What Are Repercussion For Making Uncensorable Social Media? I'm intending to make and publish an experimental platform where user-generated content (UGC) is uncensorable and permanent. Although tech promotes itself as such, like the omnipotence paradox, man cannot create something that man cannot destroy. Caveat being, I technically have no capacity to moderate UGC, rather it's within the jurisdiction of very complex decentralized infrastructures. Content of this immutable nature is virtually unchallenged. I wish to make this service privacy respecting and transparent. In the hypothetical this is used for illegal activity, what are the repercussions, and what's within authorities' jurisdiction? Can they shut every aspect of it down? If so can I be reimbursed for expenses? Can they charge me for illegal UGC, if I'm not the creator/host or have an ability to delist it? Can they demand I modify/redesign my service model? E.g. to collect user data / to create a backdoor to censor UGC? And adding to those questions, if I moderate UGC via the application/interface/frontend level (which is rather evadable) will the project itself be allowed to operate? And could I be prevented from developing/distributing the original source code?
You can design whatever this system is (leaving aside jurisdictions without First Amendment-like law that lets you design to your hearts content), the problem comes in implementing. The main legal question is whether you are operating a website. A website operator has to comply with various laws that require them to remove content. For example, if you operate a website that allows users to distribute content that they upload, they can distribute copyright-protected content, and you can be held liable for copyright infringement. DMCA in the US provides a way for you to not get sued, but you have to be able to remove putatively infringing content, so you could get sued if you can't remove illegal content. This may also include legal troubles over e.g. defamatory content where a plaintiff gets a court order to remove the content – you can't plead &quot;I can't it down&quot; if the court orders you to do so. Napster was sued for copyright infringement and racketeering for facilitating law-breaking by others (&quot;secondary infringement&quot;), and in MGM v. Grokster the Supreme Court annonced the general principle that One who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, going beyond mere distribution with knowledge of third-party action, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties using the device, regardless of the device’s lawful uses Grokster's problems arose because they clearly intended the software to be used to violate copyright law, whereas it is unlikely that Github will get sued because it is possible to use the platform illegally. So it really matters exactly what this &quot;platform&quot; is and what your relationship to the platform is. Describing a system is generally not illegal, realizing and maintaining one can easily be.
There are multiple issues with what you are trying to do, including issues with copyright, personality rights, and data protection. You are trying to use other people's content and likeness for your advertisement. Unless you are certain that you can do this in your relevant jurisdictions, without their consent, this sounds like a very bad idea. At least under GDPR, “but they made it public” is not an excuse. Personal data is personal data regardless of how you acquire it. The GDPR also has a very broad concept of identifiability that goes beyond direct identifiers or PII. If you want to use other people's personal data, you need a legal basis, and must provide them notice about your processing. Consent (informed opt-in) is one legal basis, legitimate interest (opt-out) another. You are suggesting to avoid this by blurring PII, but you may also have to blur other content that is indirectly identifiable. Real anonymization that meets the GDPR's definition is a really hard problem. In some cases, a legitimate interest is able to avoid such problems. E.g. if I make a video with commentary about a Tweet, it would likely be OK to show surrounding personal data like the responses including the identities of the various accounts, to the degree that this is relevant to the commentary and/or necessary for proper attribution. However, that commentary likely has strong protections under freedom of expression. At least from an European viewpoint, a tutorial, demo, or advertisement would not have a freedom of expression argument that would shift a GDPR legitimate interest balancing test in your favour. Instead of blurring almost everything in your video or working on GDPR compliance, content licenses, and release forms, you should consider a different solution: create dummy content just for your videos. You can use your own content, and maybe add a dummy profile.
The Art 15 GDPR right to access is pretty absolute. There are only three grounds under which access to a copy of your data can be denied: Art 12(5): the request is “manifestly unfounded”, e.g. clearly just submitted for trolling Art 12(5): the request is “excessive”, e.g. if you repeat the same request very frequently Art 15(4): access to a copy would “adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others” Thus, I am confident that Twitch would respond to an access request with a copy of all your chat messages. Of course, the chat messages might be useless without context, but providing that context might infringe on the privacy rights of others (see Art 15(4)). There are two caveats to this right. The data need not be machine-readable, unless the more limited Art 20 right to data portability also applies. Twitch is under no explicit obligation to provide access in a self-service manner, e.g. through an app or web interface. It would probably in the best interest of Twitch to provide self-service means, but right now the Twitch privacy policy (permalink) asks you to exercise your rights by emailing privacy@twitch.tv. Alternatively, their privacy choices page contains an entry to “Obtain access to or a copy of certain personal data we hold about you”, which contains a barely-visible link to a web form where you can request chat data.
Yes, that’s allowed. Under the Stack Exchange terms of service, content you upload is licensed to Stack Exchange Inc. on a non-exclusive basis under CC-BY-SA 4.0. The terms of service do not give Stack Exchange the copyright to your contributions, and a non-exclusive license means you are not promising Stack Exchange that “only Stack Exchange will be allowed to use this content.” That means you can continue to do whatever you want with your own content and do not need to mention Stack Exchange at all. The only restriction is that you can’t stop Stack Exchange from continuing to use your Stack Exchange content under CC-BY-SA 4.0, and since it’s a Creative Commons license you also can’t stop anyone else from using your Stack Exchange content under that license.
A more general version of the question, as far as I can see, is &quot;Is Google Drive legal?&quot;. I can create an account and upload files to Google Drive, and I can open them from the cloud using various interfaces. I can directly open only certain files types, others I have to download to the device that I'm using in order to open the file. There are various file storage systems that allow this, most or all of which seem to use some sort of system of password access, file-access permissions and encryption to block access by unauthorized individuals. All systems seems to allow &quot;sharing&quot; of a specified file. Google and colleague escape liability by complying with 17 USC 512 aka the DMCA safe harbor provisions. Basically, they don't know, they don't select uploads, they have a removal procedure, they don't know that the material is infringing, and they &quot;are not aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent&quot;. There is a chance that you would be sued for inducing copyright infringement, see MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd, specifically We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties You describe a situation that is unlikely to be found to constitute inducement to infringing, instead it is &quot;enabling possible infringing&quot;, and mere possibilty of doing something bad with a tool does not make you liable for selling a tool, under current US law. An eyebrow would be raised, though, as to why this service only allows ebooks to be deposited.
&quot;...claiming that the license can be revoked at any time.&quot; Of course a game company can revoke their license at any time. The company grants you a license to use the product, and a license is not an obligation on their part to provide the product, or a right to use it on your part. There's nothing illegal about a license or TOS that has clauses which stipulate when the license or TOS can be revoked changed or revoked.
You've really got two questions here: 1) "Is it an invasion of privacy to know that I'm using an ad blocker?", and 2) "Is it discrimination to refuse service based on what software I'm running?". Taking them in order: Because of how HTTP/HTML works, there are essentially two ways for a server operator to know what software you are running. Your browser announces that it's running something. This usually takes the form of a modified User-Agent header. I'm not aware of any privacy laws that consider "Person A told me something" to be an invasion of Person A's privacy. They guess it based on the actions your browser takes. For example, if the website gets a request for a page, and the site's ad network does not get a matching request for an ad, the server deduces that the user is running an ad blocker. Since this is based on things that the server operator could reasonably be expected to be informed of, it isn't an invasion of privacy under any law I'm aware of. Is it discrimination? Yes. But not all discrimination is illegal. In general, only discrimination based on protected categories (race, sex, etc.) is prohibited, and I can't imagine a jurisdiction making "choice of browser add-ons" to be one of those categories, not least because it's something the person being discriminated against can easily change.
This paper describes a website created to test the hypothesis that nobody bothers to read the TOS, and it contained a privacy clause saying that &quot;we may share everything, and a clause that by agreeing to these Terms of Service, and in exchange for service, all users of this site agree to immediately assign their first-born child to NameDrop, Inc. If the user does not yet have children, this agreement will be enforceable until the year 2050. All individuals assigned to NameDrop automatically become the property of NameDrop, Inc. No exceptions. Since this was not a real webpage, there was no attempt to enforce. TOS is just another kind of contract, so the question is which kinds of contract conditions are enforceable and which kinds are not. It depends on whose laws you are operating under, which explains the use of expressions like &quot;void where prohibited by law&quot;. There are innumerable conditions that could be included in a contract which are unenforceable. A contract requiring a person to commit a crime is unenforceable. Many jurisdictions have laws prohibiting a person from waiving certain rights, for example you cannot sign away your right to be represented by legal counsel in a dispute. There are related &quot;unfair / deceptive&quot; practices laws, which might include meta-conditions that any clause disclaiming liability must be prominently displayed. These are terms that a reasonable person would clearly know in advance are illegal and unenforceable. There is also a concept of &quot;unconscionability&quot;, a finding that a certain condition favors the business to the point of &quot;shocking the conscience&quot;, which may take a deeper legal analysis to evaluate. A requirement to litigate small disputes in California might be deemed unconscionable for a customer in an East Coast state, but it might not be. A typical characterization of an unconscionable contract is one that &quot;leaves one party with no real, meaningful choice and is unreasonably advantageous to the other party&quot;, especially when due to asymmetrical negotiation power. For example, Ellis v. McKinnon , 18 Cal. App. 4th 1796 (employment contract for a salesman, commissions were forfeit if company had not received payment from the customer by the termination of employment). The main case law in the US in this area is Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture, 350 F.2d 445, where a customer bought furniture on credit, with a clause allowing repossession of all of the furniture in case of default by the customer. The doctrine is encoded in UCC 2-302. However, &quot;unconscionable&quot; does not mean &quot;I don't like it&quot;. In lieu of statutory price controls, a customer probably cannot avoid paying an agreed on exorbitant price for a product ($100 for a dozen rolls of toilet paper). Here is a bit more legal analysis of unconscionability, which focuses on three factors: one-sidedness, oppressiveness, and likeliness to result in unfair surprise.