Showing posts with label immunity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label immunity. Show all posts

Friday, December 3, 2021

Congress Takes Aim at the Algorithms; Wired, December 2, 2021

 Gilad Edelman, Wired; Congress Takes Aim at the Algorithms


"“I agree in principle that there should be liability, but I don’t think we’ve found the right set of terms to describe the processes we’re concerned about,” said Jonathan Stray, a visiting scholar at the Berkeley Center for Human-Compatible AI who studies recommendation algorithms. “What’s amplification, what’s enhancement, what’s personalization, what’s recommendation?”...

[Mary Anne] Franks proposes something both simpler and more sweeping: that Section 230 not apply to any company that “manifests deliberate indifference to unlawful material or conduct.” Her collaborator Danielle Citron has argued that companies should have to prove they took reasonable steps to prevent a certain type of harm before being granted immunity. If something like that became law, engagement-based algorithms wouldn’t go away—but the change could still be significant. The Facebook Papers revealed by Haugen, for example, show that Facebook very recently had little or no content-moderation infrastructurein regions like the Middle East and Africa, where hundreds of millions of its users live. Currently Section 230 largely protects US companies even in foreign markets. But imagine if someone defamed or targeted for harassment by an Instagram post in Afghanistan, where as of 2020 Facebook hadn’t even fully translated its forms for reporting hate speech, could sue under an “indifference” standard. The company would suddenly have a much stronger incentive to make sure its algorithms aren’t favoring material that could land it in court."

Saturday, October 17, 2015

Tech giants warn cybersecurity bill could undermine users' privacy; Guardian, 10/15/15

Sam Thielman, Guardian; Tech giants warn cybersecurity bill could undermine users' privacy:
"Some of the biggest names in tech including Google, Yahoo, Facebook and T-Mobile have come out against a controversial cybersecurity bill, arguing that it fails to protect users’ privacy and could cause “collateral harm” to “innocent third parties”.
In an open letter published on Thursday the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade group representing those and several other major tech firms including eBay and RedHat, came out staunchly against the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (Cisa).
The bill, which has bipartisan support, would, among other things, allow companies to share users’ personal information with the US government in exchange for immunity from regulators and the Freedom of Information Act. It will receive a Senate vote later this month."