Brazil's Supreme Court makes social media liable for user content

Occupying the government buildings is essentially the standard brazilian protest. It's happened many times before and will happen again. This "storming" amounted to little more than a protest.

If only that had been enough to fix things. I watched those judges censor political speech as "fake news" throughout the entire 2022 election. Then they showboated in public about how they had been personally responsible for the former president's defeat.

I have no idea how Brazil courts work. In the US the supreme court often has 200 page opinion full of high-IQ hot air, which all sound very nice and nuanced. But in practice they know damn well what they're really doing is a long wink and a nod and then they just deny cert anytime the lower courts do their real bidding because they know everything they wrote was bullshit and they don't want to have to hold themselves to it, the point was just to keep up appearances while rolling out the red carpet.

> By that logic, the USA also wants to become like China.

Yes it (or at least the presently ruling faction) absolutely wants that substantively, but with a White Christian nationalist rather than Communist rhetorical focus.

Not really the kind of “by that logic...” that is useful for rebutting the argument it targets.

He's a bit of a tyrant himself, isn't he? It's alarming but I suppose it's not surprising. Haven't seen him defend censorship yet though.

> Here's a clear sign of a typical "Bozotário" paranoia

Nobody mentioned Bolsonaro. He's history.

> And since you found that in your WhatsApp group then it has to be true.

You don't have to take it from me. Here's a top Google search result:

https://www.terra.com.br/noticias/brasil/politica/somos-admi...

"We are admirers of the chinese regime."

Take it up with whoever wrote that article if you disagree. Either way, refrain from replying to my comments in the future. I really have no inclination to engage with sarcastic "WhatsApp uncle" arguments.

Any after the fact investigation and due process in courts of law. It will depend on the specifics of each case: libel, incitement to violence, etc.

That's how it works for books, magazines, newspapers. That's why they have legal advisors to define the boundaries of what and how they can publish.

>If some streaker runs naked across the field, are the stations held to account?

If they made no reasonable attempts to move the camera away or cut the feed to something else, yes absolutely they are held accountable. That's why you have TV directors in the studio. Do you think you can get away with lengthy broadcasting of obscene nudity just because you're live?

Have you seen major sporting events like F1? Their broadcasting rooms look like NASA, dozens of people looking as several camera feeds simultaneously and picking the best one. They'll definitely see a naked man running on the field with his junk out in due time and not share that feed. I assume it's the same for FIFA, NFL, NBA, NHL, Golf, Tennis, Cricket and any other major sporting event.

"Algorithmic boosting" is not (always?) the same as an editorial slant. Promoting the post with the longest title would be an "algorithmic boost", but clearly not editorial in any way. The most common forms of algorithms are just a function of the number of times people viewed it weighted against the age of the post; there is still no editorial slant there. Even recommendations algorithms like YouTube are mostly the same, with an additional weight based on how likely others who watched the same things as you were to view that video.

Think about how this would apply to hacker news? Not all algorithmic bias is evil. If you want to avoid an echo chamber, design an algorithm to boost interesting content that missed the front page. That shouldn't render you vulnerable to legislation.

And would this allow Brazil to prosecute hacker news for cyber security violations if a user posts content regarding Flipper Zero or Japanese IC cards, or data breaches of Brazilian companies...

I think the line should be drawn at ads... and maybe even all profit centers of social media companies.

Depends on what you mean by "algorithmic boosting".

If you mean, "this user viewed A, B, and C. Other users who viewed them also viewed D; let's show D to this user", then no, that's not an editorial slant or an editorial choice. That's an unbiased algorithm driven by users' choices.

If you mean, "Let's identify posts that are related to position Y on subject Z, and boost them extra", then yes, I agree that is an editorial slant.

My impression is that, when people talk about "editorial control", they usually include the first kind, not just the second.

So: How much of the second kind is going on? More than none, I agree, but how much? Does anyone have data? If not, then we're left with impressions, and my impression is that it's fairly small. (Rather, that it's a quite small number of topics, but since it's probably fairly popular topics it may still amount to a fair number of user impressions.)

>as its content is user generated

Content on TV stations is also mostly third party generated. Channel 5 didn't make The Punisher, they bought the rights to play it on air. Radio 2 didn't make In da Club, but 50 Cent did, they're just playing it on air. Newspapers also publish letters and content from readers, yet unlike social media they're the ones responsible for that content.

Because in many countries, content is age restricted per times of day, so the TV and radio statins need to edit the songs and movies they play to cut out various swear words, violence and sex scenes if they want to air to to general audiences, otherwise they get fined.

So why are social media companies allowed to wreak havok?

Yep, just another reason they should be held liable the same as everybody else.

yes, that's how the law works, social media platforms can't show nazi content in germany cos that's the law there. they're perfectly fine doing it.

Yes, I am saying that platforms should be policed to such an extent that they remove and ban all illegal content within a reasonable timeframe. And in the case of something like child porn, knowingly failing to do so quickly should lead to a lot of people going to jail (I think a lot of tech executives and employees belong in jail).

I don't find this to be too much to ask. Every other platform has to do this. The only reason you have a bunch of ridiculously wealthy anti-social people rampaging across the world "disrupting" whatever they see fit is because we decided the rules arbitrarily should't apply to them because of some wide eyed and ridiculous utopian bullshit how "the internet is for free love and knowledge mannnn, and it should be like, freeee brooo". I'm not even slightly sympathetic to that argument and I don't think the Internet has proven to be valuable enough either culturally or productivity wise to justify even the slightest loosening of the rules that apply elsewhere. The whole thing starts to look like a rent seeking scam that was used to destroy a lot of higher quality information resources and businesses if you squint at it for even a second.

Your position is clear: if responsible governments (lol) punish platforms for what commoners post on them, platforms wishing to survive will, sensibly, not allow commoners to post. Moderation is not enough, as unapproved things will always make it through the cracks.

The deep distrust of unmoderated, un-nannied communication is also apparent:

>The "but it is only transportation of information, like telephones"

>argument is just ridiculous. It is valid for email at best,

>it is not valid for social media. They already routinely practice

>filtering of what is posted.

The at best you use to describe the freedom of communication in email shows that your position has no bottom: everything and anything the masses express, even in private communications, must be policed. You also do not understand that freedom of speech in the US is not moderated or regulated by the government, and is something enjoyed by the people, not just interest or power groups, which adds to the authoritarian vibe of your post.

It is the end result if you expect the same level of liability as a newspaper or magazine. Every single thing you see in one of those was deliberately put there by a person (well... at least it used to be). If an agent of the print publication deliberately put something in the publication, then the liability falls on the publication and/or that person.

Social media is not the same. The content being posted is not vetted by any agent of the platform, so the liability at least in part falls of the person who posted it. You could argue that the platform should share some liability that is waved as long as they at least try "hard enough" to police their platform, with whatever definition of "hard enough" is chosen. But no automated filter will be perfect, so if you demand the same level of liability as a print publication you are effectively outlawing social media entirely.