Meta and Google face major legal liability over social media addiction—this could open the floodgates for lawsuits and shake up Section 230 as we know it
A massive supply chain attack hit AI developers through LiteLLM, reminding us that even cutting-edge tools have old-school vulnerabilities
AI agents with voice and personality are here, and we’re wrestling with what that means for surveillance and trust
The FCC’s router ban confusion, ISPs winning on piracy, and why tech regulation is becoming a total mess right now
Is rapid AI progress actually heading somewhere dystopian? We dig into the real concerns
I love Harper’s quirky sense of humor. Really cheered me up this morning.
I remember back in the 80s my Dad getting hold of a pirated copy of E.T. before the UK release. You can imagine the quality. Videoed with a camcorder in a cinema somewhere, played on our VHS top-loader, on a 21-inch CRT. The film is dark anyway, so a few months later we all went to the cinema anyway to see it properly.
A few things I learned this morning in office as I had Twit on while a lawyer was sitting at table doing some work.
Saying someone is admitted to SCOTUS as a major bona fide is not a thing. He said any lawyer that has been practicing for 3 years, and is in good standing with the bar association and admitted to the bar in any of 50 states and states/commonwealth/districts/etc can pay a 200 dollar application fee and is free to submit. Now if your stuff is deranged or of bad legal quality, they can revoke that right but that is rare.
Second and this is his legal view. He thinks 230 is the only way the internet works, and he is considers himself a free speech absolutist. He said her argument that the product can’t be liable for how a product is created would mean that as long as you a tech company or platform owner you can never be liable for anything if your product contains other users content. As for this case, he thinks the CA case is less about the actual plaintiff and more about the company that created a product and knowingly continued down a path that would cause harm is why they are going to continue to have legal troubles. If this user is not following other people or wanting to see other users content but the product is designed to make sure they see it, on top of evidence they knew what that might cause they are going to have to start settling cases. He did laugh when it was brought back to Twit, and said no you don’t have to worry as that is not analogous.
I don’t understand the attitude of Cathy and Leo, that they don’t want Meta and Alphabet held responsible for knowingly distributing a “defective” product.
I understand that Leo doesn’t want to get tarred with the same brush, but he is using standard forum software with no algorithm behind it that is trying to stuff new posts down people’s throats all the time. Meta knew that their algorithm was a major problem, but instead of doing something to make it less “addictive”, they doubled down at aiming it at young children.
It is this exploitative behaviour that is giving Big Tech a bad name, but they seem reluctant to do anything about improving their status, they seem to double down.
On another note, the panel was great and Harper just always puts in me a great mood. Have been such a big fan of his for almost 20 years so it’s so nice to see him back in the rotation!
It’s correct that the software is not on the same level as Meta’s products, but it does have some sort of a recommendation of related content, in my experience, and also one might try and argue that the structure of the forum topics is a form of “design for appeal” (for want of a better phrase.) Basically the forum software is an empty vessel that Leo sculpted to have a specific appearance and appeal to users.
The prosecution lawyers were trying to frame the services as a product. Cathy noted, “230 should have shut this down.” That will certainly be argued on appeal. You can disagree with Section 230 of the US federal legislation, but it is the law. That is why we have appeals: juries may not have their decisions fully informed by our laws.
The strangest thing is believing that a $6M settlement would somehow not have a substantial effect on Alphabet and Meta. This settlement does not scale. If this decision were to stand, both companies would indeed be profoundly punished by the jury’s decision.
Some jury somewhere could indeed find that discourse-based communities do indeed have the same “defect” in their “product”. You cannot predict that a judge and jury would render a rational decision. Cathy Gellis certainly thinks this decision will not hold up, and she certainly holds a qualified opinion.
As both Leo and Cathy note: proving causation [in these cases] is problematic.
I don’t think 230 comes into it. This isn’t about freedom of expression or the exemption under 230 for what has been posted. This is specifically about how the product works (in this case the algorithm). The algorithm is known by management to be “defective”, i.e. it causes problems with certain members of society.
For me, that is no different than Ford saying the Pinto is a fine car and passes the current safety standards, whilst knowing that a design fault can cause it easily to catch fire or explode in a rear-impact, but hid the fact, saying that compensation for those killed or injured would be cheaper than re-designing the car.
In this case, Meta & Co. are saying that their liability for the information that is posted is covered by 230, so they don’t have to worry about the algorithm causing people distress, because compensating them will be cheaper than fixing the problem with the algorithm and reducing their income.
Society, especially US society, has become so fixed on profit at any price, that the really important prices (society, social wellbeing) are totally ignored and pushed under the carpet in the name of monetary gain. This should not be an absolute. We need to start including reputation, environment and societal impacts in the balance sheet/in the profitability of a company, maybe when companies reputation and stock price is linked to their “misdeeds”, they will start doing the right thing.
Until then, Social Media companies will simply keep using 230 as a get out of jail free card for every bad aspect of their business model, because it scares everyone in the chain. But 230 shouldn’t absolve the companies of willing bad behaviour, when it has nothing to do with 230.
Typically, conclusions like this are accompanied by the phrase, “IANAL, but …”.
YANAL, right? I’m quite certain that YANAAL.
All opinions are welcome, but they should be qualified.
Posted where? Did Cathy Gellis comment the legitimacy of that exemption? I didn’t see it. I do give the lawyers points for trying to re-frame this as a product liability case.
That’s the question! Wis the algorithm posed as a product? IANAL, but I respect when a lawyer has questioned ignoring the federal statutes of Section 230. What specifically do you find invalid about Cathy’s argument?
What about Alphabet? What is your complaint with YouTube’s algorithm? What specific condemnation do you have of YouTube’s “product”?
What condemnation do you have for someone giving a 6yo unfettered access to these two services?
Do you think a parent should have zero liability allowing a 6yo motoring around in the family’s Ford Pinto? Your laws don’t even allow anyone under the age of 13 to have full access to any social media service. Do you think the parents deserve 50% liability? Maybe 10%? Maybe 1%? Anything?
As both Leo and Cathy both noted: proving causation [in these cases] is problematic. I guess the jury didn’t really care; getting juries to follow the law is also problematic.
Do you have any opinion why YouTube should be assigned 30% of the liability? You didn’t say anything about Alphabet/YouTube in any of your comments.
Also, Leo’s comment should not be ignored:
Leo Laporte [00:10:32]:
Yeah, if somebody came after me saying, your chat room is way addictive and I as a youth I spent hours on it and as a result I’m depressed I couldn’t defend that and a $6 million judgment wouldn’t be something I could afford either. So that’s what we should worry about is the little but are people gonna go after chat rooms and forums and places like that?
I find this sentiment unwelcoming and unfriendly. I have told Phil previously that it’s not okay to make others feel like they are being judged. I’m sorry to report Phil will no longer be participating in the discussions here.
Love the quirky rants and milk and USB-C. I work at Costco in CA. Their 2% milk sold in two gallon packages is currently $6.00. Sorry to the naysayer. Milk is good for you unless you are lactose intolerant. Everyone should drink lots of it.
USB-C is great. I’ve always used Windows laptops and the only annoying thing is that now USB-C PD 140w is well established, most laptops that NEED 140w actually have a seperate adapter rather than 140w USB-C PD brick. For some reason, PC makers do not know they exist. Apple realised this many years ago.
If Cathy is going to keep on using her laptop in places where people trip over the cable, then she needs to investigate magnetic USB-C adaptors like this:
Meta and Google face major legal liability over social media addiction—this could open the floodgates for lawsuits and shake up Section 230 as we know it
A massive supply chain attack hit AI developers through LiteLLM, reminding us that even cutting-edge tools have old-school vulnerabilities
AI agents with voice and personality are here, and we’re wrestling with what that means for surveillance and trust
The FCC’s router ban confusion, ISPs winning on piracy, and why tech regulation is becoming a total mess right now
Is rapid AI progress actually heading somewhere dystopian? We dig into the real concerns