Yahoo Censoring Their Message Boards? 139
lost_packet writes "Today's Boston Globe has an article about yahoo removing posts from their chat boards. quote:"The truthfulness of these messages wasn't in dispute, said Yahoo chief executive Jeff Mallett. But the company took down the material to reduce its impact. Yahoo has to ''be careful'' because ''what we publish can influence a lot of people's lives,'' Mallett said in an recent interview." " The scary thing about this is that if you remove messages, you are supposedly liable for the rest of them. Its definitely a sticky situation.
Re:If /. does this, I'm leaving (Score:1)
Oh, yeah. Start packing up your cookies and posts. Rob and company CAN remove messages, in a way. Simply moderate them to -2, below the possible threshold. I have seen a few posts 'go away' in this manner. (Mostly because of the 'short post' penalty, I am assuming.) Unlike Yahoo's censorship, I don't think this would affect the 'common carrier' argument, since it would take a collabrative effort among moderators, whose actions are not the responsibility of
As for keeping our own idiotic ramblings regardless of merit, I can say without hesitation that many of the posts moderated down on
Is it really wrong? (Score:1)
Deosyne
Re:Good for them! (Score:1)
This is true, the first amendment prevents congress from passing any laws that censor or otherwise abridge our ability to speak freely. Obviously, there was something wrong with that. Then, the fourteenth amendment was passed:
No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Several Supreme Court decisions have since made it clear that free speach goes under the catagory of liberty and that states can't deprive someone of free speech.
It is true that neither the first nor fourteenth amendments cover private speech, so yahoo can leagally censor all they wish, but it is inaccurate to imply that only the federal congress is prohibited from taking our right to free speech.
Why this is scary... (Score:4)
The scary thing about this is that if you remove messages, you are supposedly liable for the rest of them. Its definitely a sticky situation.
The fact that Yahoo! knows this (any lawyer should) and still decided to remove messages based on content is an indicator of things to come.
Common carrier status enforces free speech in a public forum by exempting the carrier from liability due to content (Correct me if this is wrong).
They're not worried about liability. They either think that they can moderate the hell out of it so well they won't have any problems, or that if anyone sues 'em they'll fight it to the teeth and win.
If they want to spend all their time moderating, more power to 'em, I say.
But if they win a case because they fought tooth and nail, they could end up setting a precedent that overturns the liability status due to moderation, thus making common carrier pretty worthless.
In other words, lets say Joe sues Yahoo! because Bill posted something evil about Joe's mother on their board, and they didn't remove it. Yahoo! goes balls out to win the case, based on the fact that they didn't post the content, and does in fact win because they have a lot of money and can hire all sorts of lawyers to blow the opposition away.
Suddenly, there's a precedent set. Now, even if you censor the hell out of your board, you're still not liable for any content you leave behind. Naturally, the owners of any public forum who wanted to censor before, but didn't because of common carrier status and exemption from liability, will censor the heck out of their boards now, AND STILL be exempt from liability.
That is a bad thing.
---
big_brother@yahoo.com (Score:1)
*cough*
echelon
*cough*
'scuse me.
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
As the Boston Globe stated, Yahoo says it remove what it thinks will ``break securities laws or contain libelous statements''. Good gawd, does every Web site now have to become the arbiter of what's libelous and what's not? Damn near anything could be considered libelous if the individual being talked about is in a bad mood that day.
Deleting posts that could be in violation of SEC regulations seems simple enough. There are clear guidelines that regulate the kind of information that can be openly discussed during acquisition/merger talks, IPSs, etc. But who decides what's libelous?
How many people would Slashdot, Yahoo, etc. have to hire to pore over every post to make sure it didn't contain any libelous content? How could you possibly make sure that all these reviewers are thinking exactly the same was to ensure evenhandedness in the judgement of content?
Scary qoute. (Score:2)
"Mike Riley, senior producer of Yahoo's finance section, said postings now can be banned, even if they are true, 'if the message causes confusion'"
Even if they are true. Ouch.
Now, I'm not worried about what Yahoo does on their servers. They have a right to do what they wish with their machines. But I am worried about how much censorship society thinks is appropriate. Now we've gotten to the point where we can ban truth. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Year 2003: This is a public service anouncement. All confusing things are hereby banned. That is all. Thank you.
Re:Yahoo Censorship? (Score:1)
Re:Soooo... can Slahsdot be sued? (Score:1)
...phil
This isn't a position Yahoo wants to get into (Score:2)
If they know what is good for them, they will be perfectly neutral about it and stay away from actively censoring their site.
--
grappler
I see a lot of lawyers landing on Yahoo (Score:1)
Best to hide behind the "we don't regulate the content; we're simply in the business of providing the wire" defense.
Yahoo should be able to do whatever they want (Score:3)
Boycott (Score:1)
How would Slashdot react? (Score:5)
Now, the moderation system here works wonders. That is, it works wonders to moderate down '1st post!'-ers and other trolls.
But what if sensitive personal information was posted? Say, Hemos' phone number and sexual preference? Or the password of a few Government mainframes? (I'm not saying they're of equal sensitivity, mind... :) )
How would the Slashdot crew react, then? Should the posts be removed under the basis of, I don't know, unfair use of a public BBoard system, thus exercising editorial control however limited? Should the post be left there? Should a system be put in place for messages to be permanently deleted from the system by a sort of moderation process? (Say, if it hits 5 -1's, it's deleted, or a special moderation category.)
I hope such a situation never arises on Slashdot, because I like the system as it is, moderated by the people, and every message available for reading. (I read even -1 comments, because sometimes they're insightful if not well-spoken, or downright funny.)
But, well... What if?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
And.. (Score:1)
..we're somehow not free to dislike it? Or to say something when they claim that they want to promote ``open debate'' yet act in opposition to what they state?
You seem to be the victim of a rather flawed scale of logic.
Free Speech (Score:4)
It's amazing, isn't it? Due to a loophole in the way things work, Yahoo can actually legally do this. So can Slashdot. Or CNN. Infact, any business can. But why? The simple answer is that constitutional rights only cover what the government can do. A government official (which includes the police), or anybody on public property, can excercise free speech. Unfortunately, that's where it ends. When you're in my home and say something I don't agree with - I'm within my legal rights to give you the boot. You can do the same to me. Infact, to some extent (IANAL - any out there reading this?) your employer can tell you what you can and cannot say.
Now, don't take this the wrong way - I draw a distinct line between "legal" and "moral". The two are not synonimous in my book. Yahoo should not be calling their message boards "public forums" when infact they are not. I think it is morally reprehensible that they're silently deleting messages to protect their butts. Ironically, by doing this they may be exposing themselves to more damages than if they had left the situation alone! ie: If you could have stopped somebody from posting a libellous thing, and didn't, doesn't that implicate you as well?
Censorship is a thorny issue... welcome to the private side of it.
--
Yahoo Censorship? (Score:1)
It would seem to me that the most intelligent means to accomplish the goal and maintain open discussion, would be to have a moderator respond to posts which need their 'impact reduced', rather than to simply disappear the messages.
Now that I have written the above statement though, I am forced to attempt to define what messages would fall into that category? What the hell IS that category? Perhaps a moderators post could present alternate takes on the subject matter, or remind readers that they cannot accept everything they read at face value (remarkable that grown adults would need this reminding, isnt it?) and in that way "reduce the impact" of messages that are simply too impactful.
Ooooo - this keeps getting funnier the more I write - what is 'too impactful'? For whom? What specifically does an excessively impactful post impact?
I guess in the end that the only thing I can say is, I'm glad this doesn't impact me, because I tend to hang around /. not Yahoo, and everybody knows /. has more impact!
======
"Rex unto my cleeb, and thou shalt have everlasting blort." - Zorp 3:16
Re:Good for them! (Score:1)
Yahoo is a hotbed of that kind of crap, and the internet is already a rumor driven hysteria party as it is. BUT, BUT..
Constitutionally guaranteed free speach is one of the very few truly great things about America, one of the few ways an individual can get a break against big corps and the government. Free speech has to be zealously guarded because once you slip up once, once an outcry isn't raised then you lose that battle, you set a precident. Do you want to live in a place where an unpopular opinion can land you in jail?
I think there is a lot of political stuff going on that I can leave to the policy wonks to figure out,but I always want to know about free speach issues and even though I am going to have to wade through some non issues to learn about the important ones I think it's worth it.
As some people have already mentioned this is Yahoo's choice, The first ammendment does not extend to the servers of a private company, and if they are going to limit their censorship to the assholic practice of trying to affect stock prices through lies and rumors then maybe it's a good thing. But the potential for abuse is too great, as soon as you start a little censoring then the next thing you know someone is gonna start in on ideas they don't like. That's human nature and that's why we have an ammendment, we can't trust to good intentions.
I think people should vote with their feet. IF you don't like it, don't use Yahoo, and before you leave tell them why you are going. hit this link [yahoo.com] and tell them how you feel about censorship and then go elsewhere, it's a big ole www out there. Plenty of portals. We have seen recently how quickly a wired consumer outcry can get results. Apple, Real etc. This is actually a great moment for consumers on the net, I think we can actually have more of a voice then ever before, if only because we can make a lot of noise. But for this kind of thing to become a real force people have to keep doing it. Let's make those arrogant companies terrified of the consumer...
Remember money talks above all else and now that you can tell alot of people to take their money elsewhere you can actually get results. Plus it's alot easier than marching around outside some corporate office with a sign.
(he marches off to the strains of the international)
Free speach: with a cost. (Score:1)
Re:Soooo... can Slahsdot be sued? (Score:1)
As I understand it, /. is not censoring any comments -- they are allowing us (via moderation) to choose what we want to read. Moderated posts are not deleted, just scored down so that most people won't bother reading them.
Problems with content-based censorship (Score:4)
There is a huge problem socially, too. Censorship of mailing lists destroys those lists much faster than a few strong messages. Once you start down that slope, it is apparently impossible to draw a bright line describing where censorship ends.
In these stock trading boards in particular, I think people are looking for information that might be called 'insider information' to somebody with a rabidly litigious bent. Almost everything else on these boards is, frankly, garbage (and most of the alleged insider information is, too). By censoring the articles with 'impact', aren't you censoring the articles that people actually want to read, leaving only the garbage?
The Lockheed case is remarkable. What was posted was apparently the minutes of a meeting between Lockheed and its client in the Pentagon. The official apparently ripped them apart, as reported in a recent issue of Aviation Week. It turns out that this is not uncommon, the procurement offical in question has a very combative style, and she has been known to have similar meetings with other suppliers in the past. The information posted was never denied, it wasn't deemed to be classified, it was just embarrassing to Lockheed.
Censors, in general, have become more and more stringent with time. People posting to the channels will test the limits, forcing the censor to weild his authority more and more often -- and again this will destroy the use of the channel. I don't think that this has happened yet at Yahoo, but it has happened in other fora.
I agree with other posters that Slashdot's system works remarkably well. I was more than a little dubious at first, but the checks and balances coded into the system have prevented the abuse that censorship usually leads to.
I think that Yahoo will come to regret having started on this path -- or, more likely, will reconsider quickly.
thad
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:2)
That is the problem with libel law, it seems to me (!= lawyer). It is effectively 'guilty until proven innocent'. If you have something which might be libellous, you have to remove it immediately, and err on the side of caution. Otherwise you could be sued, and the fact that you didn't know it was libellous doesn't seem to be a defence. All that has to happen is for somebody to write to you saying 'this posting is libellous, please remove it' and you have to remove it right away, without any hearing in court. Otherwise you risk a lot in damages, but you have no way of knowing whether the post really was libellous until the case actually goes to court.
If you steal a car, you know that what you are doing is illegal. But if somebody posts a message to your forum, you don't normally know which way the court judgment will go, you don't know whether or not the message is illegal - yet you will still be punished for what happened before the court case. Your only option is to knuckle under and meekly remove whatever material a potential litigant tells you to remove.
This is the problem with the not-quite-common-carrier status of ISPs in the UK, and the reason why Demon Internet had to start censoring newsgroups containing a particular URL.
Censorship isn't the whole issue here. (Score:2)
The thing that should really scare any sort of publisher (/. in this example) is that once you've censored one post, you may no longer be considered a "common carrier", and then you can be sued for any other post that someone finds offensive for a variety of different reasons. IANAL, but it seems that the loss of common carrier status is more of a danger to the publisher than the effect on their readers of a few instances of censorship (for whatever reason).
I agree with you that it's probably OK for a publisher to remove an occasional, damaging comment. I'm just pointing out that such an action may cause more problems than it solves.
Censorship happens all the time, folks..... (Score:1)
Ever heard of Juanita Broaddrick? The woman Bill Clinton allegedly raped in Arkansas? NBC Dateline did a complete story about her that was never aired because it was "too true." Check this out at http://listen.to/juanita
The fact is is that 10 companies control almost all of the world's mass media. They have the power to 'select' (censor) what is broadcast and what is not. The result is a very narrow slice of relevant information, information that usually never is earth-shattering.
What Yahoo does is completely their right, just as it is for mass-media corporations. What users need to realize is that alternatives exist, ones that are not moderated, both online and off.
Re:Free Speech (Score:1)
Maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't see how that's "amazing" or a "loophole." Do you think the authors and ratifiers of the Constitution intended to give people the right to make any statement in any forum? The point is to restrict the government's control over citizens. I don't want the Ku Kux Klan to hold a rally in my living room and I would consider it a huge dimunition of MY freedom to give them the right to do that.
Let's try it (Score:1)
1800-DIALBLUE
sexual preference?
blue
Or the password of a few Government mainframes?
password
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
sure, /. could censor such things, but then they would be responsible for every post. better to just let someone complain and leave it at that than to censor the comment and risk getting sued.
just leave it all to the moderators!
What about -2 or -3??? (Score:1)
Re:Soooo... can Slahsdot be sued? (Score:2)
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No, because the
---
Re:Free Speech (Score:2)
Those who don't understand history are condemmed to misunderstand it.
How slashdot -should- react... (Score:2)
If they wait for a court order, then they've only shown that they can remove posts when served a court order. I think.
Of course, what they should really do is contact their lawyers (or get a lawyer pdq) and discuss the issue. Maybe deliberately crash the slashdot box to get breathing time while trying to decide the issue.
--Parity
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:3)
Instead of the posts being deleted or moderated down into oblivion (-2
I guess there is always a double standard when you have two sides I guess. *shrug*.
And about those Government mainframes
It is far more complicated than that. (Score:2)
In 1996, the CDA changed this. In an attempt to 'clean up' the net. Congress, in their infinite wisom (sarcasm), made a provision for liabel. It occurred to them that, if ISPs were to cooperate in removing obscene material, they would need to be protected, so as not fall into the "publisher" category, thus exposing themselves to massive liability. This provision is basically "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." It provided further language, to the effect, that no state or local law shall cross it. The CDA, in effect, created a wide protective blanket against all kinds of defamation suits. Though the majority of the CDA was struck down in 1997, these key parts remained. It has been tested a number of times in very broad scope, all the way up to the Supreme Court, and stood. In fact, some courts have held that an ISP is not liable even if they're put on notice of defamative content.
That being said though, providers like Slashdot (not too familiar with Yahoo's content) are possibly in murky waters, despite these precedents. It could be argued that slashdot promotes certain content (eg: the articles), as in basically creating it. Or that certain slashdot figures (e.g.: Jon Katz) are in business with slashdot, and thus slashdot is effectively creating the content.
Re:Why this is scary... (Score:1)
hopefully, a judge would side against yahoo and an equally powerfull precident would be set: you can't censor and not take resposibility for what gets through.
pardon my idealism, but i still beleive in our legal system and in our government as a whole.
Re:they *have* to edit somewhat, just like /. does (Score:3)
Sadly that's the price you pay when you allow any schmuck off the street post a message. Anyone that thinks sticking an idiot on a computer network is going to turn them into some sort of intellectual is gravely mistaken.
There's four ways to deal with this:
Sure the you have to wade through "GEHNGIS KHAN NAKED AND PETRIFIED!!!!" and "ALL group ARE NAZZZZISS!&*%^#^&%@%", but you've proven yourself as a common carrier. More importantly you've proven to the the group that you support free speech in all it's forms.
One starts out by telling yourself you're doing this to create a better place. In reality, you're simply covering your own ass. You don't want to be sued by "Big Co." or by the "Save the Children League" so you censor. ("Gee this guy said that Big Co.'s Romaine Lettuce and Vinegrette, is actually lead paint and motor oil.{*] Well we don't know if that's true or not, but Big Co. says they're going to sue us if we don't pull it. We better pull it.") So instead of the government censoring you, you have those with money censoring you. Which is a much more insidious and worrying form of censorship in my book.
Everyone sees everything, but you install you're own personal filters to screen out what you don't want. In my opinion, this is the best solution because it puts the power in each individual's hand. If you didn't read "Surf Nazis Must Die!@#!@#!!@"[+] or "$$$$$$MAKE MONEY FA5T!!#@@!@!@$$$$", that's because you filtered it out. If you only want to read about pyramid schemes, then you can. The choice is yours.
This is the way
Sure it's their servers, and they can do what ever they want, but that doesn't mean we have to support them. Personally I'd like to see everyone boycot Yahoo's message boards, and anyone else that unilaterally censors. I find their actions morally repugnant.
[*]Kudos to whoever first posted that analogy on
[+] Fun movie
It's not necessarily supression of free speech (Score:1)
This isn't about free speech because the information divulged was under non-disclosure agreements. The employees agreed that for that particular information they would relenquish their free speech rights. They signed a legally binding contract. It would be more accurate to call the moderation or removal of lame "First post" posts a supression of free speech. The information is sometimes of a serious enough nature that the company and its employees could get into trouble with the SEC for attempting to manipulate the stock price.
Suppose that Yahoo had brass balls in these situations and refused to a) divulge account holder information and b) refused to remove the post. Yahoo would be held liable for the information.
I don't know the details of what has been supressed nor do I fully trust news sources (many of whom are owned by companies that consider Yahoo 'the competition') for those details. I just know a little tiny bit about certain happenings within my company.
Eventually slashdot is guaranteed to run into this problem. It'll be interesting to see how it will be handled.
Re:Free Speech (Score:1)
--
I'm not really offended... (Score:1)
Also, yahoo isn't the only company out there. If you don't like Yahoo's practices use another online forum provider, or better yet, make your own.
-- Moondog
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
A small technicality:
To the best of my knowledge, a post gets a score of -2 if a) it is moderated to -1, and b) you set a short comment threshold under which the message falls (e.g., you set your threshold to 30 chars, and the message is a mere 10), which gets it an additional -1. These messages will not be seen however low your threshold is.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
What about spam? (Score:2)
that gets a *lot* of traffic. They decided to
start a forum one day to discuss their content.
On the *first* day, the forum was filled with
crap spam advertising anything and everything
(mostly porn), and ridiculously few posts that
were on-topic. If posts were not moderated (read
"deleted"), finding relevant posts would
be like looking for signs of extraterrestrial
life by analyzing background radiation.
Remember where the term "moderation" came from
in the electronic context. Moderators of mailing
lists and Usenet newsgroups actively *deleted*
posts. It worked like a dream, though occasionally
there were disputes over posts that were
"censored".
If I'm a web publisher, I'm providing space and
bandwidth for comments, but I'm *not* going to
advertise your site for free, especially if
it's way off-topic. If the discussion is, say,
Pete Townshend's recent projects, I think
obvious spam about "FREE SEX FAST" should be
deleted.
Perhaps the moderation scheme would work. How
has slashdot handled this? It seems to me to
that it's reasonable to put some restrictions
in a user agreement. In my efforts, I'd like to
moderate comments, but also have some editorial
control (ok, deletion) for posts that are spam or
way off-topic (think KKK recruiting posts in a
music forum).
Now, newspapers and magazines seem to get away
with printing opinions of subscribers that could
be inflammatory or even potentially libelous by
making some statement to the effect of "The views
expressed by our readers do not necessarily
reflect the views of this newspaper". As a
publisher, I would want editorial control over
my product, but as a free-speech advocate, I
would want people to be able to post whatever
opinions they have, *as long as they are
on-topic*.
Before you flame, yes, I realize that there's
always going to be a difference of opinion on
what is and is not on-topic. Those should be
moderated. But ads for "FREE NUDE TEEN KIDNEYS"
don't really deserve free promotion in a forum
discussing Princess Mononoke.
If
great.Does anybody have any insight on whether
or not the spamsters get bored and go elsewhere?
Any real-world statistics?
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
I hope that I'm not the only one bothered by this. I would prefer to think of the internet/www as a public park where you can get up on your soapbox and state your opinion. If your ideas are full of it, listeners will tell you. It looks like that to keep out of trouble, you'll now have to have a lawyer at your side while you're up on your soapbox and have to clear all your statements with him before actually speaking to the public. I guess I still prefer the Usenet-style public forums. Free expression has an inherently lower S/N but at least you're free to express your ideas without having them edited out.
If everyone takes Yahoo's position and deletes anything that might be deemed offensive to someone then the result is a sort of Disneyfication of all of the internet. Remember when Disneyland would bar anyone from entering if their hair was longer than some Disney-prescribed standard? Is that effectively any different from the censorship of posts? Is that the sort of internet we want? I suspect that some case is going to come up in the not-too-distant future, it's going to get ugly, and that a bunch of lawyers are going to be very happy about it.
Re:What about spam? (Score:1)
For the most part, we haven't had problems. We've had to extend the cancellation rules to include binary attachments, and we tend to snarl at people for posting in HTML. Spam continues to come in, we continue to kill it off, and it's become sort of a subconscious process that isn't even really noticeable any more (although the people responsible for killing the spam might disagree).
This has occasionally caused some uncomfortable moments; it can be hard to justify to management the usefulness of maintaining a server which allows people to bash your products in public. Yet
Still, Yahoo's position is a bit different: they're more like CIS or Prodigy in a way.
Re:Free Speech (Score:2)
Due to a loophole in the way things work
and
IANAL or even someone with basic understanding of the Constitution.
You do not have a right to post to Yahoo. You may set up your own server and post anything you want to it. You do not have a right to connect this server to the Internet. If connected, there are no Constitutional guarantees that ISPs will exchange packets with you.
Re:If /. does this, I'm leaving (Score:1)
Post 1. User A knocks sombody else's race.
Post 2. User B says knock it off that's rude - I am that race and I don't like that.
Post 3. User C says to kill User B. He lives at 12345 A street, Anywhere, USA.
The service removes post no. 3 because its illegal, but is now forced to remove post no. 1 as well, otherwise User B could now sue the service.
It's censorship plain and simple, but I don't think Yahoo has a choice, and to be honest, I admire the fact that they allowed free speech to begin with. Other companies have not had such great track records. AOL [aol.com], for example, caused quite a stir a while back when they wouldn't let users access certain websites, and more recently, they may be in trouble for selectively banning [msnbc.com] certain words from user profiles.
Yahoo (from what I can tell)seems to have done a better job at allowing personal freedom than most services would dream of - remember, they either go to jail, get sued, or remove certain posts. I don't like the fact that they have to do this, but I think I can understand that they don't have a choice. Hopefully, Yahoo will simply draw the line at those comments that leave them open to litigation...
Excite (Score:1)
Re:Are they setting themselves up for a big fall? (Score:1)
A Modest Proposal for the Lawyers... (Score:1)
Since the US Government is under the influence of China, I suggest we adopt another practice from them.
All lawyers, opon passing the bar, will be required to have their genitalia removed and placed in a jar which is to be hung around their necks. (Like the Imperial Court Eunichs of old.) This will accomplish two things. First, it will prevent lawyers from reproducing. Second, it will make it obvious who is and is not a lawyer.
I bet that you will find a whole lot less lawyers after this plan goes into effect.
they should delete messages more often (Score:1)
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
Nope. Hemos (I think) posted the story, said he did see the page in question, but decided not to include it in the article. Within the next five minutes, someone on /. asked, 'Yeah, but what is the procedure?' and someone answered.
Sure enough, Hotmail got not only slashdotted, but cracked massively. :) I bet that's one of the reasons MS reacted so quickly (if somewhat stupidly.) And I still believe CNN took their info from Slashdot, because they tried it out too.
There's been no censorship of any kind in this story, only an editorial decision on the part of Hemos when posting the news article itself. But that's only fair, and a totally different issue.
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Re:what if... (Score:1)
True. This would mean that if I went on a message board about Bayer and said, "Bayer rises from the ashes of 12,000,000 Jews, Catholics, Gypsies, Poles, Slavs, and handicapped people," I could be censored. Even though my comments contain truth (to this day Bayer still has lawsuits against it regarding their use of humans as laboratory animals), Bayer might object to what I say.
The same principle applies if I say that Adolf Hitler invented the economy car ("Volkswagen" means "People's Car" in German).
This just all sounds too 1984-ish to me.
awkwardone
ICQ: 13709677
You can't jump without a
Remember NATO bombings story? (Score:1)
when a story about USA bombing Yugos was
posted and had if am not mistaken over
500 comments.
The story was removed after some time.
/Alex
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:2)
I think this is correct with the current system but at the time of the Andover IPO story, a post could be moderated down to -100 if enough points where thrown at it.
Like I said, my old account had this happen and the only way I saw it was because my recent messages in my profile showed a post at -2. Considering the lowest the dropdown threshold menu went was -1
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
..? (Score:1)
If so, then you must have been serious when you asked what the big deal is. It doesn't revolve around what they /can/ do, it's the consequences of doing so (from a social and/or legal point of view). The other replies to your post go into more detail, so I will not duplicate that material here.
Re:Good for them! (Score:1)
Speak for yourself.. I'm aware of what our constitution is for, our Bill of Rights, and exactly what the First Amendment was meant for. None of this holds any sort of "emotional" attachment for me. I would fight any attempt to rescind them, but I hardly swell up with teary pride when I hear the national anthem.
"Freedom of Speech" applies to the government. Everything else is simply a business decision.
By choosing to regulate some of the posts, Yahoo! is now legally responsible for all of them.
This is inaccurate. An information provider can regulate content upon being made aware of potential illegalities without making them instantly liable for all content they provide. So long as they respond in good faith and in a reasonable amount of time to complaints about certain posts, they're fine. This doesn't change a thing for Yahoo.
This is also hardly "new." Most (all?) message boards like this regulate their content in precisely the same way. Some may only remove stuff after an official request. Some may remove even potentially illegal material, and other may just remove everything they don't like. These are simply business decisions. They're perfectly aware that some policies will favor some people will making them look bad to others. This is hardly a free speech or ethics issue.
Slashdot can't be sued, part two. (Score:1)
Moderators get a finite number of points - 5. Therefore, it is impossible for them to "censor *everything* they find objectable," if there are more than 5 such posts. If it's physically impossible for the moderator to accomplish the task, they can't be held liable.
I'm almost sure, too, that the number of moderator points slashdot gives out isn't even close to the number of objectable posts that make it onto Slashdot in total. Even if CmdrTaco tweaked the Slashdot software to introduce bunches more moderation, it still takes labor (i.e., willing bodies), and time that does not exist on Slashdot, that is, the moderator time to keep up with (and make progress on) the tide of crap.
_____
Slashdot would react by: (Score:4)
2) Rob getting a few messages bringing this post to his attention.
3) A Perl script or the Apache server 'crashing' for a few minutes, during which some posts would be inexplicably LOST from the system.
4) Posters outrage that the offending post just happened to be one of the ones 'lost'.
5) Rob adding meta-meta-moderation to keep it from happening again.
6) JonKatz posting an article about civil rights in cyberspace.
Re:..? (Score:1)
However, I agree.
That's why I read moderated down posts sometimes. Sometimes just cause something is irrelevant doesn't mean you don't agree with it.
Re:What really happened (Score:1)
Yahoo isn't the only one... Try M$NBC (Score:1)
I feel confident in my mate's abilities and intelegence, but what about the others that they work with? I didn't get the impression that there were written guidelines, that's for sure...
No flame. I agree (Score:1)
Let's face it. Yahoo is a private _company_. They are out to make money off their product. They're not out there to be e-philanthropists. And to have damaging, wrong, or malicious information is definitely not ok to leave it on their boards. It's like "alright, I allowed you to use my paint, but you ended up graffiting the city hall. Sorry, no more for you"
I think people need to realize that as much as internet is for free-speech, etc, much of it is owned by private servers/computers/lines. They have, and should have, right to them.
I can't see yahoo having a good publicity for doing this, but I don't think they did anything particularly wrong.
F 451 (Score:1)
Re:..? (Score:1)
Anyway, yes - the moderation system is far from perfect. Some good posts get marked down, some fabulous gems go ignored because they are buried in hundreds of comments. I do agree with what he is trying to say, sort of. He just chose a very rude way of phrasing the statement. People should login when they have something to say. I understand that he may be trying to say that he has a threshold of +1, but um... who cares.
more useless babble from:
No. There is a statutory shield! (Score:1)
In short, Congress has changed the common law, which you have correctly identified.
Congress gave Yahoo the thumbs up. (Score:1)
Here is an excerpt:
(c) Protection for ''Good Samaritan'' blocking and screening of
offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
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.
(2) Civil liability
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be
held liable on account of -
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict
access to or availability of material that the provider or user
considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively
violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not
such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to
information content providers or others the technical means to
restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
Hemos's sexual preferences (Score:1)
Hemos' phone number and sexual preference? Or the password of a few Government mainframes? (I'm not saying they're of equal sensitivity, mind...
Hemos Phone number: 156486135 (note, I don't know it and I don't even know the number of digits US phone numbers have, so if this is the good one, I am an awfully lucky bastard that will play Lotto tomorrow
Hemos sexual preference: it's well known that it is Hamster.
Password of few government maiframes:
www.slashdot.org (it is a well garded secret that
Login: hemos
Passwd: H4mst3r
www.transmeta.com (and you thought Transmeta really existed?)
Login: torvalds
Passwd: linux
dod.microsoft.com (the place where they are developping their next cyber weapon that will make no computer on the planet work correctly, codename: Windows 2000)
Login: billg
Passwd: monopoly
area51.dod.gov (where they keep all their archives on Alien contacts)
Login: mulder (you thought he was the good guy, false, he is a double agent which aim is to confuse the public and make them believe their is no conspiracy)
Passwd: iwanttobelieve
www.cultdeadcow.com (didn't you know that BOY2K was a troyan to detect script kiddies)
Login: boy2k
Passwd: W4r3Z
This should be enough, no?
um... (Score:1)
"what we publish can influence a lot of people's lives"...
Am I the only one who thinks that if a web bulletin board has any kind of significant influence on your life, you've got bigger problems than whether or not the site deletes offensive comments?
I mean, really. Go outside!
Re:And.. (Score:2)
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
Moderation (Score:1)
---
minor correction (Score:1)
A government official (which includes the police), or anybody on public property, cannot prevent you from excercising free speech.
--
Slashdot too! (Score:1)
(vr starts emacs and type 'M-x spook')
:-)
Good for them! (Score:2)
For as long as I can remember, people have been using the Yahoo message boards in order to attempt to manipulate stock prices through rumours and libel. Yahoo is finally doing something about this, despite the certain threat of outcry from free-speech activists.
The first 5 words in the First Amendment are "congress shall pass no law...". It's in there to prevent people from getting tossed in jail for speaking out against the government. It is *not* supposed to guarantee that privately-held companies should be forced to allow anyone to post anything using their systems. Why is this so hard for people to understand? Why do I, as a Canadian, understand more about the First Amendment than most Americans do?
- Drew
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
Actually I think that the Slashdot would be right to take such posts down. In fact, I think that in one of the FAQs, Rob talks about occasionally deleting comments. It's his discussion board, after all, he can do that :)
Is it right? I think so, yes. It's definitely an abusable right, but it's one that needs to be wielded. If Slashdot became a heavily censored site and a large number of posts started getting squashed, then I'd just leave and take my discussions somewhere else. I think most other people would to.
But, no - I don't mind if they remove the occasional, damaging comment.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Re:Moderation (Score:1)
ok. Somebody hit me know.
*thump*
Much better.
what if... (Score:1)
And the other danger, which is obvious but needs to be restated anyway, is that "sensitive" (i.e., damaging) information pertaining to a company may be deleted from public view.
[ech] So if the bomb-making factory or power company's nuke plant is poisoning its workers and carrying increased overhead in sick time [/ech], or if a company doctors its books, etc., that profit impacting info is good to know before the end of a reporting period. I.E., why use a financial message board if the important posts are going to be censored? Answer: Don't.
Re:What really happened (Score:1)
Re:Free Speech (Score:1)
LetterJ
Writing Geek/Pixel Pusher
jwynia@earthlink.net
http://home.earthlink.net/~jwynia
Interesting verbiage... (Score:2)
"The arbitrary nature of the word filter and AOL's apparent lack of enforcement on its hate speech policies inflamed the gay community. " lol
A lot of that article points at the difficulty and inherent problems with filtering and censorship, mainly: If you take the first step and not the rest you become liable (one of the most abused words in English, IMHO) because you have taken responsibility.
Comments are owned by the Poster.
And the responsibility therein should be contained. In your above example (go here and kill him) the illegal post should be prosecuted, not removed and ignored. A follow-up post similar to "The Above post violates U.S law #yada yada, it's owner is currently being tracked and will be prosecuted." And then when he is it should be widely publicized. Public humiliation and jail/fines are often a useful deterrent for inapropriate public behaviour. i.e. punishing children for doing things wrong teaches them, ignoring them for doing things wrong makes it seem allright.
oh what a tangled web we weave (Score:1)
er
that didn't ryhme very well...brb!
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:1)
Re:Let's try it (Score:1)
As far as the Uncle Sam's big iron... That password will work! On some of them (don't know which ones). It's scary how wide-spread the use of 'password' is. You tell these people that they have to choose a password, and they go "Duh, okay! Got one!"
Most government equipment is built by the lowest bidder. But it's also operated by the lowest bidders, too!
Re:And.. (Score:1)
Re:Soooo... can Slahsdot be sued? (Score:1)
Re:..? (Score:1)
Re:Interesting verbiage... (Score:1)
You're right there, but I suppose this gets back to core of the situation, about legal responsibility and ethics in moderating content. You may not be legally obliged to remove that post, but there may be situations when you are morally obliged remove it (for instance, a death threat - like a certain pro-life website that sparked a free-speech debate about endangering the lives of the abortion doctors whose names and addresses were published).
I guess there's no simple answer for some things. While you may have no criminal recourse though, allowing some illegal posts like that still might open you up to civil suit (IANAL so I'm not sure), where you don't actually have to have committed a crime and it doesn't have to be proved "beyond a shadow of a doubt". For example, posting someone's address and something happening to that person might be all a jury needs to convict on wrongful death or willful negligence or whatever, law or no law (think OJ Simpson - murder, not guilty; wrongful death, guilty).
Don't get me wrong, I am a strong advocate of free speech, but I didn't think this was a clearcut case of censorship. (After reading some of the posts, it appears that the post might not be illegal after all, in which case Yahoo sucks and has lost all credibility.) I suppose the thing I'm considering is how I would feel if it affected me.
man I hope you're right... (Score:1)
It will be interesting to see how this plays out...poor Internet, he gets blamed for so much, seems he's always causing trouble!
The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
The new tagline (Score:1)
Uah-hmmmm-mmmf...
_____
But once we've practiced for a while (Score:1)
--
Re:Free Speech (Score:1)
--
Government right to interfere (Score:2)
Re:Problems with content-based censorship (Score:2)
Luckily, that happens not to be the case. Moderated forums works just fine. On Usenet, the moderated forums are often the only ones useful, the rest have been destroyed by trolls, kooks, and other lifeless people. Even the
However, I do believe that there should be unmoderated forums to match those that are moderated, in order for everybody to have a place to discuss, not matter the leval. Also, the
If /. does this, I'm leaving (Score:2)
Re:How would Slashdot react? (Score:2)
But I think that any such censorship should be explicit and out in the open. Instead of quietly deleting a post, replace it with a message saying 'this post has been deleted' and giving a reason why. In some cases deleting a post would not be necessary; you might just be able to replace some of the characters with asterisks (as in Un*x) and put a message at the top explaining the reason for the censorship.
But deleting messages without telling anybody is not on. And if a message is legal but pointless, best just to let the moderation system do its work and leave it at -1. Slashdot would not make any great saving in disk space from removing such posts (they tend to be short), so best to leave them alone. Some people (eg moderators) might like to read them anyway.
Re:um... (Score:2)
A small company doing an IPO to finance expansion could be completely destroyed by such a thing.
Note: I'm not saying the stuff on Yahoo could have had that kind of impact--just pointing out that web bulletin boards can have impact on many people who don't use them directly.
WTF? (Score:2)
The big deal (Score:2)
Well, the big deal is that people who provide message boards, chat rooms, etc. generally do not like to be held responsible for whatever gets posted to the message board or said in a chat room. I think that's a very reasonable wish.
Now, it so happens that under US law (IANAL and I am hugely simplifying) you can be either a publisher or a "common carrier". A publisher exercises editorial control over what he publishes and, consequentially, is responsible for content. Examples: newspapers, magazines, etc. A common carrier just provides the medium for somebody else's words, exercises no editorial control and is *not* responsible for content. Example: a phone company.
Cleary, Yahoo wants to be considered a common carrier and not a publisher for material on its boards and chat rooms. On the other hand, it cannot control content and at the same time claim it is a common carrier.
From my point of view, Yahoo should let everybody say anything on its boards. Trying to selectively delete 'objectionable' (to whom?) material is likely to get it into quite hot legal water.
Kaa
Re:Good for them! (Score:2)
Previous posters have hit the nail on the head: By choosing to regulate some of the posts, Yahoo! is now legally responsible for all of them. Users then feel that they are restricted in their expression, which is the real hot-button issue. Yahoo! should make clear why certain posts are deleted. Is that information illegal to be public (ie classified defense information, given that this is Lockheed Martin), or simply not beneficial to LM? If the former, explain that. If the latter, then the ethical issues really become paramount.
Don't assume that because Americans believe in free expression at all times that we don't understand what we are guaranteed. Our deeply held values aren't all guaranteed by the Constitution, and we know it. That's why society != government.
Re:Good for them! (Score:2)
Beowulf that baby!
This is old news.
Hey what about my rights?!
This isn't newswothy.
It's big business again.
If only Americans were as smart as Canadians.
Somewhere north of here lies a patriot!
Are they setting themselves up for a big fall? (Score:3)
If I were Yahoo, I'd really think long and hard on this one. It seems like a very large task to rake through every board, every day, for questionable materials.
Final thought to ponder? Will this lead to Yahoo getting over zealous in their deleteing of message with a "better safe than sorry" type policy?
Who knows...
Quack