Anyone looking to make changes to how online platforms police speech should learn lessons from the failures of using copyright to do the same. Here are five major takeaways from the copyright wars: eff.org/deeplinks/2018…
1. Mistakes will be made. The law gives huge incentives to platforms to take things down after getting a complaint, leading people seeing their work disappear due to fraudulent takedown notices. Content moderation policies have and will make similar errors.eff.org/takedowns
2. Robots are not the answer. We've seen the mess that automated filters like YouTube's cause.
No law should mandate the use of this kind of technology. eff.org/deeplinks/2018…
No law should mandate the use of this kind of technology. eff.org/deeplinks/2018…
3. Platforms must invest in transparency and robust, rapid, appeals processes. In copyright, the DMCA allows for users to challenge a takedown, but it is an unbalanced system with many flaws.
Appeals processes need to be usable and understandable. newamericadotorg.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Sant…
Appeals processes need to be usable and understandable. newamericadotorg.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/Sant…
4. Abuse should have real consequences. The reason so many of these problems flourish is because the punishment for fraudulent takedowns has been rendered toothless by the courts. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
5. Platforms may think that if they “voluntarily” embrace the role of speech police they can escape regulation. But nothing adopted by platforms in the copyright space has stopped content companies from asking for more, and often inspires regulation. eff.org/deeplinks/2018…
