“It’s time to start holding accountable those who turn a blind eye to illegal gun sales on their platforms,” Feinstein said. “The only way to reduce the scourge of gun violence plaguing our communities is to close loopholes that allow prohibited people to obtain guns.”

“Bestowing blanket immunity on websites for illegal gun sales mocks common sense and public safety. A website that enables such deadly arms transfers should not enjoy a shield from all accountability simply because they’re online. Section 230 was never intended to provide a sweeping free pass to such illicit lethal gun trafficking,” Blumenthal said. “This bill will reverse the disastrous holding in Daniel v. Armslist and ensure that online firearms marketplaces are held accountable for the gun deaths they bear responsibility for.”

“Online gun marketplaces fail to take common-sense safety measures to prevent illegal gun sales on their platforms,” said Whitehouse. “There is no reason why a retailer should be allowed to evade responsibility simply because they operate online. It’s time to close this cyber loophole and protect against more unnecessary suffering.”

Most people probably hadn’t even heard of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act until recently. It’s been in the news because, as The Verge reported, in December President Donald Trump

vetoed an annual defense bill authorizing billions of dollars in military spending after complaints that the bill did not include changes to Section 230, the provision that gives social media companies legal immunity over much of the content posted by their users.

Section 230, which became law in 1996, states that “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.”

Those “other” information content providers can be individuals or businesses that post on social media, or post comments on news stories, or in any other way post on sites that don’t belong to them.

Section 230 protects websites and other internet service providers from lawsuits for things like defamation. However, it does have exceptions for certain kinds of criminal activity (such as prostitution) and claims based on intellectual property infringement.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) calls Section 230 “one of the most valuable tools for protecting freedom of expression and innovation on the Internet,” and notes

Rather than face potential liability for their users' actions, most would likely not host any user content at all or would need to protect themselves by being actively engaged in censoring what we say, what we see, and what we do online. In short, CDA 230 is perhaps the most influential law to protect the kind of innovation that has allowed the Internet to thrive since 1996.

Your legal concepts of property, expression, identity, movement, and context do not apply to us. They are all based on matter, and there is no matter here.

--snp--

Your increasingly obsolete information industries would perpetuate themselves by proposing laws, in America and elsewhere, that claim to own speech itself throughout the world. These laws would declare ideas to be another industrial product, no more noble than pig iron. In our world, whatever the human mind may create can be reproduced and distributed infinitely at no cost. The global conveyance of thought no longer requires your factories to accomplish.

These increasingly hostile and colonial measures place us in the same position as those previous lovers of freedom and self-determination who had to reject the authorities of distant, uninformed powers. We must declare our virtual selves immune to your sovereignty, even as we continue to consent to your rule over our bodies. We will spread ourselves across the Planet so that no one can arrest our thoughts.

We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.

Davos, Switzerland
February 8, 1996

On June 13, 2013, in the case of the Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that human genes cannot be patented in the U.S. because DNA is a "product of nature." The Court decided that because nothing new is created when discovering a gene, there is no intellectual property to protect, so patents cannot be granted. Prior to this ruling, more than 4,300 human genes were patented. The Supreme Court's decision invalidated those gene patents, making the genes accessible for research and for commercial genetic testing.

highdesert wrote: Mon Aug 30, 2021 11:57 am Businesses are always out to make money and often at our expense, remember some of them even tried to patent the human genome.

On June 13, 2013, in the case of the Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, Inc., the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that human genes cannot be patented in the U.S. because DNA is a "product of nature." The Court decided that because nothing new is created when discovering a gene, there is no intellectual property to protect, so patents cannot be granted. Prior to this ruling, more than 4,300 human genes were patented. The Supreme Court's decision invalidated those gene patents, making the genes accessible for research and for commercial genetic testing.

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/unders ... nepatents/

8 SEC. 3. PROTECTION OF VICTIMS OF GUN VIOLENCE.
9 Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47
10 U.S.C. 230) is amended—
11 (1) in subsection (c)—
12 (A) in paragraph (1), by striking ‘‘No pro13 vider’’ and inserting ‘‘Except as provided in
14 paragraph (3), no provider’’; and
15 (B) by adding at the end the following:
16 ‘‘(3) TREATMENT OF PUBLISHER OR SPEAKER
17 DOES NOT APPLY TO ONLINE FIREARMS MARKET18 PLACE.—Paragraph (1) shall not apply to an online
19 firearms marketplace, for purposes of any claim in
20 an action brought against the online firearms mar
21 ketplace in its capacity as an online firearms mar
22 ketplace.’’;