something like that. They should have stayed neutral.

I agree, that this would have been the better option for them. Now they are stuck with their conent-screening frams, and censoring algorithms. It's a mess.

Still. Even if they did take that turn. I don't think they would have stayed truly neutral. Lot's of ways to penalize competition without banning them from your platform. A wolf is a bad shepherd.

If they do nothing, someone will take them to court for promoting false information about COVID-19 that gets someone killed.

There is no win-win scenario on policy enforcement when a company gets big enough.

Nothing will come of this though, and the masses will continue to bleat about them being private entities that are allowed to do this.

Telcos are private. They are not allowed to disconnect calls when people are talking about things they don't like. They are not allowed to drop accounts for organizations saying things they don't like.

Electric companies are mostly private. They are not allowed to cut off electricity to people/orgs that say things they don't like.

You really trust the US court system to be impartial?

Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy? Which government should hold this responsibility? Should we have an international committee deciding this?

That’s impossible. Congress exempted the entire internet from court on something like this. Look at the communications decency act.

Yes, as per https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221497

People claim that internet platforms present a novel problem but telcos are a very good model for regulation.

Governments should ban large platforms (>10M users) from editorial discretion.

I am not talking the US in particular here. I am saying these decisions should be made by courts not by private institutions, that have stakes in that game.

Please stop. The more we play this tit-for-tat game of political point scoring, the more it causes the whole system to degenerate. It is corrupting every facet of our society, to the point at which we're no longer able to be objective about life and death matters like the current pandemic.

They are all considered “natural monopolies”. They are also regulated on the municipal level. Do you now want each city to regulate apps? Why stop there? Why not regulate what console makers can sell? every physical store can sell?

The only thing that needs to be constitutionally challenged is whether discretionary content filtering constitutes agency in publication under section 230 of the CDA.

In my country >90% of smartphone users have Android. Yes I would call that a monopoly. Yes I think monopolies should be regulated. Not at the city level since that's ridiculous and sounds like a strawman. That comment was just an example of monopolies that need to be regulated.

You stop. Stop using $current_panic to justify trampling the parts of the constitution and the parts of the system you don't like. These are legitimate questions that need to be answered or we'll just be in a worse place in the future.

It's so transparent; any time there's some crisis, whether it's terrorism or guns or drugs or a pandemic, there are always people calling for us to ignore the actual issues of our system and ram some "fix" through because this time, no seriously, this time it's life or death and we have to act.

The problem is that they have to act across borders.

Examples:

In the EU you don't need to filter pornography the same way as in the US. In the US you don't need to filter personal information (eg individuals' faces) the same way as in the EU.

Or does Google need to ban insults of the Thai king?

Which legislation should apply? Already now China has split the global internet in a China and non-China part...

?

I'm largely agreeing with you. My only point is that we shouldn't allow courts and corporations to become politicized.

Isn’t the whole beauty of Android that it is “open” and that you can sideload apps and you are not beholden to a “walled garden”?

So instead of being made by private companies, they should be made by unelected partisan judges....

No I’m just amazed that people are willing to give government more power - the same government who would like nothing more than to have more power to intrude on people’s life.

Isn’t it a little - like 200+ years - late for that?

> Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy?

My computer allows racist pornography and its the greatest invention in the history of mankind. As far as I can tell, iPhones have not lived up to that legacy.

We're approaching levels of hyperpartisanship not seen since the civil war. I don't think this is a healthy state of being for our country.

Do I understand you correctly that you're talking about whether discretionary content filtering by a platform makes them into a publisher? This would mean that protections that apply to platforms wouldn't apply to them anymore for things like copyright infringement, right?

I expect them to be more impartial than a multinational for-profit company whose stakeholders care about little other than their bottom line.

Pornography and hate speech have plenty of legal precedent. And if I'm honest, if it's legal in a given country, why shouldn't it be available?

You think we all got together and sung Kum Bah Yah after the Civil War? Are you forgetting about the segregation? The Civil Rights Movement? Vietnam?

Yes, but should Apple be forced to sell it? You can buy a DVD player and a TV from Walmart that allows you to view pornographic and racist content but aren’t forced to sell it.

Are you paying attention to the actions of the modern judicial system in the US that votes along party lines?

You really think that judges with their own religious and political biases and with lifetime appointments “care about you”?

By that same token, are you paying attention to the actions being taken by Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon?

There are no clean actors here, but the difference between the judicial system and the big companies is that the judicial system has people who care about more than just profits.

It’s even worse. They care about their own ideologies that are often at odds with mine.

The difference is that it is much easier to not be beholden to the private corporations you mentioned than the government. Private corporations don’t have the power of the state to take away my liberty, property or life.

As Epic found out, not if you want to remain on Google's good side. They were facing sanctions from Google due to their sideloading of Fortnight onto Android phones and tablets.

Is that a problem, or an opportunity? If we create an effective decentralized mechanic to act across jurisdictions, maybe we'd solve more than our immediate problem.

From what I gather this is largely addressed and the answer, it seems, is no [0,1]. (Disclaimer, IANAL and IANAUSC.)

[0]: https://abovethelaw.com/2019/06/explainer-how-letting-platfo...

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 (Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material)

We're advocating moving this power from massive corporations to the government, because at least the government has some accountability, whereas Google has NONE.

No?

only if they stay neutral. This goes beyond that.

Where is this accountability? The Senate by design has two senators regardless of the population of the state, meaning that if you live in a more populous state, you have less voting power than people living in the flyover states. The electoral college also biases the Presidential election to less populous states. Not to mention even in the House of Representatives the ratio between the parties doesn’t match the popular vote because of gerrymandering.

How “accountable” are judges with lifetime appointments?

Google is accountable. If they don’t give people what they want, people don’t give them money directly or indirectly.

What “sanctions” were they facing? They were called out because their app was a security nightmare.

https://www.cnet.com/news/fortnites-battle-royale-with-andro...

That’s exactly the choice you make in the US.

It's both. Sovereignty should not be taken lightly, nor do we really need yet another avenue for the big fish (read: US/China/Russia) to start throwing their weight around - whether it be through ""democracy"", troll farms, agitprop, etc. This may only start to become a better idea once we've proven we have an effective arsenal against these ideas.

You are constructing a false choice.

We have a general principle of due process and contract law that can be applied here in insisting that "massive corporations" play nice. Reigning in "massive corporations" doesn't require any new governmental powers.

I'm saying this as someone who leans libertarian but I don't think that is in conflict with the concepts of due process and reasonable contracts. The Devil is always in the details but it isn't an either/or choice.

This podcast goes into a lot of detail on what the CDA says: https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/make-no-law/2019/08/de...

Exactly. So how would you approach this?

If this problem is not addressed, the internet may well segregate along national boundaries (just as you describe).

Apple preventing the sale of a product != Apple not selling a product.

I don't ask Apple for permission to visit a website on my iPhone. Why should I ask their permission to install applications? Would it be so awful if I were allowed to run my own software?

There is no law that says “play nice”. What laws are they in breach of by only allowing certain products to be sold in their store? Every retailer has the right to decide what is sold in their store. Especially since Android is supposedly “open” and you can sideload.

At various times, HN users want the government to decide what gets sold in Apple and Google’s stores and decide what Amazon can and can’t sell. I’ve even seen that they want the government to intervene when it comes to how the game console makers operate. I guess if it were up to them Nintendo should be forced to sell “Debbie Does Dallas” next to “Animal Crossing” in their online store.

Telcos and utilities are regulated as common carriers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_carrier

But you don’t have to ask Google permission to install software. So why are people asking for intervention in this case?

Choice is amazing. You had a choice to buy into Apple’s “walled garden” or buy an Android. You didn’t need the nanny state to make that choice for you.

I am not talking about any particular existing nation state. I am saying that the problems we are experiencing could be solved by having some form of "constituted digital public spaces and platforms". I am well aware of the practical difficulties in establishing these. But it's our inability to create those spaces that is hurting us here.

Centralized walled gardens are going to face this no matter what policy they have. Too loose? They run afoul of laws and offend people. Too strict? They develop a reputation for censorship and offend people. There is no way they can win.

That's why everything has to go decentralized, encrypted, headless, and amorphous. The endpoint should be the end of platforms in favor of protocols and interfaces to those protocols.

Get to work.

Join the Fediverse!

Nationalize FAANG?

There's a common standard for DVDs and a competitive market in them; if one maker won't sell what you want, another will. Apple should be either nationalised or broken up like Ma Bell, and the threat of the same should hang over any market where a handful of players capture enough marketshare to become a de facto cartel.

How is that a constitutional question?

The whole point of 230 was to answer that: "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".

Some courts had said that filtering makes the provider a publisher and liable for the content. Congress passed 230 to reverse that.

That's a common myth, and is completely wrong. In fact, it is almost 180 degrees wrong.

Before section 230, there had been a couple of court cases. One held that a particular provider was not liable for anything posted on it, because it did not do any filtering or blocking at all. Another held that a different provider was liable for what users posted, because it did do some filtering and blocking.

Congress felt these outcomes were wrong, and section 230 was specifically meant to make providers not liable for user provided content, regardless of whether or not they did any filtering or blocking.

And since in this case we are talking about Google - you can already side load apps...

Apple has less than 50% of the market in the US and 15% of the market worldwide. People chose to use Apple without any coercion from the government.

But back to this case, people can choose to sideload apps on Android. So what’s the problem?

Telephone communications are one to one, not one to many, which makes their regulations largely irrelevant as a model for regulating one to many systems.

This is my knee jerk reaction, but then I ask myself if I really want Trump (or Pelosi depending on your political persuasion) deciding how my search engine and social networks work.

Feeling a big "NOPE" on that one.

Customers need to make it unacceptable for FAANG to act this way... Good luck on that tho.

Unfortunately, they have been very good at slowly raising the temperature so the frog (read:us) doesn't jump out of the pot.

Are you arguing that there haven't been varying levels of unity and partisanship within American history?

I don't see how putting Google, Facebook, Apple, and Amazon under the control of the US executive branch would solve the problems of accountability and them needing to deal with the laws of multiple nation states.

If one wants to subject these corporations to regulations, than it seems one should propose regulations. Putting them under the direct purview of a government does not magically make them start working in the best interest of the people (of which nation?). Nor does it mean that they are automatically accountable; see for example the NSA if you want examples predating the current administration.

As long as you ignore minorities and/or non-straight people.

You do realize the context of this conversation, correct? We're not talking about your liberty, property, or life. We're talking about apps on a smartphone or tablet.

> Private corporations don’t have the power [] to take away my liberty, property or life.

No, they can only demand you come in for overtime, require you to move where they want you to, or force you to come in while sick, at the risk of taking away your job. A risk which is minor for some of us, but which is the equivalent of a threat of homelessness for others.

Why not just free distribution and then enforce takedowns if something is deemed illegal after the fact? There’s no need for “users being in charge” or nationalization. These two parts especially don’t even seem at all necessary to your stated goals in terms of applied regulation. They would also be disastrous.

Section 230 provides immunity to Google and similar for content posted by other users and services. The notion that section 230 requires that Google be neutral in order to maintain that protection is not in the text of the law, and appears to be made up out of whole cloth. I will quote the entirely of section 230 below, see for yourself.

> 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.

The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet:

"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."

-Section 230

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Six-Words-That-Created-Interne...

>If we treat Android, Window, Twitter, Facebook, as public spaces/goods

I feel like they're screaming at the top of their lungs asking you to not think of those things as public spaces. I am happy to try to oblige them.

> the term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information

By selectively funding the development of information they favor, YouTube or app stores could be considered in part responsible for the creation of that information, in which case that section would not protect them, because they would then be the information content provider, not merely a provider of an interactive computer service.

They have become the new public space over time. I doubt they intended this, but this is the new world in 2020.

If you want to spread an idea now, you won't walk to your local town a square and start talking on a makeshift podium. You'll post a tweet or a facebook post, or make a reddit thread.

Yes. I understand. And Twitter, Facebook, et. al are asking us not to use them. So let's stop.

In (US) law there are two sets for rights and responsibilities: public (government) and private (individuals and organizations). But when it comes to responsibilities individuals can suffer consequences that organizations can't. And organizations can have power vastly greater than that of any individual. In some ways they should be subject to restrictions like governments, in others they shouldn't.

Really we need a third group. Corporations aren't individual people, and the legal simplification of modeling corporations as people is problematic. Unfortunately this probably requires a constitutional amendment for the US to change.

That strikes me as a theory that began with a desired outcome first, as the law does not use the language you’re using, nor does it include any of the distinctions you’re trying to draw. There is no “unless if there’s an ad revenue sharing system” exception to 230.

Aside from the details of 230, I would think long and hard about the unintended side effects of what you’re proposing. Attempts to control what Google and similar can and cannot moderate either results in Google having no moderation power at all (a disaster for the entire internet), or gives the government the power to decide what and what is not protected from Google’s moderation (which is contrary to the point of this exercise).

You sort of do: before you sideload an app, you have to toggle a switch, agreeing that you are going to do something potentially unsafe. In the similar arrogant manner, they care about your safety purging Podcast Addict app, like parenting you.

The best solution would be an emergence of an Android fork and the corresponding platform, but this seems unlikely due to enormous (as in 100bn perhaps) startup capital required.

Do you propose any other constructive solutions?

>>If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy.>>

I don't know what "s/o" means but assuming it means the operator of the platform, no, you are not at their mercy, they are at yours. Just go use another platform. If, in practical terms, there are no other platforms for the thing you want, then that's a different problem.

I think "someone"

While they work as hard as possible to have communication monopolies in their respective spaces.

I agree with you though, the inherent problem is that they are private spaces and should act like it. That means developing the ability to interoperate with other private spaces (some sort of federated protocol would be required), and not having monopolies on distribution (being able to acquire iOS apps from 3rd party channels, for instance).

By extension, if anyone is considering legislation to enforce freedom of expression on social networks, I'd propose a different track—break up the largest of the social networks (namely Facebook at this point) and force them to interoperate.

That seems a lot more practical than forcing private companies to hold up public standards of free speech.

> they have to act across borders.

They don’t have to, they choose to, in the name of growth.

If New York Times decided to operate in China too, deliver news in chinese about China, they would have the same problem.

> Should Apple/Google be forced to carry pornographic apps? White supremacists apps? Apps that invade people’s privacy? Which government should hold this responsibility? Should we have an international committee deciding this?

We already have a situation in which two companies effectively decide what can go on anyone's cellphone (sideloading is not and will not be a meaningful solution for any more than a fraction of a percent of users).

This seems very easy: when browsing the AppStore in Thailand, apps that insult the Thai king should be prohibited. Same with Facebook posts when accessed from Thailand, or YouTube videos etc. When accessing the same from the US, they MUST NOT be prohibited, because it would infringe on the rights of the creators.

Every nation should have the right to impose whatever restrictions it sees fit on companies wanting to distribute content to that nation.

Is it a pain to do this for the content distributor? Of course! But national sovereignty is far too important to be traded for ease of content distribution.

Of course, there is a problem (which some may consider a benefit) with the design of the Internet itself: there is no easy way to define what it means to distribute content to a particular country. But probably using national IP blocks is going to generally be good enough for many use cases.

Maybe you're advocating that, but -- even as someone who is generally skeptical of corporate power and the presumed wonders of the marketplace, and more amenable to reasonable government regulation (as subjective as that clearly is) -- this sounds like a pretty dubious idea.

The government regulation that might be called for in situations like this is regulation that puts a few limits on corporate control of massive platforms, not regulation that just transfers that control to other entities. Make locking down platforms too tightly illegal: relax laws about reverse engineering, mandate side-loading. I don't think we need to take away Google or Apple's rights to say what they will and won't sell in their own digital storefronts, but I don't think those rights should necessarily extend to control over what users install on their own devices. The problem is when those are the only legal storefront (e.g., Apple's iOS App Store), or other storefronts are highly undiscoverable.

In the US, bills (new laws) have to pass both the Senate and the House, and the House is population based. It's a system of checks and balances to ensure that large states and small states don't control each other. In theory, if a particular change is favored by one set and not the other, then it doesn't pass.

In practice it's a little murkier than that, but the way you presented it makes it sound like the system is just stacked to the benefit of the smaller states over the larger, when that is not the case.

I argue that the government has essentially zero accountability, while the private sector has a huge degree.

Our bandwidth for holding government accountable is so limited as to be useless. Consider the federal gov't, since I think it's what you're mostly talking about anyway. We get to vote for

* 1x Presidential primary every 4 years, from a field of, let's say, 8 to be generous: 3 bits

* 1x President every 4 years, from a field of 4 at best: 2 bits

* 2x Senator primary every 6 years. Let's again say a field of 8: 3 bits

* 2x Senator every 6 years. Let's again say a field of 4: 2 bits

* 1x Representative primary every 2 years. Again, very generous field of 8: 3 bits

* 1x Representative every 2 years, field of 4: 2 bits

That gives us 5.4 bits/year of bandwidth to actually hold our elected officials accountable. Yes, we can write letters and stuff, but that doesn't really allow us to hold them accountable. 5.4 bits in a year is nowhere near enough to express our feelings on the myriad of topics that the government is fiddling with, so we have effectively zero control over those things.

Compare that with private sector. Even for entities like Google, we've got huge latitude to vote with our feet. We can use DuckDuckGo, etc. Our choices as consumers provides a comparatively enormous bandwidth.

IANAL but I think a major component of contract law involves ensuring that the contract is "reasonable". This is what I meant by "play nice". I realize that the definition of "reasonable" is complicated (thus "law school"). But for the purposes of an HN discussion, I think it suffices.

> they MUST NOT be prohibited, because it would infringe on the rights of the creators.

However in reality the company acts conservitively and bans content that violates in Thailand for the US. "it's their platform". That's the same case as in the US. (See the article earlier talking about the CCP protest comments on youtube.)

Yes, that is what is happening because most states are not given enough power to impose their beliefs on entities like Google.

Even more in reality than your example, YouTube is censoring content the US or China or maybe Russia doesn't like everywhere, and it is not censoring content that Thailand or Uzbekistan or wherever else doesn't like even in those countries.

But if the US were to impose a no-censorship policy on YouTube (or at least a no-censorship-except-our-censorship policy), you would probably see some fragmentation to appease both the US and Chinese governments. And if a few dozen other countries did the same, with true force behind their decisions, you would either see YouTube retreating from those countries (perhaps opening the way for local alternatives), or many more YouTube front faces. Either way, there may be some advantages compared to the current system.

It's just a rephrasing of the theory that Google is acting like a publisher (information content provider) not a platform (interactive computer service), showing that interpretation is consistent with the text of the law. It's also consistent with the intentions of the lawmakers, as stated[1]:

> the Internet and other interactive computer services offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse

> to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services

The law was not intended to protect a near-monopoly throwing its weight around in the political arena, or a duopoly blocking competition with their own apps.

And if that interpretation did somehow give the government the power to decide what is and what is not protected, that would still be an improvement over the present situation, because the government at least answers to the people and the Constitution, and right now nothing is protected.

1: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

> It's just a rephrasing of the theory that Google is acting like a publisher (information content provider) not a platform (interactive computer service),

You are creating a test for platform vs. publisher that is not in the law. The law as linked does not even prohibit the censorship of political opinions, and in fact states that internet service providers may block constitutionally protected speech. It may be intended to free the Internet up for political discourse, but that doesn’t mean we get to totally ignore the text of the law and make up what we think it should be doing.

> The law was not intended to protect a near monopoly throwing its weight around

It wasn’t intended to do that, but that’s what it does. You don’t get to ignore the text of the law because you think it’s not acting the way you want it to. Legal systems work off the text of the laws, not what you think they should be doing.

Also, there are damn good reasons why I advise caution in these areas; unintended consequences are the norm and not the exception here. Section 230 wasn’t designed to protect monopolies, why do you think that trying to make Google “fair” wouldn’t have other unintended consequences?

Besides, if your problem with Google is that they’re a monopoly, why not use anti-monopoly laws? You can target Google specifically with those without the risk of putting all internet speech under the jurisdiction of the courts.

> And if that interpretation did somehow give the government the power to decide what is and what is not protected, that would still be an improvement

It might feel cathartic to use the power of government to force Google to do what you feel is expedient right now, but it’s something we’ll all come to regret. Understand that the nature of democracies is that people you disagree with will one day wield power, giving them the ability to control speech on the Internet is not a wise long term strategy.

> You are creating a test for platform vs. publisher that is not in the law.

There's a clear distinction between "publisher" (information content provider) and "platform" (interactive computer service) in the law. But the law provides no test for which category a particular entity falls into, so we have to provide this. No one is claiming that the proposed test is the current test, just that it's a good test, consistent with both the letter and the spirit of the law.

> That doesn’t mean you get to change what the law does on your own

Of course I don't. But the courts do, and when they do so, they consider the legislature's intent. If an interpretation is consistent with both the wording and intent, even if it isn't the original interpretation, it's possible to convince judges to adopt it.

> It might feel cathartic to use the power of government to force Google to do what you feel is expedient right now, but it’s something you’ll come to regret.

That sounds like fear mongering. If we can trust the US government to do anything, its to respect the first amendment. And if the day comes when we can no longer trust the US government to respect the first amendment, then this discussion is pointless, because at that point we'll have lost all freedoms.

But it's clear now that we cannot trust Google to respect freedom of speech. Of the two, in this narrow case, the government is more trustworthy than Google.

> Even for entities like Google, we've got huge latitude to vote with our feet. We can use DuckDuckGo, etc.

Great, that's two options. Maybe there's half of another.

Section 230 provides a very clear definition of what an “Interactive Computer Service” is, and makes it very clear that someone who provides one cannot be considered to be the publisher, full stop.

> The term “interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.

> 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.

These two combined mean that you cannot find a way to consider Google to be a publisher under section 230. If they meet the definition of an Interactive Computer Service, then they cannot be a publisher under 230.

> But the courts do.

The courts have not weighed in on this aspect of Section 230, but they taken a very expansive view of the level of immunity that it grants. Particularly interesting here would be Blumenthal vs. Drudge, which granted AOL Section 230 immunity even though the content in question was written by AOL’s contractor, which is probably closer to the line than moderation.

Outside the courts, the general legal consensus is that Section 230 does not require impartiality or neutrality at all, based on both the text of the law and the congressional record around when it was passed.

> That sounds like fear mongering. If we can trust the US government to do anything, its to respect the first amendment.

Or, you know, it’s in line with the past few centuries of liberal democratic tradition to limit the power of the government in the area of free speech. The point of the 1st amendment is explicitly to get the government out of the business of deciding what is and is not acceptable speech. You would put it back into that process.

Also, you probably shouldn’t trust the government too openly here. Ever heard the phrase “shout fire in a crowded theater”? It comes from a supreme court case that jailed somebody for protesting WW1 (Schenck v. United States). That bad precedent stood for 50 years. Just saying.

Of course, there are so, so, so many practical problems with just saying “Google cannot block anything that’s protected speech.” Pornography is protected, violent videos are protected, hate speech is protected. Much of the internet becomes completely inoperable if you set the bar at protected speech; surely we’ve all seen enough poorly moderated forums to predict that.

It’s easy to imagine a scenario where Google can block “obscene” speech but not political speech. But where is that line? And who do you trust to have permanent, hegemonic power to decide what is and is not offensive for the entire Internet? Remember that we got into this mess partly because one group of people decided that another group of people’s political opinions were offensive; do not assume that they wouldn’t use the power of the government to suppress each other given the opportunity.

>Yes, we can write letters and stuff, but that doesn't really allow us to hold them accountable

Public protests/rallies/marches do bring about change in government/government policies. Many politicians do care about their public image, and are susceptible to manipulation based on public pressure.

>Compare that with private sector. Even for entities like Google, we've got huge latitude to vote with our feet. We can use DuckDuckGo, etc. Our choices as consumers provides a comparatively enormous bandwidth.

Okay, so agreeing with you for the sake of argument - they provide a bandwidth, in theory, but what is the pointif nobody actually uses it? It is "effectively" zero accountability. No mass exodus from Google/Apple/Microsoft/Facebook/Twitter/Whatsapp/TikTok/insert bad company/...

How would that be a constitutional challenge? If you're arguing for a different interpretation of the CDA that seems like a legal challenge and argument.

What's the constitutional argument against the current legislation of the CDA?

There is also Bing.

So now, in the case of Android, the complaint is that the alternatives don’t know how to market. Should we also break up the record labels and the book publishers because you can’t easily discover independent authors and musicians?

> Section 230 provides immunity to Google and similar for content posted by other users and services.

To be more clear, Google and other web publishers already enjoy immunity for content posted by other users and services. That is the default state of things under American law.

What section 230 does is preserve their immunity even if they exercise editorial discretion over some of the content that other users/services post. Without section 230, they would still have immunity. But they'd lose it as soon as they did any moderation at all of user-provided content.

Most regulations that are passed are not by law. They are passed by agencies like the FCC, FTC, FDA etc.

So let’s say this mythical law is passed where you give the government more power over private business. The actual execution of the law is going to be carried out by unelected regulatory agencies where your main recourse is unelected judges.

Really, I think we should call Google and Bing the real two and lump all the alternatives that reuse it into the "half".

>If we treat those platforms as private. Then we are playing in s/o's backyard. You are totally at their mercy. They have every right to kick you out if they don't like your face. It's their property. You are a guest.

Maybe this depends on the laws of a country. Also, IMHO either a company offers their services to everyone or to no one. There are, of course, exceptions that aren't really exceptions. Creative work in an "exception". For instance, French painter Monet was so popular that he could choose his customers.

Why isn’t side loading viable for Android users?

> Centralized walled gardens are going to face this no matter what policy they have. Too loose? They run afoul of laws and offend people. Too strict? They develop a reputation for censorship and offend people. There is no way they can win.

Yes, they can win. The problem isn't that you're "too loose" or "too strict". The problem is that you have different users with different views of whether the same things is acceptable. You win by restricting your user base to people who agree on what should and shouldn't be allowed.

Yes and do you really think morality will never come into play if those decisions are made by the government? What are the chances that this government would go to bat for an app by Black Lives Matter as opposed to Focus on the Family?

Yes, so would you rather Google not warn users of the possible danger?

What? The New York Times does deliver news in Chinese about China. Has done for quite a while.

I would rather change some obsure the settings once (like tapping 5 times on phone info) than being pestered every time

Didn’t know that, thanks for chiming in. My point stands though.

> Section 230 provides a very clear definition of what an “Interactive Computer Service” is, and makes it very clear that someone who provides one cannot be considered to be the publisher, full stop.

Note the word "another" in "another information content provider". The law plainly doesn't protect them for content they are responsible (even only in part) for creating, and by paying for some content and not other content, they're taking an active hand in choosing what content is created. In other words, they are, in part, responsible for the creation of that content.

> where is that line?

That's a question to be answered by democracy, not in a corporate board room.

And private control of the means of communication has never been unrestricted. Surely you're familiar with the regulations that once governed the television networks.

> If Google is paying for some content ... then they’re acting like a publisher.

There is case law to the contrary. AOL was granted 230 immunity when the issue at hand was about what a contractor of theirs said.

> That’s a question to be answered by democracy, not in a corporate board room

Or we could encourage a proliferation of choices on the internet, rather than handing whichever party is in power the right to suppress the speech of the other.

> Or we could encourage a proliferation of choices on the internet, rather than handing whichever party is in power the right to suppress the speech of the other.

I'm talking about preventing Google from exercising that power, not giving that power to the government. No one is proposing to repeal the first amendment.

I'm very much in favor of a proliferation of choices on the internet, but we don't really have that at the moment, and we need regulations that cover the situation we actually find ourselves in, not the ideal situation.

> democratic footing (users are in charge)

"Users" is a tricky word here.

When you have democracy, and you say "users are in charge", what you really mean is "whatever group of users can get a majority is in charge".

What it perhaps sounds like you're saying, which isn't true under democracy but is desirable, is "individual users are in charge", i.e. you are in charge of your own data and content.

Yes, yes, provided they're labeled properly, all of them, and no, respectively.

Edit: I guess the first two could use some labels as well, provided the labels aren't legible to parental controls or other nannyware.

I’ve already made this point at least twice; getting the government involved in preventing Google from moderating content is giving the power to the government. Unless if you want to completely ban the ability of Google to moderate anything, then you are giving the power to someone to decide what is and is not protected from moderation on Google. This power to decide what is and is not immune from moderation would be hugely powerful, and would give the ability of the government to declare which ideological believes are and are not protected from moderation; which in effect would be hugely detrimental to the first amendment.

And even if you strip Google’s immunity from civil damages away, you are handing power over all internet speech over to the courts and anyone with enough time and money to use them. From a citizens perspective there is very little difference between censorship via the first or third branch of the government; both represent the erosion of the first amendment.

Similar regulations have existed in the past (common carrier and the fairness doctrine, for example) without giving the government the power to "declare which ideological believes are and are not protected from moderation".

There is no fundamental law saying American multinationals need to run the entire world. I'd be comfortable with the idea that a company with as much data as Google shouldn't be allowed to operate a trans-national operation for military reasons. The Chinese acted prudently when they froze Google out of their domestic market.

The fairness doctrine was only constitutional because there were a limited number of channels (Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC), and it was impossible for anyone else to create one due to FCC regulations. I genuinely doubt that it would be constitutional today with cable television, let alone the internet.

So now we need the government to intervene for people's own good because people willingly give their money to Big Tech?

Do you also log into your computer as root or administrator so you don't have to be bothered with pesky warnings?

I'm not proposing that we reestablish the fairness doctrine, just using it as an example of similar government regulation in the past that didn't have the disastrous effects you predicted.

But since you brought up the limited number of choices, I would like to mention that we find ourselves in that situation again today in the smartphone and online video markets, although for different reasons. And that's relevant because regulation is only necessary when the free market fails to provide the choices and freedoms we expect.

This is not true. The default state of US law was that those who published without moderation were protected, and those that did moderate were not. Section 230 was created specifically because publishers who moderated user generated comments had been successfully sued for defamation [0].

Section 230 did not preserve any rights at all, it created entirely new ones. Companies were previously able to enjoy common carrier immunities, if they behaved like common carriers. Section 230 granted them those immunities without giving them the obligation to behave like common carriers.

It's hard to argue that the legislature in 1996 were imaging the future we would have in 2020 where the vast majority of content is controlled by such a small collection of companies, and where those companies often operate a lot like a cartel when it comes to moderation of that content. Section 230 is really the only example we have of common carrier immunities being granted to non-common carriers. The reason you don't see that more often is because it creates exactly this set of problems. It's clear that section 230 has had impact far beyond the scope of the 1996 legislation, the world has changed significantly since then, and those problems really should be addressed.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....

In the political arena, the status quo is that each voter must choose one of:

A) I must vote for the Democrat candidate because the Republicans are evil and they'll subjugate women and minorities.

B) I must vote for the Republicans because the Democrats are evil and they'll turn us into a bunch of commies.

There is no room in today's political debate for even mention of finer points of free speech philosophy, when all we can do is scare people into voting for the lesser evil.

Many politicians do care about their public image, and are susceptible to manipulation based on public pressure.

And this is no less true in the private sector.

Congress couldn’t possibly imagine that Google would exist when they passed Section 230, because Google probably wouldn’t exist without Section 230. Section 230 is generally credited with helping birth the modern Internet, without Section 230 the Internet would still look like it did in the 1980s; small and non-commercial.

None of the innovation that Google brought to the internet on its' way to becoming an internet giant relied on Section 230. The business of search and adds do not rely on Section 230 protections in any way.

Like any other regulation, it harms small businesses disproportionately to the costs it imposes on large ones. There are plenty of examples of regulations that are appropriate to apply to large businesses, but much less appropriate to apply to small ones. Luckily, this incredibly old problem has been solved many times over through the idea of having regulations apply to companies after they reach a certain size. There is little harm to society in allowing small content distributors full editorial control over their distribution channels. There is significant harm to society in allowing that same level of control to entities which control an enormous majority of modern content distribution.

This trope that "the internet wouldn't exist without Section 230" is just an overused excuse that people peddle out to distract from the fact that regardless of how important it was in 1996, as the internet has changed, this law is now responsible for an entirely new category of very serious problems, that really weren't envisioned at the time it was written. It also ignores the fact that these problems can be easily fixed without removing the elements of it which have been beneficial to the growth of online services.

Putting users in charge does not solve censorship problems. The majority opinion - if it is in favour of censorship - will censor competing opinions.

Public ownership does not solve censorship. See: the CCP.

Effective policing does not solve censorship. The police will be tools of whoever and whatever is funding them.

The only way to combat censorship is through decentralised and distributed platforms that are made publicly immune to takedowns, censorship, and prosecution.

It astounds me that people are happy to accept that free speech in the US only applies in public spaces, while handing over control of the best places for spreading information to private companies. What's the point in that? "Free speech only applies to public space! Private companies can censor who they want! proceeds to make sure the information superhighway is entirely owned and controlled by private companies".

But public control doesn't work either. We've already seen government around the world censoring information in the "public interest".

Decentralisation, and distributism are the only ways.

A platform isn't public or private. It's a platform. You can use it any way you want. But if it's not your platform, you don't get to make the rules of how it can be used or how it works.

I don't think people realize how ridiculous they sound when they reach this far just to get Google to do whatever the user wants with Google's service. It's a very millennial/zoomer/i-only-know-life-since-Google-has-existed point of view. It implies that people don't think they can fairly live a human existence without using Google (which is the truly disturbing thing about all this).

I mean, jesus. Nobody has forced you to use any of Google's services, you literally do not need to use any of their services at all. And there are alternate service providers. We didn't even go this far with Ma Bell, an actual monopoly.

If this is about "boo hoo I can't make money off of their platform", why not the same complaint about literally any other business? It's a much more reasonable thing to fight for, say, right to repair, than right-to-make-an-app-that-will-be-published-no-matter-what-by-Google.

At the moment, the best comparison I can come up with is food trucks. Say you own a giant empty lot. You offer it to food trucks to come and sell their food in your lot. It's a big success. You make money, the food trucks make money. Then one day, you want to kick out a food truck, for whatever reason. And they say, this is so unfair. We should form a government committee to manage this parking lot because the owner of the lot won't let me sell hotdogs here anymore. Even though they could just, you know, do what they do somewhere else, and still make basically the same living.

(Trying to act devil's advocate)

Google is a publicly listed company. Members of the public, either directly or indirectly partially own Google. Google has a duty towards its shareholders. Isn't that some accountability?

I know that not everyone owns Google stock. But I'm guessing hundreds of thousands of people do.

My understanding is that the "vulnerability" here also exists on every computer or other device on which you download an installer to a public folder--any application can watch that folder and silently replace the file with another when the download completes. There's nothing special about that. Android has a secure internal storage area--but internal storage is often limited. It's gotten better, but my previous phone only had 8gb for both the OS and data to share.

Does it? Are you just assuming that, or did you find evidence of it?

CCP is not public ownership. CCP is a minority political party that subjugates the public through violence.

There is the solution of taking away power from the government to fix this. You would need to limit the punishment of people to be the same as corporations. For example, if a corporation commits negligence that kills people and gets fined 2% of its income, then the penalty for negligent homicide becomes a 2% yearly income with no jail time.

The problem is that right now the government will jail an individual and fine them many years worth of income but will not punish a corporation even a 1/100th of the penalty. Equalize that can be done by either granting or removing power from the government.

And yet sites that aggregate illegal content are taken down by the government all the time, despite hosting none of it themselves. If you filter the wrong way, the government will hold you liable.

Iirc NYT has been blocked in China for about 10 years, since that report about Wen Jiabao's family's money.

Blockchain-based Facebook when?

> This is not true. The default state of US law was that those who published without moderation were protected, and those that did moderate were not. Section 230 was created specifically because publishers who moderated user generated comments had been successfully sued for defamation [0].

> Section 230 did not preserve any rights at all, it created entirely new ones. Companies were previously able to enjoy common carrier immunities, if they behaved like common carriers. Section 230 granted them those immunities without giving them the obligation to behave like common carriers.

It's kind of funny for you to open with "this is not true" and then go on to agree with everything I said. What part did you think wasn't true?

The government is a made-up construct we created to serve us. What the government should or shouldn't do is up to us.

>And this is no less true in the private sector.

Well, of course there are nuances to anything, but CEOs are not elected by the public. They don't have "opponent" CEOs trying to milk their scandals in public ads for getting a job. Its different. Anyway, this conversation has totally gone off topic ! We'll just have to agree to disagree on some things, although I suspect we have more points that we agree on than not.

The solution to this as I see this is that these platforms allow everything. Only block illegal (local law) content and spam. Provide users with powerful blocking/filtering tools. The only influence they can have on content is monetization/advertising. They are free to be preferential with who they wish to monetize. Thats the best compromise I can think off.

The bit where you claim that section 230 does not in fact create an entirely new set of legal protections for content distributors...

I don't see how that would work, because fining a corporation indirectly fines every employee they need to lay off and can no longer find a job. Of course, we should fine corporations more, but trying to treat a company like a person is just a stupid metaphor in general and extending that will lead you nowhere sane.

Google's shareholders generally have very different interests than its users do.

Just think about it for a split second.

I said that in the world without section 230, you start with immunity from responsibility for content provided by other parties, and you lose that immunity if you moderate those other parties' content.

Whereas, in the world with section 230, you start with immunity from responsibility for content provided by other parties, and you keep that immunity if you moderate those other parties' content.

On the other hand, you've provided the counterpoint that everything I said is absolutely correct, and I should be ashamed of putting out such ridiculous misinformation.

You are trying to disagree as strongly as you possibly can -- despite the fact that you agree with me in full. What's going on?

>I don't see how that would work, because fining a corporation indirectly fines every employee they need to lay off and can no longer find a job.

Do we stop putting people in prison if they have a child? Either we have to punish children by depriving them of a parent (potentially putting them into foster care) or we have to allow family status to be a factor in sentencing individuals (institutionalize discrimination on a protected class)?

Currently when we punish someone, little thought is given to secondary victims. I don't see why we would make an exclusion for corporations.

It is a bit of both. Sure, 'public' becomes a bit tenious (Perhaps 'government' is a better descriptor?), but still applies. Other truly communist nations have had similar issues with despotism however. And as is parroted so often, a government is where the state has a monopoly on violence. The trick is to limit the rights and abilities of the state to do so without just cause while allowing minority opinions to flurish.