this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024
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I really don’t like cases like this, nor do I like how much the legal system seems to be pushing “guilty by proxy” rulings for a lot of school shooting cases.
It just feels very very very dangerous and ’going to be bad’ to set this precedent where when someone commits an atrocity, essentially every person and thing they interacted with can be held accountable with nearly the same weight as if they had committed the crime themselves.
Obviously some basic civil responsibility is needed. If someone says “I am going to blow up XYZ school here is how”, and you hear that, yeah, that’s on you to report it. But it feels like we’re quickly slipping into a point where you have to start reporting a vast amount of people to the police en masse if they say anything even vaguely questionable simply to avoid potential fallout of being associated with someone committing a crime.
It makes me really worried. I really think the internet has made it easy to be able to ‘justifiably’ accuse almost anyone or any business of a crime if a person with enough power / the state needs them put away for a time.
I think the design of media products around maximally addictive individually targeted algorithms in combination with content the platform does not control and isn't responsible for is dangerous. Such an algorithm will find the people most susceptible to everything from racist conspiracy theories to eating disorder content and show them more of that. Attempts to moderate away the worst examples of it just result in people making variations that don't technically violate the rules.
With that said, laws made and legal precedents set in response to tragedies are often ill-considered, and I don't like this case. I especially don't like that it includes Reddit, which was not using that type of individualized algorithm to my knowledge.
The problem then becomes if the clearly defined rules aren't enough, then the people that run these sites need to start making individual judgment calls based on...well, their gut, really. And that creates a lot of issues if the site in question could be held accountable for making a poor call or overlooking something.
The threat of legal repercussions hanging over them is going to make them default to the most strict actions, and that's kind of a problem if there isn't a clear definition of what things need to be actioned against.
this is exactly why section 230 exists. sites aren't responsible for what other people post and they are allowed to moderate however they want.