this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2023
191 points (98.5% liked)

Technology

58303 readers
91 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots


founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

Families of Buffalo massacre victims sue Meta, Reddit, and Google over conspiracy theories::The lawsuit seeks changes to the changes companies’ safety standards, with the plaintiffs calling the platforms “defective and unreasonably dangerous.”

top 15 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (3 children)

This seems unlikely to succeed. "He wouldn't have killed those people if he hadn't read that book with those weird ideas in it!" is unlikely to ever justify finding the publisher of that book liable, under plain First Amendment jurisprudence.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Whats next, suing video games companies for making video games?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Blame them for violent protests sparked by your shitty policy decisions

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

And yet, somehow, I feel like the lawyers who took this unwinnable case are going to come out okay.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

One of life's truisms: everyone can lose except the lawyers involved

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not sure that's the best analogy since publishers do have an onus not to publish certain materials (example How would that work out for someone publishing something like the anarchists cookbook?)

Conversely, its not considered feasible for content providers (who don't generate or police the content BEFORE it's public) to police the work of content generators (the users). That's why s.230 of the CDA (imo) does more than the first amendment

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+anarchists+cookbook

It's openly sold by the world's biggest bookstore. (And so are the similarly-named books that are actual cookbooks ...)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Oh is it not banned anymore? Then my bad for using that as an example, but publishers do censor the works of their authors to try and avoid liability

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Isn't this doomed to fail in light of the SC's guidance in Gonzalez v. Google and Twitter v Taamneh ??

Edit: "The platforms’ failure to remove such content, Justice Thomas wrote, was not enough to establish liability for aiding and abetting, which he said required plausible allegations that they 'gave such knowing and substantial assistance to ISIS that they culpably participated in the Reina attack.'” (copied from a NYT article)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That was my first thought. And it’s not like it was a 5-4 ruling that’s teetering on the edge of being reversed

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Suing public spaces of discussion for what random-ass people talk about sounds pretty fucking stupid.

If I told a friend about my conspiracy theories while having lunch at a Burger King, would Burger King be liable for the dumb bullshit that came out of my mouth in addition for the dumb bullshit I put in it? 🤔

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

God damnit this shit is a waste of time.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
load more comments
view more: next ›