Slashdot Mirror
Yahoo Censoring Their Message Boards?
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.
A lot of people don't quite seem to get it...
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.
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
"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.
This sig is false.
Yahoo would be better off not censoring anything, because if they do, somebody is very likely to find them liable for something they did not censor.
If they know what is good for them, they will be perfectly neutral about it and stay away from actively censoring their site.
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
Let's see its their computers, they should be able to delete whatever they want for whatever reason they want. What's the big deal?
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
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"
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.
--
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
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
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.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Slashdot has moderators. So is slashdot responsible for spreading lies and slander should it appear?
/. forums could be said to have common carrier status. /. moderation is different from other forms, in that no posts are actually removed. Posts are assigned numbers or ranks to determine worth. Each user then can filter according to this worth. So, /. doesn't do any censoring at all, really.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: No, because the
---
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Slashdot should not remove any posts until and unless they receive a court order... if they remove posts voluntarily, then they become responsible for monitoring slashdot's boards. If they remove posts when 'brought to their attention' then they become responsible to everyone who sends an e-mail flame complaining about a post here.
:) But without having talked to a lawyer, I think defending common-carrier defense is more important than just about any other issue.
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
--Parity
'Card carrying' member of the EFF.
You are correct about the first two classications; however, there is a third one: Distributor (eg: book store). Most internet services would have fallen in the distributor classification before 1996. In other words, like a bookstore, they have no responsibility for the content; unless they were put on notice that a particular book is not kosher. It got complicated in that, if an ISP (such as AOL (et. al)) claimed to first review/edit content before it would made available for the general public, they could be held responsible in theory. Thus most ISPs, took a hands off approach.
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.
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
A couple of years ago, I worked for a website
/.-style moderation of such hell-beasts works,
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?
1) Moderating the offending post up to #5.
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.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
I didn't say you weren't free to dislike it. YOu must have misread my post.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
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
- In Capitalist America, law violates YOU!
from the "banning" link above...
"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.
+&x
If Yahoo removes comments they feel are inflammatory, where can one possibly draw the line? Censorship in it's fullest form, selecting individual opinions and removing them from public exposure. I don't know the specifics of this message, but if I use a public website as a facilitator for one-to-one interaction, I respectfully demand that such interfaces are allowed to transpire unmolested. So Rob and Co., leave all our idiotic ramblings and flamebait up for all the world to see, 'cause that's why we put 'em there.
+&x
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.
I posted this without clicking on the "No Score+1 bonus" or the "Post Anonymously" buttons, but it posted anonymously anyway. I think there's a Slash.pm problem here.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Let's see its their computers, they should be able to delete whatever they want for whatever reason they want. What's the big deal?
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
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
I think everyone is missing an interesting point here. Is Yahoo, by reviewing and deleteing messages setting themselves up to be legally responsible for every message they don't review? Are they on the verge of surrendering thier common carrier status?
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