After a spy camera designed to look like a towel hook was purchased on Amazon and illegally used for months to capture photos of a minor in her private bathroom, Amazon was sued.
The plaintiff—a former Brazilian foreign exchange student then living in West Virginia—argued that Amazon had inspected the camera three times and its safety team had failed to prevent allegedly severe, foreseeable harms still affecting her today.
Amazon hoped the court would dismiss the suit, arguing that the platform wasn’t responsible for the alleged criminal conduct harming the minor. But after nearly eight months deliberating, a judge recently largely denied the tech giant’s motion to dismiss.
Amazon’s biggest problem persuading the judge was seemingly the product descriptions that the platform approved. An amended complaint included a photo from Amazon’s product listing that showed bathroom towels hanging on hooks that disguised the hidden camera. Text on that product image promoted the spycams, boasting that they “won’t attract attention” because each hook appears to be “a very ordinary hook.”
Not so much about this particular case, but I think the real question here is, “Should we expect every online retailer to be responsible for everything sold on their platform?” Why or why not?
The US has already decided that platforms are not responsible for the speech that occurs there. Why or why not?
Are we for or against prohibitions? Radical conservative and liberal takes both fail in certain circumstances.
It’s a strange new world, and these are the conversations we have to have.
The fact that the answer to this question is up in the air shows just how bent over to business this country is. Of course they should be held responsible for the things they sell.
Imagine for a moment if someone listed heroin on Amazon. Do you think Amazon should be held responsible for selling that?
Why would US policy be structured to allow industry to create online marketplaces that openly sell and advertise items for illegal purposes? Should we allow it because it’s easier for one store to sell every type of instant garbage under the sun without oversight? Why is that something we should encourage or accommodate?
Products aren’t speech. Just because it’s slightly inconvenient for Amazon to have a person look through new product listings before they’re approved because maybe there’s millions of them doesn’t mean we owe them that savings.
I feel like there’s a difference between user posts and physical products. Surely Walmart couldn’t sell “2in1 Baby Formula Rat Poison” and say “well we didn’t know the supplier was going to put rat poison in it!” These are items that they are selling and directly making a profit from, don’t they have some responsibility to do their own QC?
Let’s change a couple of words and see whether your opinion changes
If it’s reasonable to expect physical retailers to take some responsibility for the legality and safety of items in their stores, then what’s different about it being a virtual store?
If the product has some danger that the retailer wouldn’t know about, then they shouldn’t be held responsible.
For example, suppose a store sold toasters and some had faulty wiring that caused fires. We wouldn’t expect stores to personally inspect every toaster. This issue would be on the manufacturer.
However, if a product was obviously unsafe/illegal based on the description and intended usage, then the store should be held responsible. If a store stocked “Electric Bathtub Toasters - use in your bathtub - Now with exposed wiring!”, then they absolutely should be held responsible for injuries caused from use of the product.
That’s comparing several thousand items to several millions. Same with vendors. A brick and mortar doesn’t have millions of vendors to monitor.
They still obtain, sell, and profit off of all of those items, whether it’s in the hundreds, billions, or anything in between. If they can’t be bothered to do their job correctly because they’re ‘too big to
faileven try’ then it’s still their fault. They have the ability and the means to NOT sell those items; nobody is pointing a gun at Bezos, forcing him to sell these things. Just an insane level of recklessness and callous disregard for all but profit. Even eBay has a fairly solid system checking and removing prohibited items, but 23 out of Amazon’s 33 product categories are partially or entirely “ungated,” meaning putting products up for sale don’t require any sorts of checks or approvalPhysical goods aren’t protected speech. You’re comparing laws regarding apples with laws regarding oranges. If you insist on doing that, I have to point out that speech that can cause direct harm is also not protected speech, but that’s if we assume the invalid comparison to be valid.
I was trying to compare what it permissible for online entities. Again, it’s a strange new world.
I think that if you’re taking 8-45% of the selling price of the things people move through your platform, you should be held more accountable than somewhere that people can post hate speech for free.
Amazon is full of fakes and blatant fraud, and they absolutely should be policing that under the threat of enormous fines that they would actually notice and far exceed the cost of doing their job.
But is what they sold here illegal to buy in that territory? And should it be? In Japan for example, most camera phones make a noise when you take a photo. Is it time for lawmakers to actually pay attention to what is being sold?
I don’t really see the drawback of them being required to reasonably vet everything they are selling. I don’t know where to draw the line, exactly, but I’m not suggesting they need to product test everything to make sure it’s okay, but in this case where it’s clearly being created and advertised in such a manner they should assume some responsibility. Many times they are actually the seller in these, if not at least a broker. They are very much involved directly in the transaction. I don’t see much of drawback from this, but I could be missing something.
As for moderation, as far as I can tell, the whole idea of an “online message system” completely falls apart if platforms are responsible for everything said on the platform. It would require every post to be moderated, and that is (or was, at least) just infeasible. Well, maybe no with AI. . .but is that any better?
The first question is one of the easiest questions out there in my eyes, yes any company should be responsible for all content on their site. No exceptions. What I mean by this is if a company is aware (i.e someone reported it or it came across the safety system) and the company willfully (either by automated systems ignoring or a person deciding no action is needed) then the company should be held liable for it.