Marshall Sutherland

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 13:38:52 -0500

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I was reading an article about Section 230 and thinking about how it could impact decentralized networks if repealed (ignoring the possibility that something similar could take its place). I'm sure there must have been many discussions of this in many places over the years that I have missed.

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

With a monolithic provider, it seems pretty clear who could be "treated as the publisher or speaker." If I post something illegal on Facebook, there is me and there is Facebook. But, if I post something to the Fediverse, there is me, there is whomever owns the site I posted from, and there are the owners of every site who serves that content to anyone. Would everyone be liable?

I supposed this could even apply to the simpler case of email. If I sent illegal content via email to Bob, could my email service and Bob's email service be liable?

As I think about it, i do recall some conversations in the past that involved the differences in content laws in different countries. If I post something that is legal in the US, but illegal in France, and someone in France views it, who broke the law? Me? The owner of the site I posted to, if it forwarded that content to a site based in France? The owner of any site (in France or not) who displayed that content to a person in France? Are any non-French entities even subject to such a law?

I don't have any answers to these questions. What can seem like a simple solution in the monolithic world can turn into a hot mess in the decentralized world. Being liable for the content every message that passes through a site would be a death sentence for distributed systems. As a site owner, I don't know that I would want a user besides myself.

Even only having myself as a user of my site might not be enough protection. Let's say my connection Alice posts illegal content. An investigation of this uncovers that it was sent to my server and displayed to me. Would I, as the owner of my site, be liable for publishing illegal (although unsolicited) content to myself?

What a great way for the monoliths to crush their distributed competition!

#law #Internet

law Internet

show all 8 comments

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 15:22:49 -0500

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

parlehaakon@hub.volse.no

If the receiving party has actively asked for the content to be send to them in a country where the content is illegal, then it seems reasonable to prosecute them according to local law. Depending upon what the content is, there may be different legal reactions, e.g. a fine or jail time. In this scenario, the recipient actively engages in an illegal act in their own country, and it is usually expected by citizens to have a rough idea about what is illegal, so saying "I didn't know that" may not be enough the get off the hook.

While some content may be legal in the US, but illegal in Norway or France, it seems quite unreasonable to prosecute someone in Norway or France for receiving illegal content they have not asked for. However, depending upon the nature of the content and what the recipient does next, there may be grounds for prosecution. Say someone sends me illegal content, and I know it is illegal content, and I choose to keep it, and if I choose to hide it, e.g. in a hidden folder, on external hard drive, and encrypted, then I am clearly aware the content is illegal or I would not have kept it hidden. If I on the other hand tell the police in Norway about what I received, they will not do anything to me. They may contact Interpol or the police in the sender's country, and maybe they will say "It is not illegal here" or they may say "We will let the sender know it is illegal to send that to Norway" - I don't know.

As for the middle-man, the site owner, given the f* up nature of what some people exchange, it may be reasonable to some extent to say "Hey, man, you are making this criminal activity possible over your service.", which is why "respectable" site owner have a Terms of Service saying this and that is illegal on their site, in order to say "My ToS says illegal activity is not allowed here", and this will usually be enough in court, as the exchanging party are in violation of the ToS. If the site owner can be expected to do more than having a ToS, is debatable, and different countries may have different rules.

But... I am not a lawyer, I am a random dude on the Internet, so what do I know? :-)

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:16:11 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I forgot about ToS. I don't even remember how to view them on the site. If I remember, there is a file that contains them. I don't know if I ever put anything in there.

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 16:21:53 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

I found it!
Help -> About this Hub -> ToS
I guess it must have come with what is there because there are placeholder values still in it and the actual "Terms of Service" section is empty.

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 17:14:05 -0500

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

parlehaakon@hub.volse.no

I think it makes sense for most people to be open about where their service is physically located, e.g. Florida, USA, as I believe you have a federal legal system, a state legal system and then local regulations? I do not know anything about how that may play out where you live. Given a service's location, it may be expected to imply something to users of the service?

Sun, 05 Feb 2023 18:03:06 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Yeah, there are fields for location and contact information. Maybe some others. I didn't look that closely.

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 12:43:14 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

@Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum) It occurs to me that the ToS argument defense has a serious flaw. If you posted something illegal that got published on my site, the logic is that I can say you violated my ToS, therefore I am not liable for your content. But, there is a big problem. You do not have an account on my site. You did not agree to my ToS. Maybe you violated the ToS on your site or maybe you didn't.

Whatever got in me to write the original post seems to have passed for now, but I wanted to throw that out there.

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 14:20:11 -0500

Haakon Meland Eriksen (Parlementum)

parlehaakon@hub.volse.no

Touché, but again, you did not ask me to send it, so it was not your intention.

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 17:48:26 -0500 last edited: Tue, 07 Feb 2023 08:07:10 -0500

Marshall Sutherland

dwatney@hub.farthinghalearms.com

Touché, but again, you did not ask me to send it, so it was not your intention.

Lots of scenarios were thrown around. Am I the recipient of the message, the site owner, or both? If I am just the recipient, I think you are right. If I am the site owner, but the only recipient, I think you may be right. If I am the site owner and someone else is the recipient, I don't think you are right.

Edit: Remember, I'm talking about a world without explicit protection for the service provider.