A new, in-depth post by Mike Masnick at Techdirt correctly describes many of the challenges inherent to platform moderation of content. It was enough of a departure from his usual “anything goes” stance that he wrote a preamble acknowledging that he was likely to piss off a few readers. And it is, admittedly, a little bit fun to watch some ...

This blog contains several posts questioning the premise that the ISP liability shield known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 is a “sacred” law, without which the internet would cease to do all the wonderful things it does. Like foster a more rational, diplomatic, and thoughtful political climate around the world. (Because that’s going so well.) ...

Well, artists and authors, I guess you can pack it in. Professor Glynn S. Lunney, Jr. of Texas A&M School of Law has declared copyright dead in a recent 12-page paper that is presumably a digest of his new book Copyright’s Excess: Money and Music in the US Recording Industry. Apparently, Lunney first announced copyright’s demise in a 2001 article ...

Zeno’s Paradox describes physical change as an illusion. Zeno of Elea, in the 5th Century BCE, postulated that in order to travel any distance, one had to first travel half that distance, and before that half could be traversed, one had to travel half of the first half, and so on. And because space could be infinitely divided, traveling through ...

First, a refresher. The broad immunity provision known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was adopted in 1996 as an incentive to internet service providers to take affirmative steps to remove material. Congress wanted to encourage sites to take down certain types of offensive or obscene content (e.g. child porn), and the ISPs asserted, quite reasonably, that taking ...

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