SCOTUS Cases

The Sandbox Political Topics
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Currently:
Should google have to remove ISIS videos?
Should google be at fault for recommending ISIS videos?

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No and no.

Unless what’s portrayed in the videos are illegal of course.

So no snuff films. If you want that, go to the dark web. Plenty of materials there.

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I don’t think they should have to remove them, but my initial reaction is they should be at fault for recommending them. Otherwise we’re just eagerly propelling ourselves to a world where we mindlessly adopt AI overlords without oversight or critical thought. Google should have to own their recommendations/model predictions.

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ITA. Especially since it’s also likely that one can “buy” a higher placement on that recommeded list.

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Seems good but what’s the definition of making a recommendation?

I mean I know right now they literally say “we think you’ll enjoy this ISIS recruitment propaganda”.

But what about a news aggregator, or a search engine, or a sorting “top” comments, or reviews, or “more like this”.

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:laughing:

I’d say… if you develop some kind of algorithm or predictive model to generate content you think your users might like you should be responsible for those predictions not being actively harmful.

So like Netflix might show me on the front page what they recommend I try, and if that shows porn to my kids then they suck. But if porn is something in the full listing of all Netflix movies then no harm no foul.

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Try not to dance too close to the edge. You’ll get a jury and take your chances.

Let’s not leave people out of the loop.

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Don’t forget Congress, speaking of our nation’s internet experts.

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“So, how do you sustain a business model in which users don’t pay for your service?” Sen. Hatch asked Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday.

“Senator, we run ads,” replied a smirking Zuckerberg.

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I heard you had to be at least a VPOTUS before you can invent the interwebz . . .

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Or, “Companies who want sell their products to our products pay us.”

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I don’t think he was smirking. He was just shocked at the stupidity of the question, as 99% of the population was.

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They just want it on the official Congressional record.

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I agree with the principle…but there are ways I can see that breaking down.

For example, what if I like stupid cat videos. Twitter picks up on this, and recommends I follow someone who tweets a lot of stupid cat videos. Then that person tweets a video advocating terrorism. I’m not sure that Twitter should bear liability for having recommended I follow that person.

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That’s fair, but in your scenario arguably Twitter made the recommendation when the dude was doing cat videos so that was fine. If you’ve followed him and he starts doing ISIS videos perhaps it’s OK if they show “here are the videos of the people you’ve subscribed to” but if they make a recommendation “here is a great video from one of the people you’ve subscribed to” and it’s about ISIS then they’re at fault.

Sorta like they own their recommendation at the point in time you receive the recommendation. If you choose to follow/become a fan of something then you own that continuous relationship, but any future recommendation should use currently in-force information on content, so it might be an easy shortcut to say “let’s recommend the videos of people he has subscribed to” but if one of those people goes off the deep end and starts doing ISIS videos then their model needs to be smart enough to not recommend ISIS videos, despite following the content creator.

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true, Al Gore was probably the most tech savvy senator in his day.

now the average senator is 64

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I agree…but being a P&C insurance guy, one filter I always have imposed on my thinking is “will [X] prompt more stupid, expensive litigation?”

Then my internet-addicted self chimes in, “if ‘yes’, does it create a chilling effect that will destroy some of the arguably more enjoyable aspects of the internet?”

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SCOTUS to determine if Christians are allowed to set working conditions on their employers.

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I’m not sure if that’s as broad as “setting working conditions”.

I’m curious what the undue hardship on USPS is though. They never used to deliver packages on Sundays but maybe they do now???

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Since contracting with Amazon they make Sunday deliveries. It’s a small USPS location that was creating problems with the rest of the work force as they went through the time consuming process of trying to cover his Sunday shifts. Employee shifted to other location that didn’t do Sundays. That location expanded into Sundays. Employee quit and is now suing.

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