I think the issue is that not only is this burdensome, but it practically invites the enforcer to err on the side of caution, leading to a chilling effect.
For those who haven't taken journalism law classes, a newspaper can print falsehoods without fear of being sued, especially about public figures. The threshold is that they cannot do it with "actual malice" or "gross negligence."...this is not the case in many other countries, including Britain.
Why not make it a suable offense to print any kind of falsehood, which are most definitely detectable by human (and probably machine) readers? Because if a newspaper -- or any media source -- had to worry about being sued because of simple mistakes of fact or, more problematically, because a whistleblower misled them -- then most newspaper businesses would err so far on the side of caution that they would not print anything useful about any public figure.
[insert ridicule for how the corporate-controlled media doesn't do that anyway]
To go back to the SOPA case...a company like Google has to deal with something much more difficult to ascertain than errors of fact, and so it worries that it will have to adopt a "it's better to apologize than to have to ask" policy, which would be detrimental to its search property.
I agree with your premise if this algorithm was enforced by threat of lawsuit. An alternative would be that, instead of lobbying&lawsuits, the RIAA/MPAA pay Google to implement such a thing and in return also grant them immunity/amnesty. [insert ridicule for how Big Content would never do such a thing]
For those who haven't taken journalism law classes, a newspaper can print falsehoods without fear of being sued, especially about public figures. The threshold is that they cannot do it with "actual malice" or "gross negligence."...this is not the case in many other countries, including Britain.
Why not make it a suable offense to print any kind of falsehood, which are most definitely detectable by human (and probably machine) readers? Because if a newspaper -- or any media source -- had to worry about being sued because of simple mistakes of fact or, more problematically, because a whistleblower misled them -- then most newspaper businesses would err so far on the side of caution that they would not print anything useful about any public figure.
[insert ridicule for how the corporate-controlled media doesn't do that anyway]
To go back to the SOPA case...a company like Google has to deal with something much more difficult to ascertain than errors of fact, and so it worries that it will have to adopt a "it's better to apologize than to have to ask" policy, which would be detrimental to its search property.