Isn’t that true “regardless of technology”? Someone appears on CNN, or the WashPo prints an article, or wired.com puts an article on their web site - and you think it defames you - cost is prohibitive, not practical, may be ineffective.
So we have glorious consistency that the defamation regime is dysfunctional and not “fit for purpose” unless you are significantly wealthy.
That could be the situation in law. I am suggesting a change to some kind of “safe harbour” arrangement where, if you have a problem with some content, you have a problem with the person who created it, not the social media company. In other words, just as your ISP or their ISP is not liable for distributing the allegedly defamatory social media comment, neither should be the social media company. Same principle, just at a higher level.
I think it is different. They enabled the posting and encourage the posting of content. If I create a website and post something that is offensive, defamatory, illegal then I solely am held responsible…that’s basically what ISPs and web site providers get “safe harbour” for, but if they are made aware of the issues they are still required to take action or they can also be held responsible. If the website is created by others who allow this content to be generated as that is their business ie “Social Media” they have created a publishing type business and I believe they should be required to take steps to ban users, remove offensive content and such other steps to protect the public who would otherwise see that content. Similar to the moderation on this site, if they don’t take those steps then they also become responsible for the content.
No they don’t always if they choose to accept it under their rules. It is very murky water as to what is acceptable and what isn’t. I would think that enabling Nutjobs to post their credo and then go and kill people and post it all via social media and only have it taken down sometime later is not good judgement.
VPN, HTTPS can disguise a lot of traffic that an ISP can’t track or trace, Website provision is virtually the same particularly if the site is encrypted. Social Media isn’t quite like that hence the Social part. To claim “Safe Harbor” (US spelling) they have to take down sites and such when they are properly notified. They cannot continue to allow traffic once it is known to breach certain Laws. If they fail to take the needed action they can be held as responsible as the creator of the offence. But then we have Countries who don’t abide by those Laws anyway and there is no current fix for that issue.
I’m saying that in order to use HTTPS or VPN or whatever, you need an ISP. The ISP carries the traffic. Without an ISP there is no traffic (well, unless you happen to have your own connection to the internet backbone but that would be about noone).
And the law was changed pretty soon afterwards to address your concerns - although I don’t know how any social media company could have known in advance in order to be proactive rather than reactive.
