What can ISPs do better? Removing racism out of internet

Mon Aug 5 16:28:38 UTC 2019

> I’m not sure if you understand the terms under which ISPs operate as “common carriers”, and thus enjoy immunity from lawsuits due to the acts of their customers. ISPs such as Cloudfare can no more disconnect customers for legal, if offensive, content than the phone company can, without losing that common carrier status.
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> Cloudfare is being foolish, and hypocritical. They freely, for example, carry the equally offensive content of Antifa. Are they going to cut them off too?
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> In America we have the right to free speech, and the right to use common carriers to carry that speech. If a common carrier chooses to censor legal speech, which is what Cloudfare has done, then it loses its CC status and can now be sued for that speech.
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> -mel beckman

ISPs are not common carriers, and, in fact, they have the right to carry - or to not carry - whatever traffic they choose.  In fact, for some aspects of Internet traffic, ISP immunity is specifically written into the law (cf. CAN-SPAM §8(c) which states that "(c) No EFFECT ON POLICIES OF PROVIDERS OF INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE.--Nothing in this Act shall be construed to have any effecton the lawfulness or unlawfulness, under any other provision of law, of the adoption, implementation, or enforcement by a provider of Internet access service of a policy of declining to transmit, route,relay, handle, or store certain types of electronic mail messages.").

Anne P. Mitchell, Attorney at Law
CEO/President, Institute for Social Internet Public Policy
Dean of Cybersecurity & Cyberlaw, Lincoln Law School of San Jose
Author: Section 6 of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (the Federal anti-spam law)
Legislative Consultant
GDPR, CCPA (CA) & CCDPA (CO) Compliance Consultant
Board of Directors, Denver Internet Exchange
Board of Directors, Asilomar Microcomputer Workshop
Legal Counsel: The CyberGreen Institute
Former Counsel: Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS)
Member: California Bar Association