You can make contracts however you want. If they violate existing laws, you can still pursue legal action.
I could say in a rental contract I'm allowed to burn anything you put in the apartment whenever I want, and it does not let me destroy important property.
They cannot modify the information on there without assuming responsibility for everything everyone posts there and liability for it.
You can make contracts however you want. If they violate existing laws, you can still pursue legal action.
Ok, sue Twitter, I am fine with that. But why is this not already happening? Could it have anything to do with the fact that every Twitter user already agreed to allow Twitter to have complete executive control over all user submitted data?
I could say in a rental contract I'm allowed to burn anything you put in the apartment whenever I want, and it does not let me destroy important property.
I appreciate the analogy but don't find it particularly useful here. A more useful analogy would be to lease a music studio where the landlord claimed to own all the rights to any music you created while on their property. When you later try to launch your first album, the landlord points out that you can't because the music technically belongs to them now.
In fact this is how it works in universities. Invent the cure for cancer at med school? The university owns it because you created the work under their tutelage and with their equipment. Paint the next Mona Lisa in the studio at art school? Technically belongs to the school now.
It is all super "unfair" but the real problem is that everyone agrees to it, because they didn't do due diligence. If everyone balked, instead of going along blindly, we'd have an actual chance at making changes. Expecting gov to swoop in after the fact to magically fix the arrangement is not a real solution.
They cannot modify the information on there without assuming responsibility for everything everyone posts there and liability for it.
You didn't read the EULA. It explicitly states that Twitter can and will do exactly that, for any reason, at any time, in perpetuity, without compensation or notice, bla bla bla. And if you are a Twitter user, you agreed to those terms.
Edit: I may have misunderstood what you were saying in that last part. I do agree that they should be held liable. We can have both that, and walk away from abuse services.
NAL, but in my reading, s230 is about liability for content and I 100% agree with what I understand to be its intent and purpose.
And while I loathe Twatter/etal's bias as much as the next guy, it seems to me that is possible for Twatter's EULA and its 230 protections to exist at the same time.
Because in a practical sense, I can step outside of the box and empathize with Twatter's reasoning here. Given the gargantuan quantity of content that runs through its service every single hour, from a practical sense, I understand their need to heavily rely on automation and/or "crowd-sourced" flagging to arrive at -- what may be considered to be -- a "reasonable and timely" first pass.
And, at least in my mind, it seems there's very little the government can or, if I put my conservative libertarian hat on for a moment, even SHOULD be doing here. Because unless the gov't is willing to devise a better algorithm, etc, what's the solution? To say, "Well, Twatter, anything originating from the gov't or from parties named on this source list should get a 'free pass' at a censorship check."
Well that's not cool either!
Case and point is, as much as I disagree with its apparent bias AGAINST conservative content, there's no quick and easy answer here.
Even "Break them up!" Okay, how? Into what? How would that improve consumer safety/privacy? Again, it's not a simple on/off switch.
EDIT: And the entrepreneur side of me absolutely despises the notion that the gov't can legislate away private property. "You worked your ass off for decades to become number 1/2/3 in your industry, assuming 100% of the risk, etc. Well, we the gov't, from our cushy tax payer funded tower, are going to swoop in and take a sizable portion of that away from you and there's not one damn thing you can do about it."
I know the world is not as clean as that example portends it to be, but still, on principle I take big issue with this sort of "big gov't" approach.
Did Twatter benefit from provisions like S230? Sure! Might it be abusing them? It's possible!
But in some ways, good for Twatter! Kind of like Trump's take on foreign relations ("I'm not mad at China for screwing the US over, that's what they should be trying to do in its negotiations. I'm mad at our stupid gov't for signing off on the stuff because they had no idea what they were doing!") In the same way, Twatter/etal negotiated a sweet deal, our moronic gov't gave it to them, and now the feds realize they have absolutely no way to enforce anything here. Who's the "real" enemy then? The guy who asked (Twatter) or the guy who agreed (gov't).
Again, my point is that this is not a simple black and white situation.
You can make contracts however you want. If they violate existing laws, you can still pursue legal action.
I could say in a rental contract I'm allowed to burn anything you put in the apartment whenever I want, and it does not let me destroy important property.
They cannot modify the information on there without assuming responsibility for everything everyone posts there and liability for it.
Ok, sue Twitter, I am fine with that. But why is this not already happening? Could it have anything to do with the fact that every Twitter user already agreed to allow Twitter to have complete executive control over all user submitted data?
I appreciate the analogy but don't find it particularly useful here. A more useful analogy would be to lease a music studio where the landlord claimed to own all the rights to any music you created while on their property. When you later try to launch your first album, the landlord points out that you can't because the music technically belongs to them now.
In fact this is how it works in universities. Invent the cure for cancer at med school? The university owns it because you created the work under their tutelage and with their equipment. Paint the next Mona Lisa in the studio at art school? Technically belongs to the school now.
It is all super "unfair" but the real problem is that everyone agrees to it, because they didn't do due diligence. If everyone balked, instead of going along blindly, we'd have an actual chance at making changes. Expecting gov to swoop in after the fact to magically fix the arrangement is not a real solution.
You didn't read the EULA. It explicitly states that Twitter can and will do exactly that, for any reason, at any time, in perpetuity, without compensation or notice, bla bla bla. And if you are a Twitter user, you agreed to those terms.
Edit: I may have misunderstood what you were saying in that last part. I do agree that they should be held liable. We can have both that, and walk away from abuse services.
The law says this designates them publishers, regardless if they say otherwise in a contract they wrote.
I do not know about laws assigning ownership of creative work produced under another institution's funding.
Anyone defamed can sue Twitter for their edits. I'm not sure who would go after them.
Yes, their own EULA defines them as such. They do pretend otherwise for PR reasons though, hence the confusion.
u/Jaqen good insights here.
NAL, but in my reading, s230 is about liability for content and I 100% agree with what I understand to be its intent and purpose.
And while I loathe Twatter/etal's bias as much as the next guy, it seems to me that is possible for Twatter's EULA and its 230 protections to exist at the same time.
Because in a practical sense, I can step outside of the box and empathize with Twatter's reasoning here. Given the gargantuan quantity of content that runs through its service every single hour, from a practical sense, I understand their need to heavily rely on automation and/or "crowd-sourced" flagging to arrive at -- what may be considered to be -- a "reasonable and timely" first pass.
And, at least in my mind, it seems there's very little the government can or, if I put my conservative libertarian hat on for a moment, even SHOULD be doing here. Because unless the gov't is willing to devise a better algorithm, etc, what's the solution? To say, "Well, Twatter, anything originating from the gov't or from parties named on this source list should get a 'free pass' at a censorship check."
Well that's not cool either!
Case and point is, as much as I disagree with its apparent bias AGAINST conservative content, there's no quick and easy answer here.
Even "Break them up!" Okay, how? Into what? How would that improve consumer safety/privacy? Again, it's not a simple on/off switch.
EDIT: And the entrepreneur side of me absolutely despises the notion that the gov't can legislate away private property. "You worked your ass off for decades to become number 1/2/3 in your industry, assuming 100% of the risk, etc. Well, we the gov't, from our cushy tax payer funded tower, are going to swoop in and take a sizable portion of that away from you and there's not one damn thing you can do about it."
I know the world is not as clean as that example portends it to be, but still, on principle I take big issue with this sort of "big gov't" approach.
Did Twatter benefit from provisions like S230? Sure! Might it be abusing them? It's possible!
But in some ways, good for Twatter! Kind of like Trump's take on foreign relations ("I'm not mad at China for screwing the US over, that's what they should be trying to do in its negotiations. I'm mad at our stupid gov't for signing off on the stuff because they had no idea what they were doing!") In the same way, Twatter/etal negotiated a sweet deal, our moronic gov't gave it to them, and now the feds realize they have absolutely no way to enforce anything here. Who's the "real" enemy then? The guy who asked (Twatter) or the guy who agreed (gov't).
Again, my point is that this is not a simple black and white situation.