The TOU
or
Whatitis
Does anyone remember Google's "don't be evil" code of conduct?
Officially it is no longer part of the code but we all knew it was there. It had a reason.
Somewhere in the nineties, as Windows NT replaced VAX VMS, we all got packetized.
Our data got backed up, we all got benchmarked and we appeared on the new "websites"
The battles started immediately AltaVista got mimicked by AstaLaVista, wares fought with warez.
The new "websites" developed TOUs, familiar today, at minimum they all include the word harass and post.
So now we have people's minds that can harass other minds using "posts" on "websites".
The TOU's developed further, you could be suspended or banned, your right "post" was taken away.
But it didn't matter did it, you could go to Investor's Hub and "post".
These new tools were great for defrauding people, the "posts" worked well.
None of these new things, posts or websites or hosts or blogs or SI were expected in common law.
You cannot deal with this stuff until it actually appears and it is always sort of like something else.
Defamation law cases erupted with the Internet, it was linked to the past but it was "new" and different.
The "websites" were "hosts" for "posts", their living room but the people in there were adult visitors.
Section 230 established a simple set of rules, within the law, for the new "websites" and "posts" and "hosts".
The law is simplicity in itself, you are responsible for your "posts" on all "websites", not the "hosts".
Websites themselves are simply information capitalism writ large.
Some people who liked "posts" really liked Short Stories, 50 Words or Less and thought, that could fly.
You may not accept that Twitter started right there in some sub-basement program of the new mind but I do.
It would be another decade before it actually appeared but it was here first, and it did fly.
Almost every "website" started with some basic building block of the new mind somewhere like here.
Google was synchronous with the birth of the new mind, these blooms were the earliest flowers of "woke".
The flowers came from stalks like DARPA, ARPANET, UUNET which came from seeds of antiquity.
I like to think that perhaps the seeds came from WWII and Turing, perhaps Babbage or Lady Lovelace.
In any case, few places can actually do anything with the early blocks and the oldest patterns.
On SI it is different, we still have access to the relevant tools and the magazines of early crudes and basics.
Our opinions here can matter, we are still principal ushers in the theater and will be until we die.
Trying to circumvent the TOU by dragging down alternate accounts was worse than breaking the TOU.
The focus in law today is developing the tools to inform the "website" "hosts" about "posts".
Website owners who then fail to act to remove flagged content may become liable for the content.
All may also run the risk of being "banned" because they have abrogated a TOU with a "host" (Parler).
This activity of policing "posts" has really begun to change, it is being done by algorithms today.
This is required, we create a lot of new daily data, only AI's will be able to manage the flow.
In a few years humans will be suing AIs for being suspended or banned, AI's will need lawyers.
What won't happen is a major shift in the way things work, even if immature people demand it.
America doesn't need a new law to replace Section 230, they need responsible adults in the living room. |
