Arthur Chu, noted for being able to frame things in the form of a question and for being easily agitated, has launched very silly broadside against one of the most important American laws about the internet: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Chu invokes Reagan, asking President Obama to "tear down this shield." He should have looked elsewhere in Reagan's oeuvre: "facts are stubborn things."
The core of Section 230 is simple: it says that a computer service provider can't be treated as the publisher or speaker of information provided by someone else. When you go on Facebook and say your neighbor strangles squirrels, your neighbor can sue you (assuming it's false) but not Facebook. I'm responsible for what I write on Popehat, but not for what you pack of gibbering malcontents puke up onto the comments. This doesn't protect sites that host stolen intellectual property — the Digital Millennium Copyright Act covers that. But it means that Facebook, and Twitter, and anyone who runs a blog or a forum or a site with comments, can't be sued over what visitors say there. The Electronic Frontier Foundation does not exaggerate when it calls Section 230 the most important law protecting internet speech.
Chu objects to this state of affairs because it makes it difficult to shut down speech he doesn't like. Some of the stuff he doesn't like — SWATTing, true threats, and genuine harassment — would be shunned by any decent person, and the perpetrators ought to face consequences. But Chu isn't focused on them facing consequences directly. He wants to be able to punish any site on which they post. He wants people to be able to sue Facebook, or Twitter, or any web site on the internet based on what visitors post there. Moreover, if you read his angry rant you may conclude, as I did, that he opposes more than just unprotected speech.
Chu airily waves away concerns that ditching Section 230 will make censorship easier. We have just the institution to sort the good claims from the bad, he says: lawyers and courts.
We have, here in the United States, a system by which wronged parties can seek redress from those who wronged them, and those who willfully enabled that wrong, without proactive control by government bureaucrats. It’s one that even ardent libertarians imagine as being part of how their ideal “small government” would work. And it’s a highly American tradition: one that’s been identified as central to American culture since the days of Alexis de Tocqueville.
I’m talking, of course, about lawsuits. Civil litigation. Bringing in the lawyers.
Yes, by all means, bring on the lawyers. Speaking as one of them — in fact, one who handles the sort of litigation at issue here — let me explain why this is stick-your-hand-in-the-blender naive.
The court system is broken, perhaps irretrievably so. Justice may not depend entirely on how much money you have, but that is probably the most powerful factor. A lawsuit — even a frivolous one — can be utterly financially ruinous, not to mention terrifying, stressful, and health-threatening. What do I mean by financially ruinous? I mean if you are lucky as you can possibly be and hire a good lawyer who gets the suit dismissed permanently immediately, it will cost many thousands, possibly tens of thousands. If you're stuck in the suit, count on tens or hundreds of thousands.
The suggestion that this system will ease the chaos that would result from the loss of Section 230 is nothing short of lunacy.
Let's take a look at some of the stories Popehat has covered so you can see how Arthur Chu's proposal would have changed the result. While you read these stories, evaluate Chu's central thesis — that what he is doing will protect the weak, the abused.
And there are so many more. Arthur Chu angrily and oddly tries to portray Section 230 as protecting bigoted white men at the expense of women and minorities, but that's nonsense. Section 230 protects every one of us with a blog or web site directly. It also protects everyone who uses the internet indirectly, because it makes user-input websites feasible.
Section 230 doesn't keep sites from being sued for visitor comment ever. There are still frivolous suits ignoring the law. What Section 230 does is deter most baseless lawsuits against the site, and offer a quick-and-painless-as-possible way out of the those frivolous lawsuits that get filed. With Section 230, if someone sues you for visitor comments, you're funding a motion to dismiss. Without it, you're funding an entire lawsuit defense.
How would getting rid of Section 230 impact the internet? Let's consider:
1. Every single web site out there would have to monitor every single visitor comment or forum post or Tweet or Facebook update — or face liability if the item is actionable. Unless you're running a blog that gets a couple of comments per day, it's impossible to do that, practically. Also, the site doesn't have the knowledge to evaluate whether the statement is actionable. If I post "Joe Blow ran over my cat" on your blog, do you need to investigate before you approve the comment and publish it? Also, are you a lawyer? How are you going to evaluate what visitor comments are potentially actionable? If you're a millionaire you could hire lawyers to do it, but that's an expensive hobby. Hope you're up to speed on the distinction between fact and opinion, parody and defamation, criticism and harassment, and so forth. Maybe the best thing would be never to approve a comment that could be offensive to anyone ever. Good thing modern Americans have such thick skins!
2. Sites will take down visitor comment when someone demands it, because it's too expensive not to. Result: it will become easy to get any content mentioning you, or your actions, or your business taken down. Yelp? Dead as a doornail. Any site allowing users to say anything remotely critical about identifiable people? Unusable. Would Arthur Chu like to call out particular named harassers and talk about them? He's going to need to spraypaint it on a big rock, because at the first complaint his platforms are going to take it down.
3. Arthur Chu seems to think that removing Section 230 will help end online harassment, because forums and sites and blogs will take down nasty things said about people he supports. Maybe. But does Arthur think that harassers won't just as quickly use this new tool he's kindly given them? Does Arthur have a blog? If he does, folks can use anonymous proxies to post mean and nasty criticism on that blog against, say, me — and then I can rush in and sue Arthur. "But I didn't post it! It wasn't up that long! How could I know it was false? It's not really actionable harassment, is it?" Great arguments Arthur. You've got a real shot with those at the summary judgment hearing 18 months and $150,000 from now. Do you really think, Arthur, that the scumbags who threaten and harass and abuse and SWATT people will scruple for a moment about abusing your new less restrictive legal system to harass women and minorities for their online expression? Then you're a damned fool.
What's the result? Web platforms that take down content the minute anyone demands it. The death of any platforms discussing inherently controversial and anger-provoking things. And do you think people abuse complaint systems to shut up their enemies now? Just you wait.
And the flood of lawsuits! Oh, the lawsuits. See, lawsuits are about leveraging the expense and brokenness of the system to shake money out of people. Even if you figure out who HurrHurrFeminitzSuck on Twitter is, he's probably a dude living out of a storage locker. No money to be gained suing him, especially if his comment is close to the line between defamation and non-defamation. But if you can sue Twitter, too, when he talks? Deep pockets ahoy. Now it makes sense to sue, because even if you have a shitty case on the merits, Twitter may settle for a few thousand bucks to avoid the cost of protracted litigation. There are lots of idle lawyers out there, friend. Do you have a house? If so, you better not have comments on your blog.
Should threats and harassment and abuse be addressed? Absolutely. Convince private companies like Twitter and Facebook to offer better tools, and to expel bad actors. Vote with your feet from one platform to others that handle abuse better. Work together to track and whenever possible stomp the bad actors.
But eliminate Section 230 because you think the legal system is made of rainbows and children's laughter? Ridiculous.
Internet harassment and free speech are serious issues, but Arthur Chu is not a serious person.
Last 5 posts by Ken White
- Now Posting At Substack - August 27th, 2020
- The Fourth of July [rerun] - July 4th, 2020
- All The President's Lawyers: No Bill Thrill? - September 19th, 2019
- Over At Crime Story, A Post About the College Bribery Scandal - September 13th, 2019
- All The President's Lawyers: - September 11th, 2019
When did techcrunch become a middle-school paper?
Whoa, comments are allowed here?
Carreon, heh. Good times, rock and roll. Remember rapeutation.com? Dude is still posting there.
Oh and by the way what happened to the stunt that Arthur was leaving twitter? I think that lasted, what, three hours?
Thank you. Reading Chu's article, I had no words.
How could someone ostensibly so intelligent post something so mind-mindbogglingly stupid? How could he take so much time writing that idiocy without spending even a moment thinking about the obvious consequences? If this is the state of the modern progressive movement, I am sad that there is no longer any possibility of coherent debate over real issues.
Side note: I found it amusing that he used the term "hysterical" within the first two paragraphs.
I like to think of myself as more a blathering ne'er do well.
"Does Arthur have a blog? If he does, folks can use anonymous proxies to post mean and nasty criticism on that blog against, say, me — and then I can rush in and sue Arthur. "But I didn't post it! It wasn't up that long! How could I know it was false? It's not really actionable harassment, is it?" "
PROBLEM: this is what Arthur, and many people of like mind, consider a "GamerGate Defense". Because GGers have been making this point throughout the last year and, in order to treat any and all online trolls as belonging to the movement itself, this very argument has been thoroughly repudiated.
An example would be when Anita Sarkeesian presented a compilation of "GamerGate harassment" she alleged to have received over the course of a week — of which, roughly 1% carried or mentioned the hashtag. Most of it, in fact, wouldn't have been considered "harassment" were it to exist virtually anywhere else on the Internet. But because the narrative was "a woman is a victim of organized harassment", all details to the contrary had to be shoveled under.
Thank you, Popehat, for standing up against such obvious and clear-cut double standards.
Sometimes I *do* think the legal system is made of children's laughter.
But only because, in my experience, children are selfish, amoral beasts who's mirth often involves pain, suffering, and destruction.
.
I'd like to share something else he said very recently:
And now I'd like to translate that:
Hey now, what do you think this is? Reason?
The theory behind this nonsense is the same as that often practiced by much of the criminal justice system and rape joke police. Bad things happen, and if we can't punish the person doing the bad thing, then by God we will punish someone. Someone has to be at fault, and if the person at fault isn't conveniently available, we will go after the next most convenient target.
"Some of the stuff he doesn't like — SWATTing, true threats, and genuine harassment "
…aka three things Chu has done himself to people who he claims does stuff he doesn't like. (It is slightly less than reasonable doubt that he called in a bomb threat against a bar in Washington, DC, when they wouldn't shut down a gathering of a group of people he didn't like.)
You don't get it Ken. Chu seems to think it's entirely alright if Facebook and Twitter and all comment sections go away, because he doesn't like them.
Ted H: When they started letting Chu write for them. It's amazing to me that someone who won Jeopardy can be such an utter dumb ass.
Uh-oh, he's going to sue Popehat now that I said that.
Can you imagine a world without lawyers?
"The infamous Prenda Law could sue Reddit, TechDirt, Twitter, Facebook, anyplace that held the flood of critical comments about its conduct.”
That should be “any place”. And is it “SWATTing”, “SWATing”, SWATting”, or “SWATTING”?
On the plus side, we wouldn't have to see his blithering idiocy on Twitter. Isn't censorship fun?
Or at least quieter?
From the article:
“It would require the exact opposite — it would require the United States to remove a law that specifically mandates special treatment for Internet service providers and platforms that no other communications medium has.”
Really? So if a magazine libels me, can I sue the USPS for delivering it? If someone posts a libelous tweet, can I sue the phone companies that carry the text messages? If someone posts a libelous poster on university property, can I sue the university? If someone interviewed in a TV news program makes slanderous claims, can I sue the TV station?
“Far from turning us into China or North Korea, it would bring the United States into line with every other developed country in the world, including our close allies in Canada and the UK.”
Riiiiight, because Canada and the UK are such bastions of free speech.
“It would remove the competitive advantage that keeps most social media companies in the US, despite the talent and capital in other nations.”
And that's supposed to be an argument for it? That it would cost American jobs? He must be targeting this article at a very specific audience.
Also, what's the deal with the links in the article? The standard behavior when hovering over a link is for the destination to be displayed. But here, I often get "Waiting for edge.simplereach.com". Are there redirects set up?
Encinal:
I think technically it's [email protected]{SwAtTiNg}@~~
Doesn't this kind of imply that the real answer is just to allow Watson to handle all these motions to dismiss to improve speed and cost, which will have the side benefit of making Mr. Chu even more angry?
I think it would be even worse than you're saying. Not only would comments go away, but blogs themselves. Millions of people have their blogs hosted on sites like BlogSpot.com and WordPress.com, and as such the blogs themselves are user-contributed content as far as those sites are concerned. Even most self-hosted web sites aren't really hosted by the site owners; they're hosted by web hosting companies, so the entire site is user-provided content being served to the web.
@Duran You have clearly never read the work, tweets, or Facebook posts of Arthur Chu.
Anyway, about his article: this is all too hilarious. Arthur Chu fancies himself a strategist "at war" with any and all enemies of his worldview (this is not my interpretation. Go search for the posts where he has literally said this, and where he has said with great pride that any and all tactics are permissible when fighting the enemies of his ideology. He's also said that he's always strategizing circles around his enemies with, well, proposals like this, oh and that he purges himself — or "mindkills" — of ideas he shouldn't think because they're so very bad. Definitely look up the "mindkill" post, it's pure insanity and you'll see him in a new light).. Like all people who can't see past their own inflated sense of ego and who run on nothing but anger, he always ends up being one of the best arguments against his own ideas.
Chu has written so often on Twitter, Facebook, and in articles about his censorious impulses that one would think he couldn't possibly be someone who fancies himself a student of history. Surely no student of history could ever think that the promotion of tools to censor or to punish others for what someone else has said would ever go well for not just society, but for the people and causes he supports, right? I would never want to take away Chu's voice, as it is the absolute embodiment of one ideal underpinning free speech: if a view or idea is obviously wrongheaded, those espousing the view or idea will demonstrate this wrongheadedness to the public simply by promoting it.
The funniest thing about this latest proposal from him is that, had the system been built the way he is advocating for now, the movement and ideology under which he operates — the online social justice movement — wouldn't even exist. Whether you agree with it and the tactics it deploys or not (I'm not making a value judgment here, just an objective statement of his proposal's obvious effects on it), the movement is and has always been based around shaming/bullying people it sees as bad or wrong, even when their source is a simple anonymous comment 200 comments into a disqus thread (Conor Oberst) or an anonymous comment on Tumblr (Max Temkin) or other incomplete, absurd, or downright insincere "sources." Both Temkin and Oberst were called rapists and scum millions of times across the internet. The same has happened to thousands and thousands of others.
The Internet and the protection 230 affords sites is what allowed the movement he always thinks he's fighting for to flourish. It's what allows people like Chu and his friends to do what they like on Facebook and Twitter.
Chu is a man who fancies himself a grand strategist and master of war when he is, in reality, a dog who can't think any further than the tennis ball directly in front of his face. He runs on nothing but anger, and reacts with the complete misapprehension of reality and consequences one would expect of such a person. He grabs the tennis ball in his mouth and thrashes back and forth, growling and gnawing, thinking that he is absolutely positively doing something useful. He must be! The tennis ball is right here and he can feel it and he's so damn smart damn it so what he's thinking must be the way forward!
The man is truly a taint-snorting nincompoop fit for a Reason-brand woodchipper. Phew, good thing section 230 of the CDA exists. For you, for me, for the people he hates and the people he likes. I'm glad everyone is protected, even those I find loathsome. Even Arthur Chu.
Especially Arthur Chu.
Chu's cure is worse than the disease.
Chu also fails the attribution clause of the Creative Commons license when using this photo in his article.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mkhmarketing/8468788107
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
@Grev
Are you just providing an example of something that would be actionable if not for Section 230, or actually claiming this is true? If the latter, can you provide evidence?
But Duran, he has thought about the consequences.
He's also thought about whose side the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys of the world are on, and who's going to be most proactive about pursuing claims against speech, and who has the narrative backing them up.
Don't mistake his ilk as ignorant of these sorts of ramifications. They know which way the pendulum has swung, and that it's time to shed all of those pesky appeals to freedom of speech and thought they used on their way up.
Ken, you are back on your horse, fighting for free speech. It is inspiring to see!
The doorbell rings. I open it, and a guy wearing a gold Rolex and driving a Honda Civic hands me a stack of papers and says "good luck!" as it finally dawns on me that I am being sued for $50 over a medical error, for money I don't owe, or even have. Except with the lawyer fees, I see they are suing me for $1,000. Apparently they Google Earth'd my house and identified me as a lucrative target because I had a nice house before a brain injury kicked my ass.
I was scared shitless, so found a way to pay it. Until it happened again. As a computer nerd, that kind of stuff is scary to me, because the outcome is totally uncertain. But that uncertainty cuts both ways, especially with the type of lawsuits that prey on average people. A sleazy lawyer has exposure to risk, just like you do. They just usually have a higher tolerance to it. But their Captain Marvel decoder ring is in the pot in the center of the table, right next to yours.
It's easy for the average person to be discouraged by the whole system and hate all lawyers on a good day. But if you have the poor taste to have a financially ruinous medical problem, then you really find out how broken the system is, close up and personal.
We were fortunate to find that there are good lawyers. It's pretty obvious Ken is one, which is why this blog is awesome. And just like being at a Tony Robbins seminar, talking to a good lawyer feels empowering, like you don't have to lay down and take it. I turned those horrible, vulnerable can't-get-out-of-bed feelings into tangible victories where some of the people who prey on the weak and vulnerable at least got the financial equivalent of black eyes.
But how many free hours can the good lawyers put in? How many people can they help? How do we help the good guys keep the bad guys from hitting old ladies with default judgments because they felt helpless? Whether it's speech or anything else, the shit is getting out of hand, to where people are losing what little respect they had for the entire system.
Arthur Chu needs to get a job or a hobby or something. The man needs to get away from the computer
Since I have absolutely nothing nice to say about Arthur Chu, and wouldn't want to expose Popehat to Chu's delusional ideas of justice, I'll just post this link instead:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2015/09/kentucky_campaign_finance_lawsuit_lobbyists_should_be_allowed_to_donate.html
Can we get a lawsplainer on that topic? Is bribery a form of free speech? ;)
Not entirely accurate. Chu doesn't mind those actions and has engaged in some of it himself. He just doesn't like it when you do it to his team.
@ grev and hamonrye
""Some of the stuff he doesn't like — SWATTing, true threats, and genuine harassment "
…aka three things Chu has done himself to people who he claims does stuff he doesn't like."
Cites? I've only heard of the 'it ends tonight' episode, and I think that was more unfortunate timing, than true incitement.
Had to look the quote up…
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
John Adams
Facts are stubborn things.
Ronald Reagan
I do recommend people look up the Arthur Chu Confesses to Being the Rationalist Antichrist deal (the aforementioned mindkill post). It's a beautiful (and tragic) example of a very smart person getting into the trap of discovering that they can use their intelligence to justify the arguments they like and fight against the ones they don't, discovering that this is a known failure state of very smart people who aren't constantly rubbing against a hard-edged piece of reality, and then choosing to ignore this fact as hard as he can.
Ken, I wonder if you are thinking sufficiently meta.
You own a blog? You have some article on it someone finds offensive. So…
… they sue your ISP, or your blog host provider.
Once you open up the gates and allow the fish to swim upstream, the only thing that stops them is running out of water.
So… how many frivolous lawsuits would it take to bankrupt Mr. Chu, and where can we find enough disreputable, unprincipled people to file them?
As others have mentioned Chu is a bit fanatical and you just have to listen to him talk, his David Pakman interview is a good example, to figure it out. No one should let him write for them. Also as others have mentioned, you are giving Chu too much credit when you say he is ignorant of the consequences. I am pretty sure he is aware of it and aware of the fact that he and most of the other people that he tries to be in a clique with have more wealth than their opponents have available.
He probably hasn't considered how much some large corporations will use it to bury him and everyone he knows, though.
"you may conclude, as I did, that he opposes more than just unprotected speech."
Gee, it's almost like there have been thousands of obvious clues that Chu Chu and all of his creepy friends want to quash any speech they don't like. It's almost like they've come out and said it repeatedly.
"may not depend entirely on how much money you have, but that is probably the most powerful factor."
Except his side has filthy rich parents to pay for their legal battles, and people who oppose them lose their jobs. Lawfare is a intended feature of their system, not a bug.
@Duran
The response to your question seems obvious to me, and he gives it right away at the start of the article. It's a well articulate articled built over a petty mission, personal broken feelings and some immature morality.
Whatever "gamergate" is, and whoever the people he wants to defend are, should be absolutely irrelevant to any serious approach to this discussion about internet legislation and free speech.
He has it as identitarian mark he projects into the World, like a high school fella who think society is divided between the nerds and the popular dudes. This is not an article about internet, but about Arthur Chu.
Popehat puts it better – not a serious person.
Hmm, I wonder if the owner of that pizza place in Indiana that had their reputation trashed primarily via online lynch mobs would be willing to hire a lawyer to sue Twitter, Facebook, and so forth to find out the identities of everyone who posted death threats and otherwise attacked said restaurant owner and then use that info to sue the individuals into bankruptcy, were Chu-Chu's plan to be implemented…
(ObDisclaimer: IANAL. I barely even make the mouth-noises [or keyboard-noises, I guess] like one online.)
I know (or at least suspect) that you don't have a fond opinion of GG. I'll note that for me, it really has been about protecting free expression and demanding better journalism, but I won't belabor the point, I'm already aware that you aren't really buying it or at least don't buy that it's the norm.
So I'll just say that I appreciate that you're willing to call out very, very bad ideas when you see them despite that, regardless of which "side" they come from. You might not care for what we have to say in particular, but if Arthur's argument is taken seriously by policymakers (and it has the potential to be if its consequences aren't pointed out), it will have far greater consequences for free expression than just stifling creative expression in video games. Everything you've said is spot-on as usual, I just hope the point gets across to him and those who might agree with him.
In other news, I think you've inspired me to start a blog (not just with this post, I meant more generally), so maybe I'll do that in the morning. Cheers!
Wait, what does SWATing have to do with Section 230? Don't the the swatters call 911? I'm not sure how, even if the legal system were to work as Chu hopes, eliminating Section 230 would help with SWATing at all. "Um, hi Twitter, I understand the LAPD is deploys armored vehicles in response to @-mentions? You're in trouble!"
This is a legitimate ethics question:
If a lawyer (I'm not one) sued him multiple times for things that would be dismissed under 230 to prove the point that it would be even worse in terms of being expensive and time-consuming if 230 were revoked, would that be ethically bad (as opposed to just not being worth the effort)?
@Chris Jenkins:
Winning Jeopardy is 60% being first on the buzzer, 35% remembering to phase shit as a question, and only 5% actual smarts. Most of the actual puzzles could be answered by a reasonably intelligent middle-schooler.
Ken, I must humbly disagree with point 3. I'm fairly certain that removal of Section 230 would end online harassment.
See, first thing that would happen is that all the comments on sites would disappear.
Then, all the self publishing sites would disappear (blogger, medium, etc). Cause who wants to get sued over what their users do?
Then, all the hosted sites would disappear(basically anyone not running their own data centers). Cause who wants to get sued over what their users do?
Then, all the self hosted sites would disappear(basically anyone running their own data centers). Cause why would ATT, Level3, etc want to get sued over what their users do?
And at that point there won't be an online, so see, you can't have online harassment if there is no online. So point 3 is obviously in error.
The point is that Section 230 recursively protects EVERY layer of the internet from the backbone providers, local providers, companies operating the data centers, those using the data centers, those publishing using services, to an end user using a blog that is hosted by a publishing service inside a cloud of racks inside one or more data centers connected to a local loop provider and renting bandwidth from a backbone provider.
Section 230 IS the modern internet and without online fundamentally doesn't exist, cause I seriously doubt ATT et al want to respond to millions of lawsuits per hour 24/7 (I figure there's at least 1 million things posted that will piss off at least someone every hour!).
Arthur Chu is bad and he should feel bad about it.
LONG LIVE freedom of Speech on the Internet!
As an aside, that wouldn't be a particularly bad thing given how much of a scam racket it is for small businesses… I mean, the Internet itself would be better off without them. You could have probably used a better example, instead of indirectly making an argument in favor of Chu's idiocy.
Otherwise yes, I agree with you completely.
Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man's laws, not God's — and if you cut them down — and you're just the man to do it — d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.
Seemed appropriate.
@ Encinal
>> Riiiiight, because Canada and the UK are such bastions of free speech.
I think this opens up the question of why does, say, Canada have any Internet left standing? Because, for example, Facebook isn't getting sued into the dirt in Canada. OK, they have something of a shield being based in another country but even local newspapers with websites allow comments. The free speech apocalypse hasn't happened there.
I think part of it is there is something of a "safe harbor" regime there, even if it isn't exactly 230 (which also somewhat undermines Mr Chu's point there). Maybe this predicted apocalypse also needs something else that is present in the US and not so much Canada?
@Dwight
"Maybe this predicted apocalypse also needs something else that is present in the US and not so much Canada?"
Might also have something to do with the fact that these are US companies and there's a US law that Ken's mentioned several times where US courts won't enforce foreign rulings that don't comply with US speech protections.
Here it is, the SPEECH act: https://www.popehat.com/2010/08/27/speech-act-a-bulwark-against-buffoonish-brits/
"In addition, the SPEECH act provides that foreign libel judgments are unenforceable to the extent they are inconsistent with Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides that people who run web sites are not liable for the content of comments left by visitors."
Maybe these guys are available?
"This would end the Internet as it is today!" He literally wants this. He believes it is a product of, and saturated with, the Patriarchy and white supremacy. He literally wants forums regulated and to it be an onerous risk for sites to host comment sections so they all go away. He is not coming at this from a libertarian or even liberal idea of free speech. I don't know if he's Marxist, but he holds the Marxist position that free speech is a tool that works for the majority and hurts minorities. He would not kill the Internet, but he would happily kill anything that facilitated free and open discussion on the Internet, reducing it to news sites and carefully curated blogs attached to real identities, something manageable for literal thought police.
I think this is a good question, even though, in my view, the answer is easy. (I wouldn't be surprised, though, if there were other lawyers who disagree with me.)
This would be unethical. Lawsuits aren't for making a point; they're to provide remedies for wrongs. There's nothing wrong with making a point with a lawsuit, as long as you're also seeking justice for a client and the claim isn't frivolous. But a frivolous lawsuit that doesn't seek to remedy a wrong, but is only filed to make a point on the defendant would be unethical.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)(1) requires that a lawsuit not be "presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, . . . or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; . . ." I think that multiple lawsuits against Chu to prove this point would be arguably proving the point via harassment or needless increases in the cost of ligitation. So there's that too.
That said, it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world…
You know who I like? Ken Jennings.
@Hasdrubal
I already talked about that in my post and addressed the flaw in the path of argument.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/etobicoke-councillor-wants-trash-pick-up-limited-to-one-side-of-street/article26584741/comments/
Canadian company, based out of Toronto.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Globe_and_Mail
Quite likely using a Canadian ISP to host (although I don't know that for certain). At the very least there are Canadian ISPs passing the info along to people living in Canada (as is the case with Facebook, et al) and they are still standing.
Hey, that's Mister Gibbering Malcontent to you!
Arthur Chu has tweeted:
Which wouldn't be quite as bad as his original proposal.
@Matthew Cline: True, but he also believes this about the DMCA, which is confusing:
Arthur Chu reminds me that a large contingent of the population confuses prodigious memory with cognitive skills. They are not now, and have never been the same. Absent his "Jeopardy!" earnings, he would be just another Internet squeaker.
"Arthur Chu reminds me that a large contingent of the population confuses prodigious memory with cognitive skills."
Arthur Chu does not lack cognitive skills. He just has bad character.
Thank God someone is fighting for our right for proactive control by government bureaucrats!!!
@Mikee
The vast majority of pro-campaign finance arguments range from misleading to outright lies. This article falls in under the "outright lies" category. The plaintiffs are arguing that the current rules prohibit giving even accepting a cup of coffee from a lobbyist. They are not, as Stern claims, asking for “the right to accept expensive meals and gifts from lobbyists eager to secure their votes.”
Furthermore, Stern asserts that “Similarly, it’s difficult to figure out why the First Amendment should protect the act of donating money and not presents.” This shows Stern to be either wildly ignorant about the law (an area in which he supposedly specializes) or dishonest. The plaintiffs are asking that lobbyists be allowed to make cash contributions to their campaign funds. A cash contribution to a campaign fund is distinguished from a personal gift to a lawmaker not because one is cash and the other is not, but because one is a contribution to the politician's campaign fund and the other is a contribution to the politician themselves.
I could go on, but a full discussion of Stern's honesty would run for several times the length of his article.
@Encinal:
Let's take these in sequence, with the caveat that I'm not a lawyer, but I'm sure an actual lawyer could correct me:
1) You can't sue the USPS for delivering the magazine, but Chu isn't suggesting one have the ability to sue Verizon for providing mere connectivity. A better example would be if a newspaper published an op-ed, and you could totally sue the newspaper over the contents of an op-ed.
2) You can't sue Verizon over a libelous tweet, for the same reason above, but Chu thinks you should be able to sue Twitter. You can't now, but he doesn't claim that you can.
3) You can absolutely sue a university over a libelous poster on university property.
4) You can absolutely sue a TV station for anything that they choose to broadcast, which is why every single crazy opinion expressed on the local news will carry a written and verbal disclaimer that the views are not those of this station, its staff, management, tooth fairies, etc.
Disagree with Chu if you wish (I sometimes do and sometimes do not), but at least disagree with what he is actually saying, not what the straw man you've assembled next to him is saying.
I'm not surprised that consensus here seems to be that Chu's proposed solution is terrible, but I'm a little surprised that nobody has taken issue with Chu's essential description of the problem: that the utopian Omelas that is the internet, making most straight white men happy, thrives at the expense of a few unfortunate people, who are almost always women and/or people of color.
If you think everything should stay exactly the same, then you're comfortable with that involuntary sacrifice. Chu's cure here, as Wick says, is worse than the disease, but that doesn't mean the disease isn't worth treating in some other way.
This reminds me of a recent daydream I've been entertaining, of the "3 wishes" variety…
Were I to encounter a genie and be granted my 3 wishes, one would most certainly be the ability to unmask people on the internet, and destroy their lives. Spammers, scammers, swatters, lagswitchers, all of the scum and villainy that pervades. I want to nuke them and their computers and their bank accounts and their lives back to the stone ages. They're Grade A Assholes*, and I'm confident the world would be a better place without their involvement.
… and that's exactly why we need things like Section 230: you've got to keep all of us aspiring benevolent dictators away from the big red buttons. The scum and villainy may be why we can't have nice things, but Section 230 at least lets us have things at all!
*I'd have trouble believing Ken hadn't run across the linked paper on the law enforcement concept of the "asshole", but to everyone else, I strongly recommend. It is a pervading component of the way I view the world.
Stop giving Choo Choo attention and he'll go away.
BTW, did you notice his Twitter avatar is a picture of his anus?
Without Section 230 protection, it wouldn't be possible to review doorbells on Amazon (because someone might put something bad into a review).
@ldpm
1) It's somewhat a matter of opinion as to what would be the correct analogy, but an op-ed is definitely not the beset analogy. A letter to the editor would be better, although still not exactly the same.
2) What service exactly does Twitter provide, other than transmitting text messages? How is Twitter or Facebook any different from Verizon? Can Google be sued for a libelous gmail message? What's the difference between posting on someone's wall and sending an email? Posting on someone's wall is really just sending an email that anyone can read.
3) Seriously? Can you sue a supermarket for selling a newspaper with libelous content?
4) So Planned Parenthood can sue a TV station for broadcasting the Republican Debate?
"not what the straw man you've assembled next to him is saying."
A straw man is when you attack a position that no one holds. Asserting that a position follows from their words is not a straw man, even if in your opinion that position does not follow from their words. You are misusing the term "straw man".
@Encinal
I'm not sure I see that "asserting that a position follows from their words" when it does not, and then arguing against that position, is meaningfully different than "arguing against a position no one holds", but it is sufficient to me that you recognize that your characterization of Chu's position may be different from his actual stated position.
I agree that a letter to the editor is a better analogy, and you can still sue newspapers for such letters that they print. "Traditional" media, since 1964, is at least partially bound by the "absence of malice" test, made famous by the Dustin Hoffman / Sally Field movie of the same name. If the content of the letter were as malicious as the typical GamerGate rape threat, I'm pretty sure you'd be allowed to sue the paper for printing it. Which doesn't guarantee that you'd win, but the paper's motion to dismiss would hopefully be denied.
This is a very good question, and it is one of the reasons I think Chu's proposed solution is a bad one. I got my first job at an ISP in 1996, and back then, people constantly conflated their provider with "the internet", and had no idea where the content they were looking at actually came from.
"that anyone can read" is the key distinction; it's what makes this form of internet communication "publishing". I believe that distinction makes an actual difference; others may not.
I have no idea, but I'm guessing it'd be harder because newspaper content changes every day, so at a minimum you'd have to prove that the store knew about the content (or should have known) and chose to do nothing. Your earlier university example is much easier; if I report a libelous poster to the university, and they do nothing about it, I should (and do) have a court remedy. A jury could then decide if their actions were reasonable, or if they violated the university's published policies, etc.
The same is basically true for Facebook; I don't think Chu is saying that Facebook could be held for damages if a libelous post or comment appeared at all, but he is saying that if Facebook were informed of the libelous post and decided, in violation of their own published terms of use (facebook.com/terms.php) to leave it up, then there should be a court remedy to those who are harmed. Currently, that harm happens all the time, and there is no court remedy. I don't like Chu's nuclear option, but I think it's time for a revision.
I'm guessing that technically they could, but since that would be "CNN", not a single local affiliate, it would be silly for them to do so. It would make them look bad, it would cost a lot of money, and they'd almost definitely lose. Whether a motion to dismiss would be sufficient or not, I can't guess.
But the important point is, Section 230 of the CDA does not protect CNN, the supermarket, or the newspaper, and yet none of those entities are driven out of business with frivolous libel suits relating to words other people said.
See y'all on Peeple!!
http://www.forthepeeple.com
"character is destiny"
no regulation necessary because unaldulterated ideological free speech, particularly by anonymous trolls, keeps the internet the way that it is, patriotic and constitutionally American. (unless there is some sort of reasonable compromise allowing for free speech given the reality of human behavior).
A letter to the editor is still a bad analogy (though better than an op-ed), because at least one human who works for the newspaper read that letter and decided to print it (and they probably decided to print it in favor of some other letters they decided not to print, though I don't know how relevant that might be).
On Twitter and on many blogs, the tweet or comment is published to any and every reader before any human moderator sees it.
Tellingly, it appears he does not allow comments on his web site.
http://arthur-chu.com/
"How could someone ostensibly so intelligent post something so mind-mindbogglingly stupid?"
Being able to spew out random facts does not an intelligent person make. I thought it was hilarious how often he would completely botch the pronunciation of words when he was on Jeopardy.
"How could someone ostensibly so intelligent post something so mind-mindbogglingly stupid?"
Arthur Chu: INT 15, WIS 3.
Lawful evil.
In the post Ken linked, Chu discussed Section 230 in the same breath as mentioning legal challenges that successfully brought down the rest of the Communications Decency Act. Might we conclude he would consider legal challenges to egregious internet content to be a potentially effective way to have Section 230 thrown out via the courts? And if someone has a site hosting content that Mr. Chu considers harassing or libelous, might they have reasonable concern that he would bring suit against them to create a test case?
And might such a website (or several hundred such websites) consider it prudent to seek a declaratory judgment in their own chosen venue to prevent him from doing so?
I say keep 230, and trim back the internet trash culture by running ad blockers. If enough patriotic Earthlings block ads, some percent of the vapid crap will die out, and all people with "something to say" will have a more level playing field.
We have the law we need already, we just need to be more malcontent on an individual basis.
@ldpm The idea that somehow it's women and minorities who make up the large majority of harassment victims on the internet is a complete falsehood. See this Pew Research analysis: http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/10/22/online-harassment/
It turns out men, regardless of race or sexual orientation, are slightly more likely to get harassment online than women. The only difference is that you don't read about it because, just like this UN report, the media and a certain movement have once again taken an issue that affects everyone almost equally and attempted — with great success, apparently — to gender it by only reporting on it when it happens to certain people, and purposefully not talking about it when it happens to certain others.
@ldpm It's the exact same thing as people thinking that women are more prone to suffering violent attacks and assaults when men make up the significant majority of people who are victims of violence.
I have it on good authority that Arthur Chu eats paste.
Chu-Chu train's never thought more than fifteen seconds ahead. There's a reason why he's roundly mocked and ridiculed among the knowledgeable set. He routinely mass-blocks people, he vanity-searches his own name, and he supports an admitted pedophile. People like him think that increasing tyranny means they'll be the ones with the boots. What they don't understand is that when boots are on necks, they're on EVERYONE'S neck.
@Me, The study you point to says that women are 50% more likely to be stalked, and 75% more likely to be sexually harassed, than men. They are 12.5% less likely to be harassed for a sustained period, 40% less likely to be physically threatened, and other percentages less likely to be subject to more minor forms of harassment. So if you weight by the importance of the harassment, it seems that women do have it worse. I wouldn't equate someone telling me I'm an idiot (happens in just about any political/economic discussion) with a threat to rape somebody, even though the study calls both of those "harassment".
As for violence victimization, the last study I read (a long time ago) said that men were 55% of the victims of domestic violence, women attackers were more likely than men to use weapons (remember the meme about wife attacks husband with rolling pin?), and women were a lot more likely to end up hospitalized as the result of an attack.
Overall violence is mostly men attacking men, of course.
@Seth First, the study says stalking was 9% for women and 6% for men, and sexual harassment was 7 for the women and 4% for the men, so I'm not sure how you came to those percentage differences. Neither was 50% more and, moreover, when dealing with a sample size of several thousand, a three percentage point difference is negligible. Second, you implied that all other forms of online harassment are merely "name calling" and therefore not as significant as the only two types in which women were shown to be slightly more commongly the victims. I find this interesting. I agree that name calling isn't as damaging, but "purposely embarrassed" most certainly can be, and "physically threatened" most definitely is.
My point was that we shouldn't be attempting to gender an issue that's a problem for anyone, and I don't know why someone would try to defend such a thing.
@me, relative numbers. 9% is 150% of 6%. 7% is 175% of 4%.
You can say that a 3% difference is negligible, I say there's a significant difference. Statistics supports me.
I clearly implied that the unmentioned forms are less significant than the four I mentioned.
@Seth Considering the fact that one can interpret the percentages there differently, I find it hilarious that you then say, "statistics supports me." The smaller point there is that statistics can be twisted to meet one's ends.
The larger point, however, is one that I have repeatedly made clear and that you have repeatedly refused to address: why gender an issue that is an issue equally for everyone? Why consistently discuss and report on it when it only happens to one gender, call it an issue for women and never mention anyone else, act like only one group is a victim of the issue when all groups are equally, and continue to run with that narrative? Address this question: do you think this is right? Yes or no?
Why try to play the oppression olympics with me here? Why attempt to convince us that somehow sexual harassment is worse than continued harassment, physical threats, purposeful embarrassment (the primary means of which tends to be the release of private information, one of the most widely discussed problems with online harassment)? And why do you attempt to focus on and attempt to portray as worse the sole two subjects in which women are slightly more likely to be victimized, as opposed to all the others — and which also happen to be the two lowest in incidence of all the subjects?
Your agenda is quite clear; your twisting of everything makes it obvious. The question is why you think it's ok to do this.
Aside: I don't know why you think there's a difference between what I said — "you implied" — versus what you attempted to correct me with — "clearly implied."
Chu is a really privileged fellow to be so sheltered from reality.
You claim there's no difference between 6% and 9% in a study with thousands of participants; statistics says that such a difference is significant.
Should the issues be gendered? We don't have enough data to say.
"release of private information" is a specific form of purposeful embarrassment. Some information is a lot more embarrassing than other information, too. As I said, we don't have enough data.
"Convince private companies like Twitter and Facebook to offer better tools, and to expel bad actors."
Not in the cards. If Twitter and Facebook really did expel bad actors, Chu and friends would be gone within the hour. They don't want to end "harassment"; they want control.
"but not for what you pack of gibbering malcontents puke up onto the comments."
Nicest thing said about me all day. I love to too, Ken!
I've got three words for you, Ken: "Gibbering Malcontent" t-shirts. Now that's a shirt I"d be proud to dribble down the front of.
They can have my Section 230 when they pry it from my cold, dead hand…
(As for Chu, I DID love his version of "She Bangs!" on American Idol)
Wouldn't websites just use some kind of arbitration clause and make it virtually impossible to show damages. Then add a clause that says if they get sued for something they said they can go after you. and you agree that you won't hold them liable for what someone else says. so they'll spend a little more time make sure they term of service contracts are more enforceable.