John Battelle, of the New Company Shift Forum, hosts a forum between Cindy Cohn
(EFF), Carol Christ (UC Berkeley), and Nellie Bowles of the New York Times, on
the First Amendment, “A Magic Shield that Lets You Be an A’Hole” with the curious
byline, “Now that digital platforms drive physical conseqeunces, what does free
speech mean anymore?”
The forum explains that the First Amendment controls
government, but not private corporate censorship, or how platforms want to
monitor users.
Cindy sums it up: “The Internet of the 1990s was about
choosing your own adventure. The
Internet right now over the last 10 years is about somebody else choosing that
adventure for you.”
Cindy also explains the harm of FOSTA, how it could apply
even to a small site that accidentally allows an ad for sex trafficking slip
through, even in a comment. FOSTA, she
says, will make it too risky for individuals or small companies to do startsups
that allow users to input content, because there is no way to know in advance
what might include sex trafficking – and she seems to feel that Congress
believes that sacrifice from everyone is OK to protect vulnerable teenagers – except
that it won’t work.
I don’t accept comments now with unresolvable or
suspicious links that I can’t check. But
the volume of the issue for me is very low.
But what about people hosting me?
How could they know in advance what I (or anyone) could post?
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