.webp?h=8 "Merry Fistmas!")
Content selected for users by TikTok's algorithms doesn't qualify for Section 230 protection A US appeals court has issued an opinion that could have wide-ranging implications for social media platforms, finding that content selected for users by TikTok's algorithms doesn't qualify for Section 230 protection.
In an opinion [PDF] published today, a three-judge panel from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Pennsylvania decided that, because TikTok presented "blackout challenge" posts to 10-year-old Nylah Anderson on her For You Page of recommended content, the platform deserves to be taken to court for her death that followed.
The "blackout challenge" refers to a dangerous self-asphyxiation "trend" that went around on TikTok several years ago. Anderson attempted to participate in the challenge, leading to her death, but a lower-court judge decided in 2022 that TikTok was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which protects social media platforms from liability for content posted by their users.
The Third Circuit court sharply disagreed.
"TikTok knew that Nylah would watch [the blackout challenge video] because the company's customized algorithm placed the videos on her 'For You Page' after it 'determined that the Blackout Challenge was 'tailored' and 'likely to be of interest' to Nylah,'" Judge Paul Matey wrote in a partial concurrence included in the decision.
Matey argued that Section 230's application has evolved far beyond the original intent when Congress passed the CDA in 1996. It is not to "create a lawless no-man's land" of legal liability.
"The result is a Section 230 that immunizes platforms from the consequences of their own conduct and permits platforms to ignore the ordinary obligation that most businesses have to take reasonable steps to prevent their services from causing devastating harm," Matey said.
Judge Patty Shwartz wrote in the main body of the opinion that the Third Circuit's reading of Section 230 is reinforced by the recent Moody v NetChoice decision from the US Supreme Court. In that case, related to content moderation laws passed in Florida and Texas, SCOTUS held that algorithms reflect editorial judgments. Shwartz wrote that it's a compilation of third-party speech made in the manner a platform chooses, and thus merits First Amendment protection.
"Given the Supreme Court's observations that platforms engage in protected first-party speech under the First Amendment when they curate compilations of others' content via their expressive algorithms, it follows that doing so amounts to first-party speech under Section 230, too," Shwartz reasoned.
In short, you can't have it both ways: Either you serve everything, let users sort it out and keep that liability shield; or you make algorithmic picks that surface content, give users what you think they want and take on the liability that comes with being the arbiter of that content.
With the appeal decided, Anderson's case will head back to the District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to be re-heard.
"Today's opinion is the clearest statement to date that Section 230 does not provide this catchall protection that the social media companies have been claiming it does," Anderson family lawyer Jeffrey Goodman told the Associated Press regarding the outcome.
See you all in the supreme court 
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who keeps namelocking you
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It's !redscarepod enjoyers
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I love you just the way you are (in a gay sexual way)
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thanks babe
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I suffer for your love
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Lol carp
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It wasn't me this time!
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oooh you like her
!metashit every day is spawning season
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whoever it was is high key framing you because no one mentions dasha besides you
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Good Lord imagine the reeing when the algo stops and Day of the Chud occurs
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Holy shit that is an insane ruling
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How is it insane? Curated content is no longer organic user content, it's now the message the company chooses to send. Saying Reddit as a company is not responsible for the posts on their front page because users moderate the boards and users create the content, but Reddit just steps in to prune what violates their standards is the same as saying I'm not responsible for the giant peepee I've left unmowed in my yard because I didn't touch the grass. Moderated content SHOULD lose section 230 protections.
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Recommending videos similar to a user's viewing habits is totally different than what you are describing.
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"Recommendations" on nearly any popular platform are never isolated to a single viewer's interests, good examples of this include google altering users' search queries to feature brands rather than product types, and youtube's search feature ending the results early to fill half the page with unrelated content.
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No, they're deliberate choices made by the product team. They could have gone one way, or another. The content on Tiktok is even more strongly dictated than if it were displayed universally to all users
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This is theoretically true, but recommendation algorithms have gone way past that
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How can you make a recommendation algorithm that can account for all types of harmful content?
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I don't really care about the answer to that. Moderate content and accept the responsibility for that or don't
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Yes, you are correct, and companies should be strictly liable for things their algorithm does.
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You can't. Total algorithm death.
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What could possibly go wrong
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Tfw I can no longer recommend products to consumers
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Your HVAC guy recommending you to buy the specific brand of air conditioner is not exactly the same as tiktok telling a child to rope
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Death is a commodity
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Good. Maybe if you were a little better at it you wouldn't be in this mess
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!metashit !besties lets do the keep yourself safe challenge!!!
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I tied a belt around my neck and the door now what—
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Just kinda lay down like Jeff
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Obesity
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Please force the shitty fricking online platforms to stop recommending shit
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TOTAL ALGORITHM DEATH
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Can you imagine a world without social media algos?
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Anyone ever do that thing as a kid where you'd bend over with your arms hanging down so blood would rush to your head, then stand up really fast, cross your arms over your chest, and hold your breath while one or two people push really hard on your arms so you'd pass out.
Frick we were r-slurred lmao.
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Yea that's been a thing forever. I think now some of these dumbasses are using belts by themselves
and then passing out and dying.
The worst part? It's appropriation of trans culture
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This is David Carradine erasure
!kino
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That's something else lol
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Maybe the parents were coping
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Literally the most pathetic way to die
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How do you think we all ended up on rdrama.net?
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luck?
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Never heard of this before lmao
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I never
did that. We were much more sophisticated and took turns riding 
inside 
the dryer.
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I'd rather just ban zoomers from internet.
Krayon sexually assaulted his sister.
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banning minors from social media, especially groomercord and reddit, would vastly improve society.
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the fricking end result would be fricking ideal, butt the fricking method of getting there(deanonymization) would ruin the fricking internet.
!slots100
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On the one hand, i would love an internet where i never had to interact with someone under the age of 18, or fricking 25 for that matter.
On the other hand, teenagers have the best chance to contribute to blackhat internet projects such as cracking video games, finding security holes, or curating stolen media since their finances and time tend to be unrestricted. Older hobbyists tend to get swallowed up in obsession with getting laid or radical politics.
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I find that people under
24 tend to be the stupidest and most sure of themselves and their idiotic opinions and never 
have anything 
intelligent 
to say in a discussion.
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Then they should be able to do like we did and pretend to be adults too. I remember a time on places like reddit where being found out as minor was accepted as a ban worthy offense and something to be embarrassed by.
When it comes to the internet children should be neither seen nor heard.
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This, but for the Internet
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I turned out fine
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so it's just bardfinn and laurelei bailey?
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Record is 1 days 13 hours 09 minutes and 59 seconds by TheDunceonFlorist
We've got Bardy fever! today we have mentioned our favorite mod 18 more times than usual!
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Could you imagine?
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TZD
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This ruling is stupid, but since it damages social media and the internet I support it.
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Bring back forum-style searching and sorting
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bring back webrings!
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!codecels death to all algorithmcels. I hated those cute twinks the second I met them irl. I unironically interviewed for one of the stragman teams involved with this
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Bust out the creative writing exercise marsey. You're not getting my upmarsey for merely claiming to have done it
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FRICK
This is honestly just an attack on tiktok cos their algo is too good. I have gotten so many good music and media recs from that app
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LMAO, but true
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No cap. Tik Tok is this generation's internet. Remove it and we might as well go back to the stone age and rub sticks to make fire frfr
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Tiktok is leagues ahead of other social media, it's the only normie app I've had fun on since generation 1 facebook
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I love boomers tryina understand internet
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If a human had been manually recommending things to her feed it would clearly be correct. And the fact that it's an algorithm that someone wrote rather than a person shouldn't alter culpability. You can't use an algorithm and then when the algorithm does something bad claim you dindu nuffin
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R-slurred. All they knew was people who watched the same content she did also watched this, so she'd probably like it (and they were right!)
lmfao "Make no attempt to push content people actually watch or else!"
As usual courts are strags
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That's the point though innit, they pushed the content so they're no longer legally absolved.
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Get fricked Tik Tok. Fricking commie chink spyware.
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!chuds and !r-slurs
Is this a cause of concern because this gives the social media companies even wider powers to implement whatever bullshit they see fit. Your honor, we nuked chuddie mCchud's profile because they were engaging in non mainstream speech ie dangerous speech
Or should we celebrate because carp removing any fedposting makes him liable for whatever feddy shit still ends up sticking to the site
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it might actually be a positive change tbh. This seems to be strictly focused at tiktok and its ilk (various "shorts" platforms). They don't mention content moderation at all, and this appears to deal with the algorithms that provide content surfacing for these platforms. Getting the inbreds who use Tiktok off of social media would be incredibly good for society. Though you pinged r-slurs, and it's possible that the supreme court will just ignore this distinction.
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Time to dust off some product liability suits against every platform chuds
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I'm gonna need the Supreme Court to shut this down please. This could be a big problem for me.
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its possible they do the fricking opposite. Reminder that the fricking VCR was fricking almost banned in the fricking 80s by the fricking supreme court in a fricking 5/4 decision. If the fricking ruling went rhe other way, we might not even have computers in the fricking way we think of them today bc the fricking means to record media would have been rendered illegal and all the fricking tech advances made as a fricking result of the fricking bcr would have never happened.
!slots500
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That was the good timeline.
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kids today are such wusses.
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I hate tiktok as much as the next person, but this trend of making social media platforms responsible for shit that is clearly the parents fault is fricking annoying. Maybe keep your 10 year old kid off tiktok you stupid r-slurs.
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Proprietary services btfo. rdrama keeps winning
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Right now, I'm a click away from using an SQL injection attack to gain access to the database of the website and gain your login credentials, as well as your IP address. I'll then proceed to leak your IP address onto my hacker forums, and then using an IP locator, I'll easily find your house and your name. With that I can access your social media accounts and proceed to ruin your life. You think I'm bluffing? You think that just because a bunch of 7 year old dipshits say they can "hack", but actually can't, that I can't either? Let me shatter that facade for you. Using my team of hackers, we can trace what websites you've visited and what keystrokes you've used, and with that, I can get into your parents' bank account. I can drain it and make you dirt poor. Have you ever felt what it's like to be homeless? Well, you're about to. I can also use cross-site scripting to redirect your web browser to one of my private sites, and download child porn onto your computer and get your parents locked up in prison. I'm your worst fricking nightmare, and I'm about to make you endure living Heck. I'm nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Have fun regretting your existence, shithead.
Snapshots:
https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/28/tiktok_blackout_challenge_appeal/:
ghostarchive.org
archive.org
archive.ph (click to archive)
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!slots500
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they just ilegalized african-american kitty
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