Editor’s note for Wednesday, March 3, 2021

My thoughts today:

Is Facebook liable for the content its users post? Not according to the company’s lawyers, and to Section 230, the bit of American legal language that protects tech companies from the consequences of what their users publish.

Are Uber and Lyft liable for the wellbeing of the people who drive for them? No, according to the voters of California, who in November 2020 supported Proposition 22, which lets the rideshare firms continue to treat their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees entitled to benefits.

Chinese internet companies face many similar questions from the government and their customers. Responsibility for content is not one of these questions: the government’s strict censorship doesn’t leave much room for decision making, ethical or not, by the social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo that are Facebook’s equivalents in China. But other types of app-based marketplaces are increasingly finding themselves the target of anger from users and customers, and from the workers who physically fulfill and deliver many of the services and goods sold via app. Chinese government scrutiny of the tech companies and their responsibilities to society is also intensifying rapidly.

This week we’ve been following the case of on-demand moving van company Lalamove, which many Chinese social media users are blaming for the death of a passenger, and for a long history of safety issues: read our latest update on the case below or on our website.

Our word of the day is carbon neutral / neutrality (碳中和 tàn zhōnghé).

—Jeremy Goldkorn, Editor-in-Chief