But something like Reddit would be held liable for showing posts, then. Because you get shown different results depending on the subreddits you subscribe to, your browsing patterns, what you've upvoted in the past, and more. Pretty much any recommendation engine is a no-go of this ruling becomes precedence.
TBH, Reddit really shouldn't have 230 protection anyways.
You can't be licensing user content to AI as it's not yours. You also can't be undeleting posts people make (otherwise it's really reddit's posts and not theirs).
When you start treating user data as your own; it should become your own and that erodes 230.
From my reading, if the site only shows you based on your selections, then it wouldn't be liable. For example, if someone else with the exact same selections gets the same results, then that's not their platform deciding what to show.
If it does any customization based on what it knows about you, or what it tries to sell you because you are you, then it would be liable.
Yep., recommendation engines would have to be very carefully tuned, or you risk becoming liable. Recommending only curated content would be a way to protect yourself, but that costs money that companies don't have to pay today. It would be doable.
> For example, if someone else with the exact same selections gets the same results, then that's not their platform deciding what to show.
This could very well be true for TikTok. Of course "selection" would include liked videos, how long you spend watching each video, and how many videos you have posted
And on the flip side a button that brings you to a random video would supply different content to users regardless of "selections".
It could be difficult to draw the line. I assume TikTok’s suggestions are deterministic enough that an identical user would see the same things - it’s just incredibly unlikely to be identical at the level of granularity that TikTok is able to measure due to the type of content and types of interactions the platform has.
An account otherwise identical made two days later is going to interact with a different stream. Technically deterministic but in practice no two end up ever being exactly alike, (despite similar people having similar channels.)
The "answer" will turn back into tv channels. Have communities curate playlists of videos, and then anyone can go watch the playlist at any time. Reinvent broadcast tv / the subreddit.
>Pretty much any recommendation engine is a no-go of this ruling becomes precedence.
That kind of sounds... great?
The only instance where I genuinely like to have a recommendation engine around is music steaming. Like yeah sometimes it does recommend great stuff.
But anywhere else? No thank you
If one were to subscribe to such a distinction between algorithmic ranking and algorithmic suggestions I would liken it with a broad paintbrush to:
Ranking: A group of people share a ouija board, and together make selections.
Suggestion: A singular entity clips together media to create a new narrative, akin to a ransom note.
If the sum of the collection of content more than its parts, if is different in strength not kind, or self reenforcing, it's really hard to distinguish where the algorithm ends and the voters begin.
