Slashdot Mirror
Supreme Court Will Not Examine Tech Industry Legal Shield (reuters.com)
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.
Isn't it delightful how we're approaching this wonderful new era where things that were wrong and illegal in the real world have become profit centers and legally protected because they're now laced through an internet portal?
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.
expect kiddy pron on slashdot?
wtf
they could have ruled to NOT allow underage crap and yet allowed free speech,,,,i thinkz you all will have a hard time justifying sicko crap in name a free speech, or am i missing how degenerate this so called american tech industry is?
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.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
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 posts something that a jury considers child porn, but not liable for any other unlawful posts".
Torrent sites quickly come to mind...
Good.
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 one under 18 on them? Should the ad service have to judge on if an pic is legal or not?
And so long as sex offender charges are handed out for similarly ridiculous situations do you really think it is fair to have everyone who has been charged with such an offense branded a sex offender, posted in a publicly accessible online database, and as people in said database grouped categorically and viewed as "child molesters" by the general public.
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
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.
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"?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Of the two of you, only one (raymorris) has posted with a valid identity. Further, his post is not concealed or obfuscated in any way I can determine. Thus, 'talking behind others' backs' is not a valid allegation.
Of your two remaining complaints I can only ask this - what possible relevance to the current thread does this have? Also, how does your continuous use of ad hominem attacks add to or enhance conversation on the subject of the US Supreme Court's recent decision to not render an opinion or judgement in this case?
I have posted inappropriate things in the past, even here at Slashdot. I have also recanted of those errors and apologized as publicly as those offending posts were made. You still seem intent upon posting inappropriately here on Slashdot (sufficiently so to be banned, evidently). This is evidence that you haven't grown up. You should grow up, so that you can make a living in the IT industry. Hell, I'll bet you could even grow up to be a programmer someday . . . but you have to grow up first, something which the evidence here indicates is highly unlikely.
Is that why you can't sue me for libel (as you've often threatened to do)? I'd begun to wonder after I ensured that you have current and correct contact information with which to serve me a process or subpoena - now I'm beginning to suspect the reason for no libel suit is that you're a minor child and have no legal standing to bring suit of any sort. If psychiatric help is not available for whatever it is you have, perhaps maturing will correct the problem.
In closing, let me point out that Everyone Loves Raymond - but nobody loves a bloated, spray-painted orange mess that only knows how to be dishonest, antagonistic, bellicose and insulting. Until you learn this, please stick to Twitter.
Still, you've gotta admit: the kid has spunk. The only thing he ever talks about (when he's not insulting everyone he can) is a hostfile manager designed to simplify surfing the darknet; but when he grows up in a decade or so, he could well be one helluva code monkey.
These ladies are suing the phone company for not preventing the calls in the first place.
It's an outdated metaphor, but it does express the nub of the issue. Let us remember that the phone company isn't allowed to listen in on your phone calls; by its very nature, the web does not require or even make reasonable that condition. Web hosts should be so constrained, with social media only granting exceptions for correctly identified registered users. The metaphor breaks down here because telephone technology made privacy considerations the norm. The internet by its very design makes this not so.
I can rent a minute of airtime from ABC. I can sneak an ad full of pornography onto the air. As long as ABC can definitively point a finger at me, they should get a complete pass for any wrongdoing. The instant they admit "we don't know who this is, we just ran his ad" they should be held to take complete responsibility for the content of that ad. That'll teach them to either verify my identity completely or vet my ad completely before giving it air time. Web anonymity is a wonderful thing, but so far it seems to be doing society at large more harm than good.
What about kitty porn? :P
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
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.
Yes, they should. ... you are part of problem. :-)
If you are taking profit from illegal activity
The same rules and arguments should be used as in attack on torrent seed servers.
If Tech companies will be slapped with "fine bat" they of course can pass it along to Ad brokers "and ensure that their agreements have that option" ..
and "Ad brokers" of course can pass it down to the entity that submitted offending Ad.
This may also solve problem of malware injecting adds
Hit them where it hurts - straight into bottom line
"I don't shoot my mouth off without knowing what I'm talking about" - by raymorris (2726007) on Thursday December 31, 2015 @09:29AM (#51215379)
Raymorris you shoot your mouth off f'ing up in 2 security fuckups https://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47379233/ & https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5351503&cid=47374033/ + raymorris = scriptkiddie https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8895203&cid=51726265/
&
Tell us how ONLY 'newer script kiddie tools' have stringlength built in (when PASCAL had it for ages - my fav tool) https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8472509&cid=51114383/ YOU BLUNDERING WANNABE!
APK
P.S.=> You like to talk behind others' backs like the gossiping bitch TROLL you are raymorris https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=9880997&cid=53312265/ well, here I am letting YOU TALK in those links, showing your FAILS wannabe ... apk
So Backpage won three times but changed their policies to kill the ads anyway.
Considering that copyright is an illegitimate, unjustified codification of the right to dominate and oppress another's human rights in the first place, it's funny that you still direct your scorn at the one moral source of obtaining content left. (Piracy.)