收回科技大公司的“免責(zé)金牌”

In the early days of the commercial internet, back in the mid 1990s, one of the things that technology platform companies lobbied hard for was the notion that they were like the town square — passive conduits for the actions of others, facilitating a variety of activities and thoughts, but not responsible for any of them. The idea was that the garage entrepreneurs starting message boards and chat rooms, or the nascent search engines, simply did not have the legal or economic bandwidth to monitor or be liable for the actions of users, and that to require them to do so would stymie the development of the internet itself.

回顧上世紀(jì)90年代中期，那是商業(yè)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)的早期，提供網(wǎng)絡(luò)平臺服務(wù)的科技公司大力游說這樣一個概念——它們就像是市鎮(zhèn)廣場，是被動承載他人行動的通道，為各種活動和思想交流提供便利，但不對其中任何活動負(fù)責(zé)。這里的理念是，這些從車庫起家、創(chuàng)辦了留言板、聊天室乃至當(dāng)時新生的搜索引擎的創(chuàng)業(yè)家們，根本沒有監(jiān)測用戶行為或者為其負(fù)責(zé)的法律或者經(jīng)濟(jì)“帶寬”，而要求他們這么做將會扼殺互聯(lián)網(wǎng)本身的發(fā)展。

How times have changed. Not only can the largest internet companies like Facebook and Google monitor nearly everything we do, they are also policing the net with increasing vigour. Witness the variety of actions taken by Facebook, Google, GoDaddy and PayPal, in the wake of racially charged violence in Charlottesville, to block or ban rightwing hate groups from their platforms.

時代發(fā)生了多么巨大的變化。不僅Facebook和谷歌(Google)等各大互聯(lián)網(wǎng)公司幾乎能夠監(jiān)測我們的一舉一動，它們還以日益高漲的熱情當(dāng)起了網(wǎng)絡(luò)警察。看一看夏洛茨維爾(Charlottesville)爆發(fā)種族主義暴力事件后Facebook、谷歌、GoDaddy和PayPal的反應(yīng)吧，這些公司紛紛采取行動，從它們的平臺上屏蔽或者禁止右翼仇恨團(tuán)體。

You can argue that this is laudable, or not, depending on your relative concern about hate speech versus free speech. But there’s a key business issue that has been missed in all the hoopla. It is one that was summarised well by Matthew Prince, the chief executive of Cloudflare, a web-infrastructure company that dropped the rightwing Daily Stormer website as a client, under massive public pressure and against the firm’s own stated policies. “I woke up in a bad mood and decided someone shouldn’t be allowed on the internet,” said Mr Prince following the decision. “No one should have that power.”

取決于你更擔(dān)心仇恨言論，還是更擔(dān)心言論自由，你可以說這些行動值得稱贊，或不然。事情鬧得沸沸揚(yáng)揚(yáng)，但有一個關(guān)鍵的商業(yè)問題被遺漏了。網(wǎng)絡(luò)基礎(chǔ)設(shè)施公司Cloudflare的首席執(zhí)行官馬修•普林斯(Matthew Prince)很好地總結(jié)了這一點(diǎn)。在巨大的公眾壓力下，盡管有違Cloudflare聲明的政策，該公司依然趕走了一家客戶——右翼網(wǎng)站Daily Stormer。“我某天早上醒來時心情不好，然后決定有人不應(yīng)該被允許在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上發(fā)聲，”普林斯在做出這一決定之后說，“沒人應(yīng)該有這種權(quán)力。”

Powerful tech companies do. Yet they also continue to benefit, in the US at least, from laws that treat them as “special” and allow them to get around all sorts of legal issues that companies in every other kind of business have to grapple with. This amounts to billions of dollars in corporate subsidies to the world’s most powerful industry.

強(qiáng)大的科技公司有這種權(quán)力。然而，這些科技公司依然受益于(至少在美國是如此)給予它們“特殊”待遇的法律，后者讓它們繞過其他行業(yè)的公司都不得不應(yīng)付的法律問題。這相當(dāng)于給世界上最強(qiáng)大的行業(yè)提供了數(shù)十億美元的企業(yè)補(bǔ)貼。

The golden goose is a little-known bit of Federal Trade Commission legislation. Section 230 of the Communications and Decency Act (CDA) was crafted in 1996 to allow tech firms exemption from liability for nearly all kinds of illegal content or actions perpetrated by their users (there are a few small carveouts for things like copyright violations and rare federal criminal prosecutions). In recent years, the tech industry has thrown a tremendous amount of money and effort into ensuring that it maintains section 230 as a “get out of jail free” card.

這些科技公司的法寶就是聯(lián)邦貿(mào)易委員會(Federal Trade Commission)的法規(guī)里一個鮮為人知的部分。1996年出臺的《通信內(nèi)容端正法》(CDA)第230條讓科技公司對用戶的幾乎所有非法內(nèi)容和行為免責(zé)(除了類似版權(quán)侵犯和極少的聯(lián)邦刑事檢控等少數(shù)幾個例外)。近年來，科技行業(yè)投入大量資金和精力，來確保230條款能繼續(xù)當(dāng)它們的“免罪金牌”。

But this law is being challenged by powerful politicians. On August 1, a bipartisan group of senators, led by Democrat Claire McCaskill and Republican Rob Portman, introduced legislation that would create a carve-out in section 230 for tech firms that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking. The impetus for this was the horror of backpage.com, a firm that actively created a platform for online sex trafficking for its own profit.

但強(qiáng)大的政治人士正在挑戰(zhàn)這項(xiàng)法律。8月1日，一個由民主黨參議員克萊爾•麥卡斯基爾(Claire McCaskill)和共和黨參議員羅布•波特曼(Rob Portman)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的兩黨參議員小組提交一項(xiàng)法案，擬在230條款里規(guī)定一個例外，使蓄意為性販運(yùn)提供便利的科技公司無法免責(zé)。推動此舉的是駭人的backpage.com事件，為了牟利，這家公司積極地為在線性販運(yùn)創(chuàng)建了一個平臺。

It is a piece of legislation that everyone, it seems, can get behind — except the largest tech companies and their industry lobbying groups . They are concerned that it would open a Pandora’s box of legal issues for them. These groups had the rough copy of the bill for months before its introduction, yet refused to offer edits during its crafting. Keith Smith, a spokesperson in Mr Portman’s office, says: “We did our due diligence, met with the tech community on a bipartisan basis for months and yet they offered no constructive feedback.”

這似乎是一條人人都會支持的立法——但那些最大的科技公司和行業(yè)游說組織不在此列。它們擔(dān)心，此舉會打開一個潘多拉魔盒，給它們帶來沒完沒了的法律麻煩。這些組織在法案提交的幾個月前就拿到了初稿，然而在法案起草過程中拒絕提供任何修改意見。波特曼辦公室的發(fā)言人凱文•史密斯(Kevin Smith)表示：“我們履行了自己的盡職義務(wù)，連續(xù)數(shù)月在兩黨基礎(chǔ)上約見科技行業(yè)，然而它們沒有提供任何建設(shè)性反饋。”

The firms say that is because any amendment to 230 is a no-go; they suggested alternatives like tougher criminal laws. Noah Theran, a spokesperson for the Internet Association, a trade group that represents companies such as Google and Facebook, says: “The entire internet industry wants to end human trafficking. But, there are ways to do this without amending a law foundational to legitimate internet services.”

科技公司表示，這是因?yàn)閷?30條款的任何修正都是不可接受的;它們提出了一些替代方案，比如出臺更嚴(yán)厲的刑事法。代表谷歌和Facebook等公司的行業(yè)組織“互聯(lián)網(wǎng)協(xié)會”(Internet Association)的發(fā)言人諾厄•特蘭(Noah Theran)說：“整個互聯(lián)網(wǎng)行業(yè)都希望終結(jié)人口販賣。但有很多辦法能夠做到這一點(diǎn)，而無需修改一項(xiàng)對正當(dāng)互聯(lián)網(wǎng)服務(wù)具有根本重要意義的法律。”

Still, Big Tech realises the cognitive dissonance involved in censoring online activity while continuing to portray itself as the town square. See, for example, the recent Electronic Frontier Foundation statement fretting about the slippery slope of censorship. The industry simply does not have the ability, or the right, to self-police any longer. In a world where Big Tech has the power not only to fan the flames of hate speech and fake news, but also remove it when and where it likes, it is clear that the internet is a fundamentally different place than it was in 1996 — one that needs fundamentally different rules.

話雖如此，大科技公司意識到了這其中的認(rèn)知失調(diào)：一方面審查網(wǎng)絡(luò)活動，另一方面繼續(xù)將自身標(biāo)榜為“市鎮(zhèn)廣場”?？纯措娮忧把鼗饡?Electronic Frontier Foundation)最近的一份聲明吧，其中充滿了對審查“滑坡”的焦慮之情?？萍夹袠I(yè)沒有能力，也沒有權(quán)利繼續(xù)自我監(jiān)督。如今，大科技公司不僅具有煽起仇恨言論和假新聞火焰的威力，也同樣有能力隨時隨地清除這些東西，有鑒于此，今天的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)顯然是一個在根本上與1996年不同的世界，它需要在根本上不同的規(guī)則。

The conversation about what those rules should look like is heating up. Olivier Sylvain, an associate professor of law at Fordham University, notes that as the business model and power of technology change and grow, so too should the law.

關(guān)于應(yīng)該制定什么樣的規(guī)則，相關(guān)的議論正在升溫。福坦莫大學(xué)(Fordham University)法學(xué)副教授奧利維耶•西爾萬(Olivier Sylvain)指出，隨著科技行業(yè)的商業(yè)模式發(fā)生改變，威力變得更大，法律也應(yīng)該做出相應(yīng)的變化。

“The concept of immunity in 230 as originally conceived is no longer relevant in a world in which the largest tech firms are engineering an environment in which they can extract all kinds of information about users for their own profit,” says Prof Sylvain. He recently proposed that the CDA be recrafted to “shield providers from liability for third-party user online conduct only to the extent such providers operate as true passive conduits”.

“230條款最初設(shè)想的免責(zé)概念不再適用于當(dāng)今世界，現(xiàn)在各大科技公司正在營造一種環(huán)境，讓它們能夠以盈利為目的挖掘用戶的各種信息，”西爾萬教授說。最近他建議修改《通信內(nèi)容端正法》，以確保“只在提供商的確是被動通道的情況下允許其對第三方用戶在線行為免責(zé)”。

Regulators and politicians, take note: Big Tech should no longer have its cake and eat it too.

監(jiān)管機(jī)構(gòu)和政治人士注意了：大科技公司不能再像這樣占盡好處。