It seems like a politically safe opinion with regards to Tik Tok given the US' hostility towards it and its Chinese owners at present but I wouldn't be surprise if there's a sudden backtracking of this once it threatens to affect good old American social media companies.

Yeah, this will be tiptoed around whenever it bumps up against Meta or X.

There isn't any way they can create a precedent for Tik Tok that doesn't also affect Facebook and Twitter. They might WANT to, depending political motivations, but the law can only be twisted so far. They have to come up with legal reasoning. I don't see how Tik Tok's "for you" is any different than the stuff that comes up in your Facebook feed not from those who follow, or similar on Twitter.

Now if there was a law saying Section 230 applies differently to US owned and foreign owned social media companies that would provide the out, but such a law would have to pass. I imagine it could easily pass congress, provided it wasn't held up by those who want to make bigger changes to Section 230 or eliminate it entirely.

I remember the good old days of Facebook long ago, when if you'd seen everything posted by your friends and pages you followed it would simply tell you that's it. Now you can doomscroll forever, and it'll keep coming up with stuff it thinks you'll like. Or rather stuff you might like or might hate, but stuff you'll engage with.

Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

C'mon... start nailing these fucking anti-social platforms to the wall for their utter failure to deal with the hate, bile, misinformation and dangerous content they profit from, promote and push to others....

I bet they get fined a tiny fraction of their income... but if this goes to a jury trial... the damages could result in hundreds of millions in compensation and punitive damages... then open the floodgates to more lawsuits.

The only thing these bloodsucking leeches understand is money... let's make it unprofitable for them to survive without dealing with the problems they've created.

C'mon... start nailing these fucking anti-social platforms to the wall for their utter failure to deal with the hate, bile, misinformation and dangerous content they profit from, promote and push to others....

I just hope it brings about the end of 'AI' generated 'recommendations'. Earlier today I made the mistake of watching a few mins of a popular YT personality, ie one that has somehow ended up with 10m+ subscribers. Turned out to be the usual clickbaity vid with lots of style, and virtually no content. Now, half my recommended videos are from this mu.. person. In which I'm also learning to hate the YT trends of clickbait combined with 'suprised pikachu face', or as Simon Whistler calls it 'soyface'.

AI may conceivably be useful if it could let me filter those out.

If this case leads to a feature long overdue, like allowing me to express my own interests, anti-social media companies could provide themselves with some protection, if I picked topics like 'how to win a Darwin Award'.

I look forward to rules that allow social media to be fined for what the government calls "misinformation" or "hate speech." Perhaps under the next Trump administration we could go after those who claim climate change is caused by people. Or maybe fine companies for saying covid shots are safe and effective.

If the government decides what is credible or allowed speech, be careful when you don't like the side that gets elected.

Better off simply making a blanket requirement that all speech is allowed, except for extremely minimal limits such as actively calling for violence against someone or doxxing a person.

Netflix recommended Fast and Furious WTF and this influenced me to drive my Astra Diesel at 100MPH through a bus queue of nuns

Well, it's a shortcut straight to heaven, what are they whinging about?

I have s solution to this problem that works for me.

I just don't watch the stuff. You should try it -- just because some algorithm / person / Centauran / whatever puts stuff in a "For You" list doesn't mean that you actually have watch the stuff.

These platforms intentionally select content that they expect users will "engage with".

So they select content about asphyxiation, and users actually read it and/or try what is suggested. Who'd have thought it?

To be honest, 40 years ago we really would not have credited that people would asphyxiate themselves after watching a vid, nor that a major commercial industry would legally exist facilitating it.

Sorry, not sure if this is supposed to be sarcasm or what. Forty years, almost exactly, was right in the middle of the 'Satanic Panic' there is even a awful movie starring Tom Hank's about it.

Not a bad ruling, now we need to get the other side. Allow all speech and keep protections, but when you decide to block certain topics, now you're a publisher and liable.

Except Section 230 was specifically written to allow platforms to make moderation decisions without losing their liability protection.

It was included in the Communications Decency Act, which required platforms to take down certain types of content. Platforms pointed out that, under existing precedents, this would open them up to liability. Up until that point the accepted doctrine was what you suggest -- that platforms could either moderate nothing, or take responsibility for everything. Since the CDA effectively *required* moderation, this risked making it completely infeasible for platforms to have user-generated content at all. Section 230 was meant to remedy that.

TLDR; remove the Section 230 shield and platforms will have no choice but to stop distributing any user-supplied content and only publish their own curated stuff.

"now we need to get the other side. Allow all speech and keep protections, but when you decide to block certain topics, now you're a publisher and liable."

You do realize that, with something that stupid, the law would then say that everything at all would have to be posted to keep the protections. I.E. unless you keep up the terrorist beheading videos, you're liable. You would effectively prevent all public posting, including these forums, except for those places so extreme that they don't mind hosting literally anything, no matter how illegal, that someone decided to upload. That goes for the places you like as well. Maybe you're into some conspiracy theories and you're tired of those being moderated. Sorry, but if the sites that are keeping those up ban anything, be it even more extreme ones that you don't believe in or people disagreeing, they can now be sued for anything they keep up, meaning they're much less likely to decide to keep up the stuff you want to see or get away with it if they do.

Social media companies, are bars that open 24/7, have no bouncers, the fire escapes are locked, and they employ legally blind bar staff so they can use that as an excuse for serving drinks to kids in school uniform.

Then they claim no responsibility for the fights, deaths and people pissing on streets for miles around them.

It doesn't fly in meatspace , long past time that they have adequate bouncers and fire escapes, and if that puts them out of business, well that's what happens to bars and clubs too.

When I was at school (so late 80s), a local pub was quite happy to serve drinks to kids in school uniform. The guy's logic was "they are here enjoying some watered down beer and not god only knows where getting up to mischief". The local rozzers turned a blind eye so long as we (mostly) behaved because, well, the guy had a point. Plus being inexperienced children we were dumb enough to think that was real beer, though I usually asked for a tea because, ugh, beer tastes awful, and I'm one of those people who believes the only correct response to anything is to put the kettle on...

Yet another court inventing a section 230 exception.

The supreme court also said in various cases that it's free speech when a site or service picks what content they will allow...moderation, arguably a form of curation. So by this logic a site is liable if they moderate? A situation 230 was enacted to prevent (undoing the Prodigy decision).

The internet isn't safe kids and parents need to parent not use TikTok etc as a babysitter.

"The internet isn't safe kids and parents need to parent..."

So if a kid is unlucky enough to have bad parents then it's just tough shit and they deserve be left to mercy of every nasty nutter on the internet?

That's what CPS is for. A 10 year old left to browse TikTok unrestricted and unsupervised. If TikTok is liable for promoting the video the parents should be liable for negligence.

" then it's just tough shit and they deserve be left to mercy of every nasty nutter on the internet? "

Not so different to real life if a child decides to wander off and try taking themselves to look around a city. The child might come back with a load of new experiences. Or they might vanish and never be seen again.

In either case, as the above poster notes, there is surely an aspect of parental neglect in failing to, you know, parent .