Supreme Court Will Not Examine Tech Industry Legal Shield (reuters.com) 51
An anonymous reader shares a Reuters report: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let stand a lower court's decision that an online advertising site accused by three young women of facilitating child sex trafficking was protected by a federal law that has shielded website operators from liability for content posted by others. The refusal by the justices to take up the women's appeal in the case involving the advertising website Backpage.com marked a victory for the tech industry, which could have faced far-reaching consequences had the Supreme Court decided to limit the scope of the Communications Decency Act, passed by Congress in 1996 to protect free speech on the internet.
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Re:New Slavery (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they are.
The real complaint here is that "tech companies" are getting all the protections of being common carriers without any of the responsibilities of being common carriers. So they're not liable for ads posted for criminal services, but they can cancel ads that conflict with their own political agenda.
SCOTUS made the correct decision in this case. One can only presumed these women sued Backapages because their pimps - who actually forced them into prostitution - didn't have any more.
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> SCOTUS made the correct decision in this case.
SCOTUS tends to avoid intervening until there are multiple appellate courts with contradictory decisions, creating regional interpretation of laws.
The SCOTUS hears a case to clean up the mess.
So until there are a couple of decisions that are different from the first one, the appellate decision stands as precedent.
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> SCOTUS made the correct decision in this case.
SCOTUS tends to avoid intervening until there are multiple appellate courts with contradictory decisions, creating regional interpretation of laws.
There are conflicting rulings in different districts, but this may well be the first to get to the SCOTUS level.
The SCOTUS hears a case to clean up the mess.
So until there are a couple of decisions that are different from the first one, the appellate decision stands as precedent.
Only in that district, and only if they say it's precedent.
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Since when is a common carrier required to carry ad's they don't like? Your assertion is bogus. No one forces the telecom companies to put other people's ad's on their websites. You will likely try to equate this to a completely unrelated thing, I suggest you don't describe your idiocy is such great detail.
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Common Carriers (phone companies) are required to carry all phone calls reguardless of content, while being shielded from prosecution for what other people use their services for. That is what is being aluded to, not what phone companies do with their web sites.
3rd party ad = prison is very bad to have as law (Score:2)
Yes but do you really want some to be slipped with sex offender / child sex offender change just for using jay's online ad service? and do you want jay to be slapped with the same changes just for having someone pay them him for ad slots?
A lot of web sites use 3rd party ad services and it would be very hard for them check each ad from an 3rd party. Now maybe some blame can be put on the 3rd party site but what if they ran ad's for a strip club and it turns out the pic's they when sent for the place had some
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And if someone posts an ad for a 10 year old cotton-candy making machine for sale, do you really want Jay to be charged when it turns out by "10 year old" the ad meant "10 year old" and by "cotton-candy making machine" the ad meant "girl"?
Hate voting when I like both sides (Score:1)
I hate it when these topics come up where I see both sides of the issue. I am not in anyway supporting the specific website involved in this lawsuit. But we all know that this is about the general principle for websites (I approve of that), but at the same time I understand the women's perspective as well and agree with them.
It comes down to:
1) are the other remedies to deal with the problem
2) what is the impact of a change in the entire ecosystem.
Hmmm. Hard to know what to say.
Re:Hate voting when I like both sides (Score:5, Informative)
The remedies are already in place. Suppose someone posts on Slashdot advertising a human trafficking operation. If Slashdot were liable for user comments, Slashdot would immediately be guilty of abetting said operation. Of course, the site isn't liable so they're not immediately at risk of a lawsuit over the situation. The proper response is to report the comment and Slashdot either takes it down (and thus shields themselves from liability) or decides to leave it up (in which case, they might expose themselves to liability). Alternatively, the authorities could subpoena Slashdot (through proper legal channels) to get information on the person who made the post.
With this system in place, sites can host user-generated content without hiring armies of human (as opposed to automated) moderators. (Imagine how many moderators YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook would need to hire just to keep up with the flood of content!) Meanwhile, it also allows for illegal comments to be removed - something that any site worth its salt wants to ensure anyway if only to keep the spam out.
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The proper response is to report the comment and Slashdot either takes it down (and thus shields themselves from liability) or decides to leave it up (in which case, they might expose themselves to liability).
You have a misunderstanding of the law. Slashdot is under no obligation to take down illegal content posted by other people, with only one possible exception and that's child pornography and only because mere possession of such material is criminal. In cases like human trafficking, drug sales or pretty much any other illegal content Slashdot is under no obligation to take down the material unless ordered to by a judge.
Your recourse in such cases is to contact the authorities and let them follow through in t
The question is liability: Censor each posting (Score:3, Insightful)
The in the case question is whether web sites (including Slashdot) are responsible for the content of posts by their users. If so, Slashdot, Backpage, and every other web site where people can talk would need a team of censors.
Child porn is illegal, slander is illegal, threatening people is illegal - if web sites are responsible for the posts, Slashdot would need to make sure no posts might be considered slander, or an unlawful threat. It just doesn't make any sense to say "the web site is liable if a user
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Dear APK,
There is a reason you were downmodded into oblivion on your main account.
It has nothing to do with a conspiracy against you. You are simply obnoxious. You also oversimplify and strawman the arguments of others.
This is why you are not respected and everyone rolls their eyes when they come across your posts.
Sincerely,
Almost Everyone On Slashdot
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I can see the day this comes about. AC will never be able to post again, we will finally get rid of some of the trolls around here. It would be glorious!
Well, maybe not, but one can dream.
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i thinkz you all will have a hard time justifying sicko crap in name a free speech
Not at all. Once it becomes ok to break the law because there's sicko crap out there, then it becomes ok to break the law for other reasons. Can't have the benefits of laws without the costs.
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Sooo you expect someone at Slashdot to read every single link people post to make sure it isn't kiddy pron?
wtf
Slashdot editors have a hard enough time getting the links in articles right, I can't imagine what would happen if they had to edit every comment too.
What about kitties? (Score:2)
What about kitty porn? :P
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That is perfectly OK. It can be like the Discovery Channel.
CDA was NOT written to protect free speech. (Score:5, Informative)
It was written to DENY free speech -- specifically porn.
It just had to have the happy side effect that, after the porn ban was ruled unconstitutional, the "safe harbor' provision stayed in effect.
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Pixar Monsters Inc.: Child Detection Agency
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Because they were taking action against the site, not the people posting the ads/content.
The safe harbor provision of the CDA protects the website.
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What about Torrents then? (Score:1)
Torrent sites quickly come to mind...
Re:What about Torrents then? (Score:4, Insightful)
The RIAA and MAPP are very strong lobbies. Laws are different depending on the amount of money in the industry backing/opposing them.
Good (Score:2)
pirate films=bad, human trafficking=free speech (Score:2, Insightful)
ok, got it. thanks military industrial complex. i was wondering which sort of websites you were going to try to shut down, now i know i guess.
Backpage still lost though. (Score:2)
So Backpage won three times [techdirt.com] but changed their policies to kill the ads anyway.