Tag Archives | communications decency act

Thanks again for the great responses in comments.  I’ve learned a lot about how people think about the Internet of 2010 and whether it fits the “Wild West 2.0” model.

On Monday, we discussed why the Internet of 2010 resembles the closing of the Wild West frontier.  On Tuesday, we talked about whether CDA 230 is appropriate for the Internet of 2010.  Yesterday, we talked about why CDA 230 is a subsidy to online libel.

Today, I want to present some ideas to preserve the best parts of anonymous free expression, while fixing the subsidy that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gives to libelous speech.  I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Online Anonymous Speech is a Good Thing

Anonymous online speech can be powerful and beneficial.  You are free to leave anonymous or pseudonymous comments on this site, which encourages free discussion of political issues.  Protesters in Iran can spread ideas, corporate whistleblowers can speak out, and the government is deterred from at least one form of intrusion into personal life.  On a personal level, you can explore your identity, research controversial causes or issues, or just vent frustration.  All of these are good things and worthy of preservation.

But in the offline world there is also accountability for anonymous speech that is libelous or invasive of privacy.  By taking control of the media away from The New York Times and putting it in the hands of individual bloggers, the Internet have empowered free expression and opinion, but also empowered hundreds of millions of people to anonymously libel each other and invade each others’ privacy.

Updating the Assumptions Underlying CDA 230

CDA 230 was based on a number of guesses about how the Internet of the then-future would work.  We’ve had almost fifteen years to [...]

In the early Internet, it was impossible to find isolated references to people, places, and things.   Many users navigated using directories like the original Yahoo, and early search tools like Gopher (structured documents) and Archie (FTP) were limited .

The search engines changed everything.  Starting with Lycos and AltaVista, information was freed from obscurity.  Suddenly, no matter where on the Internet your name might be mentioned, a search engine could find it.

On Monday, we discussed why the Internet is a new frontier.  On Tuesday ,we questioned whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 still fits the Internet of 2010.  Today, I’ll explain how the rise of search engines since 1996 has changed reputation and privacy, and why CDA 230 subsidizes libel by preventing speakers and facilitators from internalizing the costs of their actions.

Google Has Changed How Information is Consumed

I don’t think Google is evil.

But Google is far from perfect.  Google creates the illusion that just ten search results reflect some meaningful judgment on a person’s life.  For example, the top five Google search results for any search term get 88% of the clicks.  The over-attention given to the first few Google results is partly user error, but it’s also a form of rational ignorance on the part of searchers: Google gives good enough results most of the time, so there is little incentive to look deeper.

The attention given to the first few Google results would be fine if Google always provided accurate, balanced, and relevant information.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t.  Google has no way to measure whether websites contain information that is true, fair, or proportionate.  Instead, Google uses rough heuristics—most notably the number of links to a page—to try to calculate a page’s popularity.  Popularity substitutes for relevancy, often [...]