Could this lead to censorship as well? For example you could go to a website or community you don’t like, and share information that could be seen as “sensitive personal data” and then file an anonymous complaint so they get into legal trouble or get shut down?
I never really understood how that system is supposed to work.
So on the one hand, Section 230 absolves the hoster of liability and tells an affected party to go after the author directly.
But on the other hand, we all rally for the importance of anonymity on the internet, so it's very likely that there will be no way to find the author.
Isn't this a massive vacuum of responsibility?
If someone builds up a reputation anonymously then that reputation itself is something that can be destroyed when a platform destroys their account etc.
> (...) an unidentified third party published on that website an untrue and harmful advertisement presenting her as offering sexual services. That advertisement contained photographs of that applicant, which had been used without her consent, along with her telephone number.(...) The same advertisement nevertheless remains available on other websites which have reproduced it.
Anonymous author, great reach, enough damage for the victim to take a lawsuit all the way to the CJEU.
I love the Internet but it normalizes bad behavior and to the extent the CJEU was tracking toward a new and more stringent standard, well earned by the Internet and its trolls.
The Russmedia ruling of the ECJ: Towards a “Cleannet”?
A change in liability privilege for online providers will lead to a “cleaner”, but also more rigid, monitored internet, says Joerg Heidrich.
But user generated content? LOL, no.
How do they think a hosting provider can check if personal data is accurate? Maybe if privacy didn't exist and everybody could be scrutinized.. but the ruling refers to the GDPR to justify this, and the GDPR is about _protecting_ privacy. So, what is it?
And for everything else.. is the material sensitive or not? How can anyone know, in advance?
I suggest every web site host simply forward all and every input to an EU Court address, and let them handle it. They're the ones suggesting that hosts should make sure that personal data on someone is "accurate", they're the ones demanding that the data should not be "sensitive", so they can as well be responsible for vetting the data.
But they're all crazy anyway, as they demand that a website must block anyone from copying the content.. so how, at the same time, can you even have a website? A website which people can watch?
If the ruling was about collecting data which isn't for displaying, i.e. what a net shop does (address, credit card number), then this would be understandable. But provisions for that already exists, instead they use this (GDPR) as a tool to extend this to user-created content. It's not limited to ads, and ads do need something done. Something totally different from this.
Now things become interesting when a users pays for ranking or 'verification' checkmarks. What makes that content different than a paid advertisment?
free_bip•1h ago
If these companies aren't willing to put basic measures in place to stop even the most obviously illegal ads from airing, I have a lot of trouble having sympathy for them getting their just desserts in court.
[0]: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/meta-showed-...
zahlman•33m ago
They deserve strict regulation because the carrier is actively choosing who sees them, and because there are explicit fiscal incentives in play. The entire point of Section 230 is that carriers can claim to be just the messenger; the only way to make sense of absolving them of responsibility for the content is to make the argument that their conveyance of the content does not constitute expression.
Once you have auctions for ads, and "algorithmic feeds", that becomes a lot harder to accept.
tensor•31m ago
free_bip•28m ago
Personally, I'm not buying the slippery slope argument. I could be wrong of course but that's the great thing about opinions: you're allowed to be wrong :)
o11c•7m ago
That does not appear to be what the court actually said, however.
And I 100% believe that all advertisements should require review by a documented human before posting, so that someone can be held accountable. In the absence of this it is perfectly acceptable to hold the entire organization liable.