Third Circuit Court ruling deals significant blow to Section 230 "shield" for algorithmically-delivered content

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

The ruling draws a bright line between the Section 230 protections for simply "hosting" content and the deliberate action (whether algorithmically-delivered or not) of "recommending" content.  I'm genuinely pleased by this ruling.

 

Court Says Section 230 Doesn't Shield TikTok From 'Blackout' Challenge Lawsuit

GIZMODO.COM

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The ruling could have a huge effect on how tech companies uses algorithms to recommend content.

 

Quote

 

In 2021, a 10-year-old girl named Nylah Anderson accidentally choked to death on a dog leash she had wrapped around her neck. Anderson had been compelled to engage in this dangerous behavior by the “blackout challenge,” a viral game circulating on TikTok at the time. In 2022, Bloomberg reported that this challenge, which encouraged children to choke themselves with household items and then film their own loss of consciousness (and, in most cases, subsequent revival), had been linked to as many as 20 deaths.

 

A court previously held that Anderson’s mother, Tawainna Anderson, couldn’t sue TikTok because of Section 230, the controversial internet law that affords internet platforms legal immunity for the content posted by third parties on their sites. Now, a U.S. court has sought to overturn that previous ruling, saying that TikTok will have to defend itself against the lawsuit without using Section 230 as an excuse for its actions.

 

In an opinion handed down by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania, a three-judge panel has argued that TikTok cannot hide behind the internet law to shield itself from prosecution. Indeed, the opinion argues, Anderson’s daughter didn’t just happen to come across the “blackout challenge” while perusing TikTok’s site. Instead, the platform’s algorithm served Anderson’s daughter the “challenge” via her “For You Page,” which indicates that the site played an active role in distributing the material.

 

“TikTok’s algorithm is not based solely on a user’s online inputs,” the decision reads. “Rather, the algorithm curates and recommends a tailored compilation of videos for a user’s FYP based on a variety of factors, including the user’s age and other demographics, online interactions, and other metadata.” This signals that TikTok wasn’t just passively hosting the content but was actively feeding it to the little girl. “ICSs are immunized only if they are sued for someone else’s expressive activity or content (i.e., third-party speech), but they are not immunized if they are sued for their own expressive activity or content,” the decision continues.

 

A previous court decision held that “a platform’s algorithm that reflects ‘editorial judgments’ about ‘compiling the third-party speech it wants in the way it wants’ is the platform’s own ‘expressive product’ and is therefore protected by the First Amendment,” the opinion states. As such, if those algorithms count as platforms’ “speech,” then such content is not passive and is, therefore, not protected by 230, the judges argue.

 

One judge, Judge Paul Matey, wrote in a partial legal concurrence attached to the opinion that Section 230 had evolved away from the original intent of the law, and had now become a statute that “immunizes platforms from the consequences of their own conduct and permits platforms to ignore the ordinary obligation that most businesses have to take reasonable steps to prevent their services from causing devastating harm.”

 

 

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

It’s clear that section 230 needs an update but on one hand the courts aren’t really up to the task, and on the other, the legislative branch (ok ok, the Republican Party) wants to  weaponize it so that their misinformation and propaganda is protected speech

[Ghost_MH]

This seems like a perfectly reasonable ruling. I don't really think there's anything wrong with sites having immunity for content posted by their users. This was fine in an age where the only things you saw on Facebook was your friends' posts. Recommendations should carry a different weight. There a difference between passively hosting and actively pushing. If that means these sites need more human moderation, then that's what it should take.

[Keyser_Soze]

57 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

This seems like a perfectly reasonable ruling. I don't really think there's anything wrong with sites having immunity for content posted by their users. This was fine in an age where the only things you saw on Facebook was your friends' posts. Recommendations should carry a different weight. There a difference between passively hosting and actively pushing. If that means these sites need more human moderation, then that's what it should take.

 

I'm sure Elon will get on this right away!

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

This seems like a perfectly reasonable ruling. I don't really think there's anything wrong with sites having immunity for content posted by their users. This was fine in an age where the only things you saw on Facebook was your friends' posts. Recommendations should carry a different weight. There a difference between passively hosting and actively pushing. If that means these sites need more human moderation, then that's what it should take.

 

I doubt we'll get this level of nuance out of legislation on this but there's also a difference between these algorithms that try to figure out what you like and feed you more of it (especially since we know a lot of these sites put their thumb on the scale to favor rightwing content regardless of what you actually want), and a reddit style content neutral algorithm where it just surfaces things based on some across the board criteria like newness, upvote/comment activity within a certain timeframe of posting, etc.