The leak of private information part comes from a text message case, where a private but forwarded defamatory text triggered liability. I could look for the particular case, but here's the gist from a lawyer: "If someone sends a false statement of fact to a) a text message group or b) an individual, who then tells others about the text, the message could be defamatory." 1/

The Section-230-protects-you-as-forwarder from EFF. It's in the plain language of the statute, by virtue of the word "user": "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Here's EFF https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230 They play up the "you can safely forward e-mail" stuff, because they are pro-230 and want to make the case it doesn't just shield big tech platforms. /fin

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender According to EFF, Section 230 protects you when you, say, forward an e-mail to a public list. (It's part of their disingenuous it-protects-you-and-me-not-just-big-firms spin.) Mail providers were protected before 230, bc they didn't curate. If you retweet a defamatory tweet, you are not liable, even though you affirmatively chose to do so. Sectio 230 exists to shield discretionary decisions to publish or not, distribution without discretion was already protected.1/

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender (If 230 didn't exist would mail providers become liable on the theory that spam filtering is editorial discretion? That's an interesting question!) 2/

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender However counterintuitive, at least under EFF's description, if I privately dish to you by e-mail, and you forward the defamatory speech to a big public mailing list, I am protected but you are liable. Defamation doesn't depend on an intent to publicize. Leaked private defamation is actionable if it's harmful, and in the digital realm all but the original defamer are often shielded. 3/

EDIT: I screwed this up, meant to say u r protected but I am liable. Thx Louis!

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender Now we are saying the people must protect accurate reports of what ChatGPT said from any leak if they prompted it, because whatever the eff ChatGPT said it's as if they said it themselves, from a liability perspective. A bit weird. /fin

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender It won’t look like that though. They will have build an algorithmic product that sends email or summarizes articles or whatever. No (prompter-side) human will have been in the loop, in products that would be uneconomical if one had to be. The argument will be the usual #Section230 claim: you’ll break the future you you make us take responsibility for this text we are conveying. 1/

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender It will not seem obvious the prompter did anything wrong. They won’t have prompted “Defame that Louis!” LLMs are unpredictable! Weird outputs are inevitable, some will slip through despite our best intentions, just like Twitter can’t be perfectly moderated. Surely purveyers of these amazing products, with no ill intent, shouldn’t be held to the impossible standard strict liability would impose. /fin

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender But it’s not just the prompt of the user! MS has almost no role in determining the content of MS Word. Open AI typical has done much more than the prompter to determine what speech any particular prompt will yield. I prompt, “Say something jiggly” and it spits out a graf. Who more “authored” that, OpenAI or me (or nobody)?

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender If you encounter a person’s speech, even anonymous, that is defamatory, and you pass it along by forwarding emails, usually you’d be protected by #Section230. (This is one of EFF’s disingenuous talking points in favor of Section 230.) What if it turns out the anonymous speaker was #ChatGPT. Are you still protected? Do we deem it the speech of the prompter, or Open AI, or whom?

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender if a corporation posts something, it’s a 1st party but it’s not a person. is OpenAI the 1st party? The intent of Section 230 was to encourage a diverse range of internet forums, in terms of particip8n and moder8n. Section 230 shields even when in practical terms there is no 1st party to hold responsible, e.g. anonymous speech. AI tools are arguably an important new participant in online forums. should they be uniquely perilous?

@LouisIngenthron @emilymbender note that soliciting speech or even being paid to host it doesn’t invalidate Section 230 protection. substack actively solicits the participation of particular authors, and earn a cut of their revenue, but remains shielded. if a platform solicits a LLM’s speech, why is that any different?