The editing of posts regarding Jonathan Yaniv (the pedophile) on Wordpress & Medium and the multiple instances of Twitter & Reddit tightly controlling everything that's posted about him make me very curious about the implications these actions have in regards to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Currently (with the exception of posts regarding the solicitation of sex workers) social media / blogging platforms are NOT held liable for the content generated by posters on their platforms. This is because the platforms themselves are NOT considered to be the "information content provider" due to the fact that they do not curate / edit / create the content, users do.
However, if these platforms are going to go to the extreme lengths we’ve seen with the Jonathan Yaniv case to curate user generated content by actively going in and editing blog posts / user comments to sway public opinion about a topic, wouldn't their immunity to litigation be removed? By editing / curating / controlling the content that’s being published on their platforms, they are no longer able to claim that they are not “the information content provider” themselves. And thus, would then be liable for ALL the content on their platforms (a scary thought for them, surely).
Has anyone touched on this yet? It would be interesting if enough people who have experienced censorship banned together and argued for the removal of section 230 as applied to these social media & blogging platforms, based on the censoring of topics / discourse / active editing of blog posts concerning Jonathan Yaniv (the pedophile).
It is extremely difficult to lose CDA section 230 protection. Furthermore, it applies on a case-by-case basis.
CDA section 230 protection lapses when you can't distinguish whether or not it was the poster's content or the platform's content. In this case, it actually might actually be confusing, depending on how they edited out the name. (ie did they say "[redacted by wordpress administration]" or did they just say "[redacted]"? the latter might break section 230 protections but the former wouldn't)
Though when section 230 protection lapses, it just means that the person harmed can possibly sue the website as well. Since we don't have a basis for a suit against JY regardless, the editing doesn't matter regardless of who actually did it, the site or the poster.
And as mentioned before, breaking section 230 protections on one post doesn't apply to all of the site's activities. If the site properly labels all the edits they do but fail to label a JY edit, it doesn't change the status for all the other posts.
It's a deeper discussion about the merits of section 230 protection as a general concept, but I'm pretty much in favor of it. Without CDA section 230, every site is individually liable for everything that gets posted on it. That would pretty much kill every big social media site, but it'd also kill kiwifarms. Null can't possibly account for every post that goes up on KF.
What happens in that situation? Well, then the internet would be reduced to a mesh of independently hosted blogs. Or maybe the occasional small forum where the owner knows all the posters personally. Blogs can be harder to manage technically speaking than a turnkey operation like a social media page. The internet would be a lot smaller.
I think section 230 is an overall benefit because it lets more people be involved with the conversation, even if ultimately we get big behemoths like wordpress asskissing pedophiles. But kiwifarms is still managing to punch a lot higher than its weight class when it comes to this issue (and many others. most lolcows' first google result is kiwifarms).
The truth will out. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Also, I found that in the US, Section 230 also protects these blogging / social media platforms from 'right of publicity' claims. The court has construed “intellectual property” in Section 230 to mean only “federal intellectual property.” So a right of publicity claim, which is grounded in state law, cannot pierce Section 230 immunity. This means that these platforms are not liable for posts that use any individual’s name, likeness, or other recognizable aspects of one’s persona without their consent, for commercial or otherwise use. Meaning that Jonathan’s insistence that his name is somehow protected, or that he must give his consent for it to be posted by users on a platform, is not legally viable. US law protects platforms from liability regarding this, which is also makes me curious why they are complying with his demands.
Not to even mention that all of pedophile Jonathan Yaniv’s court ordered ‘protections’ are not even originating from within the US legal system....
Oh, yeah, no, right of publicity is weak as shit in the US. The first amendment means you can publish most anything that's public info and no one can say boo about it. There's weird corner cases, and once in awhile, like you said, state laws kinda fuck around with it. But I think most of those laws exist because no one's seriously challenged them. They're paper tigers.
Canadian laws that asskiss pedos don't mean shit here.
