Regarding the apparent and imminent repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the future of this website.

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The Last Stand said:
No. No. NO.

Section 230 is the only thing keeping smaller sites like this with a community afloat without much liability. If THAT goes, Null is liable for any suits he would get under Kiwi Farms and Lolcow LLC.

The only people who would afford such lawsuits is Big Tech. Facebook, Twitter, Google. So they would get more power AND moderation than what they have now.
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Your sensationalist melodrama doesn't make any sense. If a site ran by Null that is similar to Kiwifarms — we'll call it "Kiwifarms 2", — allows anyone to join and post content, but does not moderate any of it, there won't be anything to sue for. This is the precedent set by Cubby vs. Compuserve. You would need a brand new piece of legislation or precedent to change that. The reason Null is in trouble with current Kiwifarms is because this website editorializes via moderation, which is akin to being a content publisher (according to the law anyway.) This is also why Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. would suffer should Section 230 be repealed (which quite frankly I have no problem with.) It all boils down to whether the site owner attempts to moderate their platform or not.

If you're concerned about generic SLAPP-style lawsuits issued by huge corporations who can pay legal fees for eternity (while their victims cannot), Section 230 doesn't provide any protection from that. There is already a wealth of ways to bankrupt Null to the point where he couldn't keep Kiwifarms open, and he's probably suffered just about all of them by now.
 
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Professor Paradox said:
There are millions of websites hosted in countries that don't have section 230 laws. Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, etc none of these countries have anything like section 230 and people in those countries live fine without them.
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The Japanese equivalent of 4chan (or depending on how you look at it, the real 4chan) has suffered plenty of lawsuits due to an absence of speech protections in Japan. That's not the issue, however. There is no legal recourse to sue a website if it does not editorialize (and thus, by default, claim ownership) over content posted on it. You are permitted free speech as both a site-owner and site poster if there aren't jannies at work.
 
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Professor Paradox said:
There are millions of websites hosted in countries that don't have section 230 laws. Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, etc none of these countries have anything like section 230 and people in those countries live fine without them.
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Point taken, but Americans are quite litigious when their feelings get hurt online. I'm also curious how websites hosted in those countries avoid constant lawsuits if they aren't protected from liability for what users post on them.
 
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Professor Paradox said:
There are millions of websites hosted in countries that don't have section 230 laws. Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, etc none of these countries have anything like section 230 and people in those countries live fine without them.
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You're free to move to a .ru or .il if you want to, especially since the Yankee era of suing over hurt feels online largely post-dates those foreign laws getting tested in any way by a post-CDA America.
 
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Professor Paradox said:
There are millions of websites hosted in countries that don't have section 230 laws. Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, etc none of these countries have anything like section 230 and people in those countries live fine without them.
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they live fine because they use american internet sites so they get all the benefits of 230 protections
if someone in, for example, germany tried hosting a site like KF they wouldn't last a month before getting arrested for violating hate speech laws
 
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The Last Stand said:
No. No. NO.

Section 230 is the only thing keeping smaller sites like this with a community afloat without much liability. If THAT goes, Null is liable for any suits he would get under Kiwi Farms and Lolcow LLC.

The only people who would afford such lawsuits is Big Tech. Facebook, Twitter, Google. So they would get more power AND moderation than what they have now.
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Well god damn fuck me

The Last Stand said:
Internet wasn't as mainstream then as it is now. Section 230 was developed as a safeguard when the Internet gained popularity and relevance.
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Well I will be god damned. I wonder if shroomery will go down as well. Or maybe they are much more decent. Less chance to get removed. Not needing as much protection.

😆 yeah right if this site takes a dive then that site takes a dive.

Well fuck me and call me Susan. The internet is under siege!

DumbDude42 said:
they live fine because they use american internet sites so they get all the benefits of 230 protections
if someone in, for example, germany tried hosting a site like KF they wouldn't last a month before getting arrested for violating hate speech laws
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Hate speech? On these sites? Get the fuck out. I have never seen that.

AnitaSarsleezian said:
If the site gets deep-sixed, I'll just be happy that I finally managed to snag a t-shirt.
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Do they have shirts that say "I signed up to kiwifarms forum before section 230 was repealed and all I got was this lousy t shirt"?
 
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Professor Paradox said:
There are millions of websites hosted in countries that don't have section 230 laws. Japan, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Israel, etc none of these countries have anything like section 230 and people in those countries live fine without them.
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I don't think those countries have stuff like the ADL, SPLC and other groups that exist solely to sue people for wrong think.
 
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formershroomeryuser said:
Well god damn fuck me



Well I will be god damned. I wonder if shroomery will go down as well. Or maybe they are much more decent. Less chance to get removed. Not needing as much protection.

😆 yeah right if this site takes a dive then that site takes a dive.

Well fuck me and call me Susan. The internet is under siege!
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This is exactly what a current shroomery user would post. Hmm.
P.S. new in town, looking for a plug
 
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crocodilian said:
To those who think axing Section 230 will be the end of the internet, please consider Cubby vs. Compuserve. This was the case law that applied prior to Section 230, and will remain such (probably) if Section 230 is repealed.

To summarize: Cubby Inc. sued Compuserve for defamation because an unspecified user (Compuserve couldn't locate them, apparently) slandered Cubby. In the end, Compuserve was found innocent because they didn't moderate their forum in any capacity. The overall impact of the law essentially states that "if your website has jannies and tries to act like publishers, moderating content, then you are responsible for all content featured on your website. If you don't have those things and don't act like a publisher, you aren't responsible."

This is good news for you for two reasons.

  1. Should Section 230 be repealed, the reigning hydra of Silicone Valley will no longer have any freedom to moderate in an unbiased way (because it would, legally, behoove them to not moderate anything at all.) This is bad news for Null because he satisfies the role of 'publisher', chiefly by employing jannies and otherwise editorializing what's posted on Kiwifarms. The site will probably die.
  2. You won't need Kiwifarms. The moment Twitter (or whoever) ignores the letter of the law, tries to moderate, is found to be a publisher and takes a blow to the kidneys over the decision, all of these other censorship-prone platforms will throw up their hands and stop moderating anything. All the content this community compiles regarding their preferred lolcows may be freely hosted across numerous different websites. If the law can't find the original poster, there won't be any real way to take that content down.

Theoretically, Null can repurpose Kiwifarms into a sort of 'scrolling' website, not unlike a yotsuba imageboard. Conceptually, popular content would stay active; dead or floundering content would sink down the tubes and will delete itself automatically. This system would be automatic and thus not qualify as editorializing, nor would it require jannies (nor anyone besides Null, behind the scenes.) That's up to him however.

The point I'm making is this sensationalism over Section 230 is yet another redux of what we were fretting over in 2014. It will have a tangible effect, but your internet isn't going to die.
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You're free to test your legal theory hosting a site with thousands of potential Cubby's on it on your own dime. I won't test it for you.

Professor Paradox said:
Does nobody realize that forums, message boards, and websites existed before section 230?
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When the internet was a thousand people and Google didn't exist.
 
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The Last Stand said:
No. No. NO.

Section 230 is the only thing keeping smaller sites like this with a community afloat without much liability. If THAT goes, Null is liable for any suits he would get under Kiwi Farms and Lolcow LLC.

The only people who would afford such lawsuits is Big Tech. Facebook, Twitter, Google. So they would get more power AND moderation than what they have now.
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An LLC is a limited liability company, wouldn't that mean the LLC would be liable as that's its only purpose?

COuldn't he transfer it to another kiwi, preferably one is another country?
 
Null said:
You're free to test your legal theory hosting a site with thousands of potential Cubby's on it on your own dime. I won't test it for you.


When the internet was a thousand people and Google didn't exist.
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You're just seeing the oncoming Janny Holocaust and you're scrambling. YOU'RE SCRAMBLING FOR YOUR JANNIES, JOSH.
 
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Is that why Null is trialing the Reddit up/down vote system? To have a non moderated version of the farms where people have to downvote all the bots and then have a setting option to hide posts that have downvotes? Of course then bots will just downvote real posts or upvote themselves so you can't win.
 
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