Where is the algorithmic recommandation that differs per user on HN?
In other words, the Supreme Court decision mentions editorial decisions but no court case has yet backed up if that means editorial decisions in the HN front page sense (as in mods make some choices but it’s not personalized.) Common sense may say mods making decisions is editorial decisions but it’s a gray area until a court case makes it clear. Precedence is the most important thing when interpreting law, and the only precedence we have is that it pertains to personalized feeds.
Although HN's algorithm depends (mostly) on user input for how it presents the posts, it still favours some over others and still runs afoul here. You would need a literal 'most recent' chronological view and HN doesn't have that for comments. It probably should anyway!
@dang We need the option to view comments chronologically, please
That said, the feature you requested is already implemented but you have to know it is there. Dang mentioned it in a recent comment that I bookmarked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41230703
To see comments on this story sorted newest-first, change the link to
https://news.ycombinator.com/latest?id=41391868
instead of
I don't think the feature was that unknown. Per Wikipedia, the CDA passed in 1996 and Slashdot was created in 1997, and I doubt the latter's moderation/voting system was that unique.
You might like this then: https://hckrnews.com/
If you child porn that gets shared via direct links then that is bad even if nobody can see it, but it is much much worse if you start recommending that to people as well.
It's rarely if ever going to be the case that there is some distinct unit of code called "the algorithm" that can be separated and considered legally distinct from the rest of the codebase.
Winding up in the same place as the defendant would require making a unique, dynamic, individualized BB for each user tailored to them based on pervasive online surveillance and the platform's own editorial "secret sauce."