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A 62-year-old St. Louis man will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars after a jury convicted him Wednesday of 22 sex offenses against children.

TOPEKA — The Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska Conference of Teamsters endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz days after the International Brotherhood of Teamsters declined to endorse a presidential candidate in the November election. The conference cited Harris’ Senate voting record, Walz’ commitment to working families and the middle class and the pair’s strong support […]

OTTERVILLE - Local history buffs can get an inside look at an Otterville building with a fascinating backstory while supporting its restoration at the 41st annual Hamilton Primary School Festival. The festival spans two days, including Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, Sept. 29, 2024 from 12 to 5 p.m. As always, it will be held on the Hamilton Primary School grounds at 107 E. Main St. in Otterville. The weekend’s festivities include live musical acts, free tours inside the Hamilton Primary School, local vendors, prize raffles, a 50/50 drawing, and kids’ activities, including crafts and a coloring contest. Plenty of great food will also be on-hand, such as fried fish, pulled pork, hot dogs, bratwursts, and more. The festival also features an annual bake-off and auction, both of which are set for Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. The top three bakers in each of four dessert categories will walk away with cash prizes, with winners announced that afternoon

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STAGES’ “Ragtime the Musical”  Reveals the Tapestry of America           by Pat Lindsey STAGES is wrapping up its 38th summer season with the Tony Award-winning “Ragtime the Musical” and its largest cast ever. It’s about America at the turn of the 20th century when immigrants were coming from overseas by the boatloads, Blacks were […]

The post STAGES ends 38th summer season with Ragtime appeared first on flovalleynews.com.

Today on TAP: To win the blue-wall states, Harris needs to drive home the progressive populist planks she unveiled yesterday.

Actress Shailene Woodley recently revealed that she’s been working with songwriter Linda Perry to develop her voice for the upcoming Janis Joplin biopic, and now Perry is sharing some more details on…

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The Missouri Botanical Gardens is working to notify individuals potentially impacted by a recent cybersecurity hack at the garden.

A new decision by a federal court of appeals on Section 230 isn’t just nonsense; it could seriously undermine free speech online, including by journalists.

Gregory Baldwin/Ikon Images via AP Photo

If it sounds backward to use the First Amendment to undermine a law meant to protect free speech, that’s because it is.

Yet that’s just what’s been done in a recent decision on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — the federal law that shields online services from legal liability for posts made by their users. A federal court of appeals used the First Amendment itself to sweep away many of the law’s protections for online content, including posts by journalists.

In late August, the court held that Section 230 doesn’t apply to claims based on platforms’ recommendation algorithms. Its decision allowed a case against TikTok to go forward, based on its algorithm recommending a “blackout challenge” video to a child who later died attempting it.

Distorting the First Amendment

The court of appeals claimed it was being guided by the Supreme Court, despite the fact that the justices have never weighed in on Section 230’s applicability to recommendation algorithms and even went so far as to sidestep the question last year.

Nevertheless, the appeals court said that a different Supreme Court decision holding that the First Amendment protects platforms’ choices about whether and how to display online content means Section 230 doesn’t protect them from being sued for those very choices.

Many have pointed out how nonsensical the court’s reasoning is, especially because Congress passed Section 230 to ensure First Amendment rights were protected online.

It’s possible the decision will be reversed, but if not, its practical effects could have dire consequences for journalists and everyone else who uses the internet.

To appreciate why, you need to understand two things: First, how much online speech the court of appeals’ decision applies to, and second, how platforms will likely respond to the court’s ruling.

Inevitable censorship of news

On the first point, the court of appeals’ decision seems to apply to everything posted on social media, because it’s all been sorted by some kind of algorithm. Platforms have to make choices about what content to display and how to display it, and they use algorithms to do it. If Section 230 doesn’t apply to content that platforms recommend, it’s hard to see what content it applies to at all.

Platforms can’t avoid this result by shutting off what most people think of when they hear about recommendation algorithms: those annoying systems that push content that users never asked to see. Even simple algorithms — like ones that show you only content posted by the people you follow or display content in reverse-chronological order — are still types of recommendation algorithms.

On the second point, how are platforms likely to respond to this decision? Because it means that platforms can’t rely on Section 230 for any user-generated content they recommend (which, again, is all content), they’ll be much more likely to aggressively remove content they believe could get them sued. But they’re not going to have a legal team parse every single post for liability risk — that would be prohibitively expensive. They’ll use flawed technological tools to detect risk and will err on the side of takedowns.

That, in turn, will lead to the overremoval of news from social media, especially news that’s critical of wealthy or powerful people or corporations who may sue. Imperfections in content moderation will also mean that platforms will overremove news stories about controversial or illegal matters even more than they already do.

It’s not just news on social media that will be impacted. Other online services, like search engines, also rely on Section 230 and also use recommendation algorithms. If Google or DuckDuckGo know they can be sued for “recommending” a news report that is potentially defamatory by ranking it highly in a user’s search results, they may delist it, making it much harder for users to find.

Without Section 230’s protections for content they algorithmically recommend, platforms will also remove content posted by regular internet users for fear of potential liability, meaning that everyday people will be less able to make their voices heard online. It will also mean that journalists may have a harder time finding information and sources about controversial topics online because it’s been removed.

The right way to respond to algorithmic abuses

While the court of appeals’ decision will be disastrous for online free speech if allowed to stand, that doesn’t mean that anger and concern over how platforms moderate content or use recommendation algorithms are unjustified. The toxic content allowed and recommended by platforms is horrifying, as journalists and researchers have repeatedly exposed.

The press must continue to investigate recommendation algorithms to uncover these problems. The public must pressure platforms to improve. Congress needs to pass comprehensive privacy legislation that prevents platforms from hoovering up the private information that powers some of the most noxious recommendation algorithms.

But excluding algorithmically sorted content from Section 230 won’t end recommendation algorithms, which are baked into how platforms sort and display content online. Instead, it creates a strong incentive for powerful platforms to silence journalism and the voices of individual users.

The court of appeals’ decision isn’t the end of online algorithms. But it may be the beginning of the end of online free speech.

Procter & Gamble is investing $180 million to expand its home products facility in North St. Louis, creating approximately 100 new jobs and retaining 530 existing positions, with economic development incentives including industrial revenue bonds, sales tax exemptions, and personal property tax abatements.

It turns out that the long awaited indictment against New York City mayor Eric Adams doesn't involve embezzlement or fraud or anything like that. It's just old-fashioned bribery. But very weird bribery. The Feds allege that for the past decade Adams has been accepting lavish free travel and related luxury entertainment from . . . ...continue reading "Eric Adams is corrupt. He’s also an idiot."

It’s been more than seven months since employees of St. Louis-based Beleaf Medical cannabis company held an election to unionize. The majority of the ballots — 11 of the 16 — have remained closed. “It’s been quite a while,” said Will Braddum, a post-harvest technician at the company’s Sinse facility in St. Louis. “We’re just like, what is happening? Why is this happening? We’re just kind of in the dark waiting.” The reason behind the delay is likely that Braddum and his…

Lynyrd Skynyrd has canceled four more shows following the news of Skynyrd frontman Johnny Van Zant’s family emergency.The band originally canceled their Sept. 24 concert in Anchorage, sharing that Van Zant’s…

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City Museum’s Spooky Halloween Season on weekends  ’til – Oct. 26 Take fright and fun to a new level this season at City Museum with unique experiences for all ages every Friday-Sunday beginning September 28 and continuing through Oct. 26. Step into a world of wonder in this one-of-a-kind Halloween festival. Fright at the Museum […]

The post        FRIGHT AT THE CITY MUSEUM appeared first on flovalleynews.com.

One of the most horrific acts of police brutality has now resulted in two DOJ investigations. The first concerned the torture of Michael Jenkins and Eddie Parker by six white deputies who referred to themselves as the “Goon Squad” for their willingness to break rules and violate rights. The first investigation involved the incident itself […]