Has Section 230 Created a 'Vast Web of Vengeance'? (nytimes.com) 136
Slashdot reader GatorSnake shares "Another take of the implications of Section 230... One person poisoned the online personas of multiple people who had 'wronged' her, with it being nearly impossible to have the false accusations removed from the sites or from Google's search results."
The New York Times reports: Mr. Babcock, a software engineer, got off the phone and Googled himself. The results were full of posts on strange sites accusing him of being a thief, a fraudster and a pedophile. The posts listed Mr. Babcock's contact details and employer. The images were the worst: photos taken from his LinkedIn and Facebook pages that had "pedophile" written across them in red type. Someone had posted the doctored images on Pinterest, and Google's algorithms apparently liked things from Pinterest, and so the pictures were positioned at the very top of the Google results for "Guy Babcock."
Mr. Babcock, 59, was not a thief, a fraudster or a pedophile. "I remember being in complete shock," he said. "Why would someone do this? Who could it possibly be? Who would be so angry?" Then he Googled his brother's name. The results were just as bad. He tried his wife. His sister. His brother-in-law. His teenage nephew. His cousin. His aunt. They had all been hit. The men were branded as child molesters and pedophiles, the women as thieves and scammers...
Ripoff Report offered "arbitration services," which cost up to $2,000, to get rid of "substantially false" information. That sounded like extortion; Mr. Babcock wasn't about to pay to have lies removed... Ripoff Report is one of hundreds of "complaint sites" — others include She's a Homewrecker, Cheaterbot and Deadbeats Exposed — that let people anonymously expose an unreliable handyman, a cheating ex, a sexual predator. But there is no fact-checking. The sites often charge money to take down posts, even defamatory ones. And there is limited accountability. Ripoff Report, like the others, notes on its site that, thanks to Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, it isn't responsible for what its users post.
"If someone posts false information about you on the Ripoff Report, the CDA prohibits you from holding us liable for the statements which others have written. You can always sue the author if you want, but you can't sue Ripoff Report just because we provide a forum for speech...."
The Times found over 100 so-called "complaint" sites with more defamatory posts — Babcock's brother-in-law calculates there've been 12,000 made by the same person. The Times ultimately attributes the posts to a disgruntled employee fired by Mr. Babcock's father — in the year 1993 — who was now using a computer in a public library at the University of Toronto.
"Under U.S. law, a foreign court generally can't force an American website to remove content..." the Times notes, leaving few options for the victims they'd interviewed. "Victims spent years begging Google, Pinterest and WordPress to take down the slanderous posts or at least make them harder to find. The companies rarely did so, until I contacted them to request comment for this article. Pinterest then removed photos... Automattic, which owns WordPress, deleted her blogs."
But not Google Images.
The New York Times reports: Mr. Babcock, a software engineer, got off the phone and Googled himself. The results were full of posts on strange sites accusing him of being a thief, a fraudster and a pedophile. The posts listed Mr. Babcock's contact details and employer. The images were the worst: photos taken from his LinkedIn and Facebook pages that had "pedophile" written across them in red type. Someone had posted the doctored images on Pinterest, and Google's algorithms apparently liked things from Pinterest, and so the pictures were positioned at the very top of the Google results for "Guy Babcock."
Mr. Babcock, 59, was not a thief, a fraudster or a pedophile. "I remember being in complete shock," he said. "Why would someone do this? Who could it possibly be? Who would be so angry?" Then he Googled his brother's name. The results were just as bad. He tried his wife. His sister. His brother-in-law. His teenage nephew. His cousin. His aunt. They had all been hit. The men were branded as child molesters and pedophiles, the women as thieves and scammers...
Ripoff Report offered "arbitration services," which cost up to $2,000, to get rid of "substantially false" information. That sounded like extortion; Mr. Babcock wasn't about to pay to have lies removed... Ripoff Report is one of hundreds of "complaint sites" — others include She's a Homewrecker, Cheaterbot and Deadbeats Exposed — that let people anonymously expose an unreliable handyman, a cheating ex, a sexual predator. But there is no fact-checking. The sites often charge money to take down posts, even defamatory ones. And there is limited accountability. Ripoff Report, like the others, notes on its site that, thanks to Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act, it isn't responsible for what its users post.
"If someone posts false information about you on the Ripoff Report, the CDA prohibits you from holding us liable for the statements which others have written. You can always sue the author if you want, but you can't sue Ripoff Report just because we provide a forum for speech...."
The Times found over 100 so-called "complaint" sites with more defamatory posts — Babcock's brother-in-law calculates there've been 12,000 made by the same person. The Times ultimately attributes the posts to a disgruntled employee fired by Mr. Babcock's father — in the year 1993 — who was now using a computer in a public library at the University of Toronto.
"Under U.S. law, a foreign court generally can't force an American website to remove content..." the Times notes, leaving few options for the victims they'd interviewed. "Victims spent years begging Google, Pinterest and WordPress to take down the slanderous posts or at least make them harder to find. The companies rarely did so, until I contacted them to request comment for this article. Pinterest then removed photos... Automattic, which owns WordPress, deleted her blogs."
But not Google Images.
No. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:No. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes it has, and the only surprising thing is that it's taken so long for the mainstream press to notice. One of the consequences of Section 230 as interpreted by the US courts is that it's impossible to get content removed from sites like Ripoff Report except by paying them money, no matter how defamatory and false - they won't remove it otherwise and Section 230 makes it impossible to get any kind of court injunction forcing them to do so. An entire industry of sites has sprung up that takes advantage of this by hosting reputation and career-destroying smears against people and businesses, getting them ranked highly in Google results, and then charging the victims money to remove them. I know Ripoff Report in particular brags about the fact that everyone who tried to get defamatory content removed through the courts rather than by paying them failed.
Re:No. (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the consequences of Section 230 as interpreted by the US courts is that it's impossible to get content removed from sites like Ripoff Report except by paying them money, no matter how defamatory and false - they won't remove it otherwise and Section 230 makes it impossible to get any kind of court injunction forcing them to do so.
Sure, that's why this [chicagotribune.com] didn't happen.
Oh wait...
There's also bunch of cases [wikipedia.org] where people did sue, and were successful in that the web sites took down the content.
There's a reason Ripoff Report is bragging about court failures. They really do not want anyone to actually try it. Their actual record [wikipedia.org] is not nearly as positive as they imply. They currently reside in the grey area where it's cheaper to pay the extortion than to sue.
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It's pretty shitty that someone has to have the money to get a lawyer and sue to get stuff removed though.
Would be good if there was an easier, cheaper and faster way.
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Would be good if there was an easier, cheaper and faster way.
I mean yes, but the flip side to that argument is: do you really want every random crank on the internet to be able to quickly, easily and cheaply censor every little thing they don't like?
IMHO there needs to be a balance struck. One could certainly argue that we've swung to far in one direction or the other, but I think we need to be careful we don't have a knee jerk over correction.
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I was thinking more like a small claims court. Low cost, no lawyers, could do it all remotely.
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I think the way Mugshots.com screwed up is that the site owners posted the information to the website themselves. Section 230 only protects the site owner from being treated as the author of posts and all the legal consequences that come with that if they did not, in fact, author the posts. The successful sites are the ones which got this right.
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Well clearly section 230 is clearly broken because it does no differentiate between opinion and claims of fact. Between using pseudonyms and using real peoples names and identities.
Clearly you want things to improve section 230 needs to be either changed or removed. Publishers should be fully legally liable for the content they publish. Publisher online should clearly differentiate between statements of opinion and statements of fact, and whether they are an opinion only web site or claim to publish facts (
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Scam sites like Ripoff Report is one part of the problem but Google and other search engines are equally to blame. Scam sites like that depend on Google giving them (unfair) high rankings. I'd never go to such a site to search for a job candidate but I might Goggle him/her.
The problem is not necessarily the content but the signal boosting effect Google/Facebook/Youtube etc has. I wouldn't go to a known scam site to search for a job applicant but I might Google him/her and find results from the scam site. Sa
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Maybe you just need to readjust what you think of "reputable" sites like Google / Facebook / Youtube. They are no more reputable than the websites they link to or the users using them are, which is to say, not reputable at all.
If you want facts, go to Encyclopedia Britannica or any of the well-known scientific journals. If you want to know if someone has committed a crime, your local government has court records available. If you want to know if someone is nice to work with, go talk to the people they worke
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I prefer this one: Bob's Quick Guide to Its and It's, You Idiots [angryflower.com]
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The more people see bad grammar, the more they copy it. People are not trying to correct others for the fun of it or to shame people, it's to stop the propagation of bad grammar.
Opinions at 11 (Score:2)
"Under U.S. law, a foreign court generally can't force an American website to remove content..." the Times notes, leaving few options for the victims they'd interviewed.
American news website says something bad about foreign leader. Foreign court says "remove that".
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Then American news website says "go pound sand". Foreign leader tries to have the foreign judgment enforced by a US court. Court tells foreign leader to go pound sand, citing the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] .
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No, they go and cry to their governments who demand it's changed or they'll deny them money. See: China.
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That's not forcing them. That's getting them to sell out on their principles and facts, which seems astonishingly easy for companies who make such a big deal about integrity and truth.
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'International Law' only means something when all countries involved agree that it does.
In my example the U.S. State Department would shrug and tell Malaysia 'no, we aren't doing that' -- and maybe tell me 'never travel to M
Coming soon to this thread (Score:3)
A bunch of people who firmly believe things that are not true, and are very upset that other people are able to say those things are not true.
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A bunch of people who firmly believe things that are not true, and are very upset that other people are able to say those things are not true.
Are we still talking about Slashdot here, or every online forum populated by humans everywhere...
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Not just every online forum, but especially Slashdot. And game consoles forums. And political forums. And religious forums. And cars forums. And... yeah okay, I see it now.
As Douglas Adams wrote: "To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
Rip off report isn't protected by S230 (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, there are a lot of these sites. They are breaking the law. Getting rid of S230 won't get rid of crime. It will get rid of free speech on the Internet though.
This is a rather nasty "Think Of The Children" attack on S230. The wealthy asshats who run our media are trying to kill it so they can exert control over the Internet like they did with Cable TV. Expect a lot of these kind of stories in the coming months. Don't fall for them, you're being manipulated. You should be angry that they think you're dumb enough to fall for this crap. I know I am.
Re:Rip off report isn't protected by S230 (Score:4, Informative)
For every guy like in OP, there's 1000 people that random psychos on Twitter decided to "cancel" for a perceived slight.
Random guy on Twitter isn't the problem (Score:2)
That said it doesn't need to be banned, it's already very, very illegal. Removing Section 230 won't effect how the extortionists operate because they're already breaking the law.
Most of these extortionists make money because background checks include google searches now. If you want to make this business model go away y
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Most of these extortionists make money because background checks include google searches now. If you want to make this business model go away you'd be better off limiting what a background check can do.
Or you could enforce the law. And you could sue the social media company in addition to the extorting company on the grounds that they are profiting from a crime. A few of these class action lawsuits would probably make social media companies do something to fight this and that would also help. Also, since social media companies have deep pockets, there is the possibility of a nice settlement too.
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> It will get rid of free speech on the Internet though.
No, it'll get rid of free speech on websites that moderate content, those that don't moderate won't be responsible for user content.
Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc.
Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.
Re:Rip off report isn't protected by S230 (Score:4, Interesting)
Both of those court decisions were before the Communications Decency Act was passed.
Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. -> 1991
Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. -> 1995
Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And you can not state it will only hurt websites moderating but not those that do not moderate because there has been no legislative language shared yet suggesting how it will be changed, so you can not possible know.
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> Both of those court decisions were before the Communications Decency Act was passed.
Okay?
> so you can not possible know.
I'm from the future.
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What's the value of Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Digibyte, Monero and Ripple in the future? Is Bill Gates still in one of his bunkers? Is Elon Musk a cyborg yet? Did Amazon drone delivery ever take off? (pun intended)
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Dogecoin takes off much gold, everything else crashes from the second great depression. I've heard Bill sends his clones out for occasional long-pig. I think Elon was eaten by a car, not sure; don't pay much attention. Amazon used the drones to take over California, declared Independence and caused the aforementioned depression.
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Yes, that's true about the second great depression;
Until the one point five attack force started it's EMP war.
Leaving the warehouses full with manual workers again,
the robot's could not fight back.
We then launched the RainBow laser satellite system to
make sure the LGBT movement could strike anywhere on
the planet. ( it's known as the gay laser conversion system )
Causing all nations to bow down to California suppression
system or be struck with fashion sense and shortage of
gin, vodka and shaving equipment.
We n
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Oh, an alternate dimension naysayer, I thought all of you were wiped out during the Celine Dion Swarm of '42 (lest we forget the fallen).
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the fallen are not forgotten
the motto "You're the one who held me up"
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That is incorrect (Score:2)
Nobody is talking about allowing an "anything goes" approach. Variants of common carrier that you're dreaming of aren't on the table. Every proposal just expands the liability websites have without limit.
But let's imagine for a moment you could somehow get politicians to do what you're asking. Zero moderation (including user moderation, aka "Shadow Bans" if we're going to use your terminology). I can shit post on your forums
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Zero moderation (including user moderation, aka "Shadow Bans" if we're going to use your terminology). I can shit post on your forums until they're nothing but noise. Discussion becomes impossible. And you can't ban my accounts because that would trigger liability.
Why would user moderation be affected? As a reader I have every right to not read your posts. And I can decide whose posts to read based on what other users have told me. The site can provide me that information, as well as a search function that only shows me posts I want to see. It doesn't even have to be a site-wide rating. There could be different moderator groups that provide filters for various things people dislike. I might subscribe to an anti-spam one that only filters spam posts, but not the vegan
Do not index me list (Score:2, Flamebait)
The problem of public shaming doesn't have a clear cut solution, and banning those kinds of predatory shaming companies absolutely won't stop it. Something else needs to be done, like maybe creating a "do not index me" register where people can sign up to be excluded from search results on all law a
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An example of knock-on effect.
https://www.merriam-webster.co... [merriam-webster.com]
Who knew that widely available technology would allow people to both say whatever they want and hide from any accountability?
In tribal days if someone said something bad about another. People not only knew who the accuser* was, but the accused could face them, usually in a medium of arbitration. It wasn't perfect, but then justice rarely is. But it was there. We don't have that anymore. Best we can do is statistical justice adding up the tallys,
Go after the poster (Score:3)
47 USC 230 protects intermediaries (who have no practical way of determining the truthfulness of posts or keeping up with the volume of them), but not the person who ultimately says or writes something defamatory. If Alice is getting defamed by Bob, who keeps posting on Carol's forum, Alice needs to sue Bob directly.
Re:Go after the poster (Score:5, Insightful)
47 USC 230 protects intermediaries (who have no practical way of determining the truthfulness of posts or keeping up with the volume of them), but not the person who ultimately says or writes something defamatory. If Alice is getting defamed by Bob, who keeps posting on Carol's forum, Alice needs to sue Bob directly.
Uh, no. In a word? Jurisdiction.
I wish Alice the best of luck when entire defamatory industries start operating out of CantTouchistan.
As a result, Alice will be forced to target Carol instead.
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Can you describe where CantTouchistan is? As it isn't the USA, it doesn't have section 230, but it might have something comparable. Or might not.
And to that end, if Bob is posting on a blog out of CantTouchistan, how does that change the situation from today? Live by Jurisdiction, die by Jurisdiction.
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Can you describe where CantTouchistan is? As it isn't the USA, it doesn't have section 230, but it might have something comparable. Or might not.
Since it's an obviously fictional place, let's pretend for a moment it's the principality of Sealand (reminds me of the HavenCo days there). Nothing like S230 there. At all.
And to that end, if Bob is posting on a blog out of CantTouchistan, how does that change the situation from today?
It doesn't, which was my entire point. The OP was essentially arguing that something like 47 USC 230 could be applied no matter what. I retorted with the obvious; websites will simply move hosting outside of that legal reach, making the argument moot.
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That doesn't help when Carol's forum (or in this case sites like Ripoff Report) don't allow the original poster to remove things. If they won't remove the defamatory stuff posted by Bob, then suing him does nothing to end the harm caused by it, and Section 230 makes it impossible to get an injunction to force the sites to remove it. Naturally, the websites with business models revolving around charging to remove defamatory content understand this and don't allow the original posters to remove it, leaving th
Re:Go after the poster (Score:4, Interesting)
and Section 230 makes it impossible to get an injunction to force the sites to remove it
As long as you ignore the actual injunctions against Ripoff Report.
Also, you might have forgotten, but the people behind Mugshots.com are in jail awaiting trial. Section 230 doesn't make extortion legal.
Re:Go after the poster (Score:4, Insightful)
47 USC 230 protects intermediaries (who have no practical way of determining the truthfulness of posts or keeping up with the volume of them), but not the person who ultimately says or writes something defamatory. If Alice is getting defamed by Bob, who keeps posting on Carol's forum, Alice needs to sue Bob directly.
This would only work if Alice knew Bob's identity. Are you suggesting then that online forums should not be allowed to allow anonymous users? What kind of verification would these platforms be required to perform? What would be the impact on privacy? There are no easy answers.
Re: Go after the poster (Score:2)
Anonymous posting is fine, but not obligatory; it's up to the site to decide what they want from their users. Further, the site may nevertheless be required to divulge what information it has; perhaps the plaintiff can determine the identity of the user from it (and other information) despite the user's attempts at anonymity.
Are you suggesting then that online forums ... (Score:2)
...Are you suggesting then that online forums should not be allowed to allow anonymous users?
Well, that would certainly improve the quality of /. comments.
Taking your question seriously for a moment, possibly online forums should only allow pseudonymous posting, not anonymous posting, where the pseudonym is known to the service but that information not publicly available.
... however, one of the benefits that is claimed for anonymous posting is the ability to criticize governments and political leaders without fear of reprisal. If the governments could demand the names of the criticizers, this woul
A veiled call for global government (Score:1)
Be wary of these people,
They got their results, and the courts sided with them. Now they want their courts to force the hands of businesses of another nation. We've seen this before and we see it again.
This is the New York Times calling for a global government, which is frightening. Or, alternatively, adoption of every other (large-ish) nati
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Or, alternatively, adoption of every other (large-ish) nation's laws by mutual treaty (one treaty for each law, or one treaty to respect the other nation's laws?), which is just as frightening.
UN:"Internet as a human right". Wonder which country is forcing that on others?
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Not sure where "internet as a human right" came from, but..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Costa Rica, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, India, and Spain regard internet access as a fundamental or significant right.
Estonia,
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/... [csmonitor.com]
"In 2000, the parliament, perhaps inspired by their new gizmos, passed a law declaring Internet access a fundamental human right of its citizenry."
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One country's defamation and calls for violence is another's free speech...
Look at the current situation in myanmar, the military has taken over and now cut off internet access entirely.
Lots of people were posting online, and the vast majority of it was calls to peacefully protest against the military but there were also calls for violence and some information that was blatantly false.
The military and their supporters have also already been banned from most of the common sites so you only ever get a one sid
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To hell with helping individuals (Score:2)
..right up until it's bad PR in the New York Times. Then suddenly, things are made right.
Corporations are people, my friend. They have no souls and bleed greed, but they're people...
The Internet going public was a mistake (Score:3)
I used to think that what would kill the Internet would be big corporations, turning into the 'walled gardens' that everyone feared when Net Neutrality laws were repealed. Now I see that it's too many of the humans using the Internet that are going to kill it.
More and more I begin to think that the Internet going public back in the day was a mistake. We, as a species, clearly are not mature and responsible enough to have access to such a tool as the Internet, not when irresponsible people, and malicious people, can use it as a weapon to unfairly attack people they don't like.
Repealing Section 230 will indeed spell the end to 'social media' sites like Facebook and Twitter -- but, really, would that be so bad?
Will it curtail Free Speech? In the short term at least, yes, it will -- but again, perhaps that isn't such a bad thing, considering how many Bad Actors there are, abusing it, using it as an offensive weapon against people who don't deserve to be attacked and have their lives destroyed?
How many people have had their lives ruined via the Internet who have then committed suicide because of it? Can you in any way shape or form with a straight face claim that those deaths are anything other than tragic and unnecessary?
Ask yourself: WHY IS THIS ALLOWED?
If a child is using one of it's toys to hit another child, we take that toy away from them and punish the child in some way to 'correct' them.
As-is, there's not enough 'adults' around to 'correct' all the misbehaving children who are using the Internet (so-called 'social media', more specifically) as a weapon to beat on others.
We might just have to take the toys away since the children refuse to behave.
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One: ever watch 'courtroom' shows? I watch Bull because I like Michael Weatherly. Ever notice that in the courtroom scenes, lawyers may ask a question or make a statement which is objected to, objection sustained, judge directs the jury to 'disregard that'? They never really disregard it completely; you can't 'un-hear' something. 'Genie is already out of the bottle'. 'Horse has already left the barn'. And so on. You can delete what someone posts but it's almost pointless unless
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I've been exposed to enough of the Internet Troll types to see what they're about.
It used to be just getting gullible people to do dumb, relatively harmless things ("Dude, putting Icy Hot on your balls will raise your testosterone, your lifts will go up like crazy!"). But it's gone way, way beyond that, there are some truly sick-in-the-head people out there, more than you'd be comfortable knowi
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Well hold on, it would kill more than just Facebook or Twitter. Hell, it would kill Slashdot and a lot of sites that are bigger than your blog that enabled comments and Facebook.
So what? UGC is definitely a net loss.
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If a child is using one of it's toys to hit another child, we take that toy away from them and punish the child in some way to 'correct' them.
Not if the toy is a loaded gun, and every home has one in a bedside nighttable
We're on the verge of federated social media. I anticipate a myriad of collectivities starting up that will coalesce into a small number of Influencers. Then we'll be back to where we are now with no specific identifiable target to squash.
DMCA (Score:2)
Just file a DMCA takedown request. It's a lot easier, and nobody's going to fight it.
Easy to make the problem go away (Score:2)
I loaded all the comments and searched... (Score:2)
fight fire with fire (Score:2)
Step two, get the kids of all politicians who have a decent view on 230 on one of these sites.
Step three, let things simmer.
Step four: profit!
Where are the "fact-checkers" when you most need t (Score:2)
The danger of libel laws... (Score:1)
...is that that they encourage the presumption that what one reads is true. I think the QAnon and Stop the Steal phenomena, among many others, show how dangerous that is.
In the near and medium terms we have a serious and difficult problem. But perhaps the long term solution is broad skepticism.
Re:"false accusations" (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, post your real name and address, then we'll talk about how little it matters to you if you are slandered on the internet and search engines show it as the first hit.
Re:"false accusations" (Score:5, Insightful)
As important there's a reason the accusations were "pedophile","thief", "scammer", etc. Things people have strong emotional reactions to before any kind of higher reasoning can kick in. Seems the public at large could do with a dose of education in the stronger the accusation, the greater the proof. As the saying goes, the life you save may be your own.
Re: "false accusations" (Score:1, Troll)
Yes. However... if your little sister started dating a guy and his search results came back like that you'd be ok with it and go with innocent until proven guilty?
You'd hire a bank teller accused of theft?
Hire a child care taker accused of child molesting?
It's only the internet and we must ignore it until proven guilty. Right?
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Thanks for proving why the internet is the mess it currently is. Which part of "greater proof" did you not understand? And if one's hiring then it becomes legally imperative to check one's facts.
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And if one's hiring then it becomes legally imperative to check one's facts.
There is no legal requirement to "check facts" when hiring.
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I imagine if it affects a "protected class" that might change.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: "false accusations" (Score:5, Interesting)
If large numbers of people are telling you that a person is a serial sexual harasser, for example, there's a greater than 50%, much greater than 50%, chance that they are, but you'll never find a history of arrests and prosecutions over that because it isn't illegal to sexually harass people. What do you do in that instance? Because if the guy is one, then there's a good chance your company will face legal consequences once he's hired, even if his pattern of behavior becomes provable enough for you to fire him.
What's worse is that the guy could still be innocent no matter how many people are slandering him. People will hear stuff on one platform and then repeat it verbatim on another platform, thus breaking the "paper trail" back to the original slanderer. An example that comes to mind is QAnon. So many people gobbled up that bullshit and spat it back verbatim that a naive person looking at the huge weight of social media posts about it would conclude "wow there's so much talk about this Q guy, he must be real."
Credit agencies are worse (Score:2)
I don't think a lot of noise on crappy social media sites is going to affect anyone too much. And even a secret sex tape would merely be embarrassing as people are allowed to have sex.
But a false claim on a trusted credit agency record, however minor, that is damaging in the USA. Your car insurance goes up. You cannot get a job, let alone a loan. And good luck trying to correct it.
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But a false claim on a trusted credit agency record, however minor, that is damaging in the USA. Your car insurance goes up. You cannot get a job, let alone a loan. And good luck trying to correct it.
Yeah, that would be a huge problem. That's why credit agencies are required by law [ftc.gov] to correct it.
Re: "false accusations" (Score:2)
Sure, where shall I post it? Got an address?
Re:"false accusations" (Score:5, Insightful)
Wouldn't that imply that you are taking random statements on the Internet by random people as facts?
(Hiring Managers/Recruiters/HR Departments) "Why yes. Yes we do."
That is exactly why this phenomenon, is so very fucked. Cancel Culture snorting uncut lines of dox. Would be easy to attack entire countries when said country is chock full of narcissists who live and die by their online reputation.
Cyberwar is better than real war you say? I don't think death by suicide due to "false accusations" is any better than blood spilled on a battlefield. Psychological warfare, is a helluva drug.
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Can confirm. I had this happen to me and it made seeking work very hard. I even put in my resume and cover letters that I was a victim of harassment and to please discuss with me any suspicious search results... but employers just search your name before reading what you send in.
I'm sorry this happened to you. Sadly, I really don't know what to champion with this for a solution.
Part of me wants to perpetuate the utter bullshit, to further prove it's utter bullshit and completely discredit this entire "movement".
The other part of me, wants to re-educate the idiots in HR about how the internet works. Or more specifically, how it can be manipulated by bullshit.
No part of me, is convinced this problem will go away with mere legislature. Evil people, don't give a shit about laws.
Re:"false accusations" (Score:4, Insightful)
Anything about you?
No no no, that's too easy a mark.
See, what I'm gonna do is figure out the name of your son. Then I am going to plaster the internet with accusations that HE is a pedophile. Once that info starts popping up at the top of Google results I am going to drop an anonymous tip to his employer. His wife's parents. The daycare where his kid is.
He'll be fired, the police are getting involved, and his wife is running away with the kids just in case. He's innocent, of course, but the accusation is enough to fuck up his life permanently. Eventually, as has been seen before, he is going to kill himself.
And at his funeral you are going to know that it's because you put out a dare on the internet.
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There's something to be said for overburning 800 MB of DivX onto a CD-R. If you lose the last few minutes, it's probably just the credits.
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People who believe stuff like that, should not be allowed in public discourse or on the Internet, until they become grown-ups.
"Hey, you kids! Get off my Internet lawn!"
Maybe we could teach children in primary schools about the Internet? Like, that is stuffed with liars, thieves and con artists. Back in my day, we were taught not accept candy from a stranger or not get into a car with one. Maybe we need to update that program to include Internet dangers.
Another idea. Having a drivers license is a privilege, not a right. You have to take driving education, pass a written exam on the "Laws of the Roads" and then prove that
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Netcraft confirms it: Gary Babcock is a Paedophile.
That's actually how they spell it too, being British and all.
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Once the morons start marching, nearly anything [irishtimes.com] can happen.
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That's not a good advice, my friend.
Oh, I see. Did you know that the title field is not meant to be used for the first part of your post? It's called a title for a reason.
Secondly, the first step is not "not posting anything using your real name on Social Media". It's to "never use Social Media".
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Just for that I'm going to make you watch cat videos on Youtube.
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Oh, me too! Me too! I would love to watch cat videos right meow! [youtube.com]
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I feel like I'm sleeping on a Canadian Internet joke
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S230 doesn't say that.
S230 explicitly says that companies can take down/flag/censor/curate content posted by users as much as they like while still maintaining liability from content they choose not to take down.