Re:Congrats! Web scraping is legal! (US precedent)
by danShumway on Wednesday January 29, 2020 @09:45AM
(#22181016)
I dunno.
I'm on Hackernews to see interesting articles and read interesting conversation. If a bot can post interesting articles and make interesting conversation, I'm not sure I care that it's a bot. And if a human can't do those things, I'm not sure I care whether or not they're 'real'.
That focus on "we don't care if you self-promote, we don't care why you're here, we just want you to be a good citizen" is part of why I like HN.
It's not completely black and white, but in general I believe that users online have the Right to Delegate[0]. That right should only be legally taken away if there's a really, unbelievably compelling social justification for doing so. I am pretty skeptical that banning web scraping has that kind of justification.
I'm on Hackernews to see interesting articles and read interesting conversation. If a bot can post interesting articles and make interesting conversation, I'm not sure I care that it's a bot. And if a human can't do those things, I'm not sure I care whether or not they're 'real'.
https://xkcd.com/810/
That focus on "we don't care if you self-promote, we don't care why you're here, we just want you to be a good citizen" is part of why I like HN.
It's not completely black and white, but in general I believe that users online have the Right to Delegate[0]. That right should only be legally taken away if there's a really, unbelievably compelling social justification for doing so. I am pretty skeptical that banning web scraping has that kind of justification.
[0]: https://anewdigitalmanifesto.com/#right-to-delegate