Intermediary’s content liability: a threat of the digital society
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‘Intermediaries’ or online platforms like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are considered as a success of today online world. We exploit them to access unlimited contents, share information freely, communicate others without boundary and express opinions to the public. Meanwhile, a considerable increase of unlawful and harmful online contents: copyright infringement, defamation, pornography, hate speech and privacy abuse, inspires governments to call for direct liability from intermediaries by introducing new policies and abolishing legal protections. However, instead of being an effective solution, I personally view that those prospective policies tend to be an unfair burden for intermediaries and cast negative effects upon the digital society in several aspects.
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Information Society Service Providers (ISSPs) seem the most popular venue for people to discuss about social issues and exchange innovations. Intermediary liability policies may force ISPs to block and take down excessively user-generated contents which are viewed illegal, by mainly relying on a request submitted, without prescribing any process to be complied with in doing so. Perhaps, an excessive blockage of contents may be a result from a vague definition of illegal content. In other words, intermediary liability may change the role of ISSPs from ‘public domains’ to ‘content gatekeeper’, of which an operation can be intervened by any individual or government. Such policy seems to be contrary to the original concept of internet that aims to promote access to information and freedom of expression.
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Content liability may motivate intermediaries to monitor their users more strictly i.e. it may dictate the social network websites to require sensitive personal information of users, in order to trace and gain access to the users’ online behaviors. This is somehow viewed as a potential accusation that may prevent them from being held liable. Such issue is questioned pertaining to processing unnecessary personal data and risk to privacy of users.
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Shifting content liability onto intermediaries may discourage ICT developers in procreating new features on the online platforms or new applications which apparently play crucial roles in facilitating our lives. If such platforms, which rely solely on active content and interaction among users, are overly regulated, we may not be allowed to see the new innovative online website anymore.
(Google’s Head Office at Mountain View, California, U.S.)
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An issue will arise in the countries, in which the law prescribes liabilities or does not provide with any legal immunity for intermediaries. In terms of economics, potential ICT investors and stakeholders tend to assure that commercial incentives and conveniences with regard to an establishment their businesses are available. This is why most of the leading technological intermediary companies decided to set up head offices in the USA, in which an initial provision i.e. ‘Safe harbor’ exists.
In my view, it is possible that the intermediary liability would tackle a wrong issue, causing legal gaps wherein many sectors are unreasonably burdened while the real issues that ought to be regulated remain untouched, and may also jeopardize human rights and economic developments in our digital society.
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