FOSTA ~ H.R.1865

Tom

An Old Friend
FOSTA
H.R.1865 - Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017
H.R.1865 - 115th Congress (2017-2018): Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017

The implications of FOSTA.
Specifically, FOSTA setting precedence that restricts 3rd party links on websites. Right now, its geared to prevent sex trafficking but it may 'pave the way' for the government to dictate all website content.

It may come to a point where nobody can post an image, video or hyperlink on any website they do not personally own or control.

There is always someone, somewhere that takes offense at anything.
Essentially, the government is trying to take away your "Right To Click".
Its attempting to dictate your own personal moral standards.

Once they have control of the content you are 'allowed to see' the next step is taking control of the comments you are 'allowed' to make.

One day, the internet may become one-way information only.
No more forums, no more facebook, no more twitter, no more comment streams.

FOSTA in and of itself is a good thing but it sets us up for even more governmental control of our own personal preferences. Watch and see...

I think there will be a lot of websites revising their privacy policy.
Right now the law is looking at sex traffic. It could get distorted and start looking at copyright infringement. Then you might see the death of forums and comment streams.

Where it becomes a problem is in the Community Forums where hyperlinking is done using BBCode or HTML markup.

AlienSoup.com has no control over any external websites therefore clicking any link which results in you visiting an external website will result in this privacy policy no longer applying and AlienSoup.com cannot be held responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites.
FOSTA changes that. It holds the website responsible for the 3rd party links. Right now, not a problem because Alien Soup is not trafficking sex sites. But...
When FOSTA establishes effectiveness, it allows other similar content responsibility laws to be made that could affect any content.
 
FOSTA in the US, and GPDR in the EU, are two topics that are at the top of the debates right now for online communities. FOSTA is already have an affect on some sites, like Craigslist pulling personal ads and Reddit has killed some of their forums. Microsoft has also changed their terms of service for more restrictive language on their services like X-Box Live but they are insisting that the timing is just coincidental and nothing has really changed for them.

In short, it's the outcome of a bunch of guys in power making broad reaching decisions on stuff that they neither use nor are knowledgeable about enough to make decisions in order to say that they did something in response to public outcry over issues.
 
In short, it's the outcome of a bunch of guys in power making broad reaching decisions on stuff that they neither use nor are knowledgeable about enough to make decisions in order to say that they did something in response to public outcry over issues.
I agree but we all know how precedents enable laws.
Right now, FOSTA deals with specific issues but I'm concerned more about the precedent it sets for government control of expression on the web.
Lets just say for a minute, that FOSTA proves effective in stamping out sex promotion thru advertising.
Lets look at it like the old cigarette ads on TV. People still smoke, even with the loss of advertising. People will still look at porn, even without the advertising.
However, the issue I see is the same with TV. The government controls the content. Another form of 'Big Brother' dictating exposure. It takes the morality responsibility away from the person and places the control in the government. The government dictates the morality of the people.

FOSTA has some good things.
It requires the website owners to approve which ads are being show related to their site.
It holds the site owners responsible for the ads they allow.
A lot of websites already do this.
I'm sure you wouldn't allow an ad on Alien Soup that is X-rated.
That can't be said about a lot of sites tho.
It also makes the site owners responsible for the content they allow their members to publish on their site.
Right now, we call it spam and spammers and Alien Soup's Staff Team does a good job keeping it clear, after the fact.
Problem is, it can't be prevented. Some will get thru, even if its just until staff detects it.
Its that lag time between its posting and its removal that can cause a problem. (A screenshot could be enough proof for the courts)
FOSTA will reduce the amount of ... X-SPAM being posted, advertised and distributed.

I don't have issue with FOSTA in and of itself, I have issue with the precedence it sets allowing the government to dictate websites and ultimately, everyone.

"Oh, what a tangled web we weave?"
Not anymore... Soon it will be
"Oh, what a restrictive grid we see?"
 
I'm sure you wouldn't allow an ad on Alien Soup that is X-rated.
Correct, "X" rated type ads or content will never be allowed here. While lately we have been relaxing a bit with what gets posted the goal will always be to as family friendly as possible. If somebody is a member at Alien Soup and doesn't want their family & friends to know about it because of what the person has posted, or because of what others have posted, then we're doing something wrong. If the same person is a member of Alien Soup and has no problem with anybody seeing what they have posted or what others have posted here then we're doing something right.
It also makes the site owners responsible for the content they allow their members to publish on their site.
As you mentioned, we're usually on top of things. We still have the word swap in place so that some curse words get automatically replaced with "frack" or similar. For the most part offensive language really isn't a problem here so the word swap is more for a bit of fun and keeping in line with the theme of the site (eg: "frack" comes from Battlestar Galactica).
Right now, we call it spam and spammers and Alien Soup's Staff Team does a good job keeping it clear, after the fact.
Problem is, it can't be prevented. Some will get thru, even if its just until staff detects it.
Yep, some gets through even though we have automated spam checking in place. It's actually pretty aggressive checking and sometimes a legit post gets caught, a false positive, but it catches a huge amount of spam that is never seen to the public. These days the little bit of spam that is seen tends to be actual human users, as opposed to automated bots, that have to go out of their way to bypass the spam filters.
Its that lag time between its posting and its removal that can cause a problem. (A screenshot could be enough proof for the courts)
That's actually a good point and something I should track down as to whether there is an allowable time limit involved. With DMCA notices, for example, you typically have 24 hours to take down the content so I wonder if FOSTA allow for similar. If it doesn't then it means that a Draconian measure would have to take place of not allowing any links to be posted until it is manually approved first.
FOSTA will reduce the amount of ... X-SPAM being posted, advertised and distributed.
I don't think it will, honestly. Most X-rated spam comes from overseas, in particular Asian, Russia, and the Eastern European countries that make up the former Soviet bloc, and the don't care about US laws. Short of blocking those massive regions, or manually having to approve every single bit of content (which is unfeasable), the amount of X-rated drive-by attempted spamming will not change.
 
I don't think it will, honestly. Most X-rated spam comes from overseas, in particular Asian, Russia, and the Eastern European countries that make up the former Soviet bloc, and the don't care about US laws. Short of blocking those massive regions, or manually having to approve every single bit of content (which is unfeasable), the amount of X-rated drive-by attempted spamming will not change.
You obviously understand the world of computers and internet better than I.
What I'm thinking is that such 'known' offenders will be located and blocked by country (similar to certain websites being blocked for piracy by countries.
While our laws may not affect the offenders, the blocking may result in lower violation attempts.
As with piracy sites, there are work-arounds but over-all I believe there will be a decrease over time.

I think at the beginning, there will be an increase in an attempt to get as much profit as possible before everything gets locked out.
From the way I understand it, if a UK site allows the offenders and the UK site is also available in the US then the UK site may get revoked from US servers? Er, something to that effect. The UK site will still operate but without US traffic. So, while the US laws don't govern the UK site, our rules may cause them to rethink their content if facing the loss of US traffic.
As more and more country sites get locked out for their content there will be a trickling effect across the globe.
The US is a major internet player. The threat of losing connectivity could be devastating to a site's marketing strategy. They will comply with the law because it will make good business sense.
 
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