1 |
> I have a major concern with the concept of the council |
2 |
> deciding to close any part of the forum. Its like this ... |
3 |
> At present, Gentoo is a common carrier, like the mail. |
4 |
> The content of letters and parcels is of little concern to the |
5 |
> carrier. |
6 |
> |
7 |
> Gentoos status could be changed by a council decision to |
8 |
> close any part of the forum from common carrier to publisher, |
9 |
> were the council seen to be exercising editorial control. |
10 |
> Being a publisher makes Gentoo liable for the published |
11 |
> content. Gentoo could not run the forums at all under those |
12 |
> conditions. |
13 |
|
14 |
This is misinformation at best, and deliberate confusion sowing at worst. |
15 |
|
16 |
I assume that you're talking about the US legal situation. [#] |
17 |
|
18 |
* The DCMA, which mostly pops up when searching for "common carrier", |
19 |
primarily applies to copyright violations. That is not what we are talking |
20 |
about. Even so, the safe harbor provision of the DCMA only applies as long as |
21 |
reported violations are swiftly removed. |
22 |
|
23 |
* US legal code explicitly provides a "good samaritan provision" regarding |
24 |
offensive material, protecting blocking or filtering, even proactively. |
25 |
==================== |
26 |
(2) Civil liability |
27 |
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on |
28 |
account of— |
29 |
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or |
30 |
availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, |
31 |
lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise |
32 |
objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or |
33 |
[...] |
34 |
==================== |
35 |
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 |
36 |
|
37 |
Cheers. |
38 |
|
39 |
|
40 |
|
41 |
[#] Mostly because (broadly simplifying) only the US focuses that strongly on |
42 |
freedom of speech, while the EU focuses somewhat more on data protection and |
43 |
protection against slander(?). The UK legal situation is insignificant on a |
44 |
global scale. |
45 |
|
46 |
|
47 |
-- |
48 |
Andreas K. Hüttel |
49 |
dilfridge@g.o |
50 |
Gentoo Linux developer |
51 |
(council, qa, toolchain, base-system, perl, libreoffice) |