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>Section 230 is an essential legal pillar for online speech. And when powerful people don’t like that speech, or the platforms that host it, the provision becom

>Section 230 is an essential legal pillar for online speech. And when powerful people don’t like that speech, or the platforms that host it, the provision becomes a scapegoat for just about every tech-related problem. Does anyone actually believe this is an authoritarian attempt to squash speech that is "speaking truth to power"? This is the result of years of work to remove any dissenting voice from the generally Left-leaning sites of the Internet -- Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, etc. First they started disabling comment sections, calling all opposition "trolls". Then they tried to deplatform, go after advertisers, etc. Most recently, two sites were dropped from AdSense because they had unmoderated comment sections. Not only is Google saying what can live on it's platform, but also what can live on the sites of others. But wait...they're a private company and have every right to remove people from their platform. Fine, then they lose all government protection from the results of their choice to decide what legal information people can and cannot see.

all_factz 6y ago
I’d rather the sites themselves decide than the US government decide. You can always go to a different site. But once we have the government intervening and saying “this is what is acceptable speech online, this is what isn’t”, that’s a whole nother level of censorship I’d rather avoid.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  > this is what is acceptable speech online, this is what isn’t But that isn't what they're saying. They're saying, "if you are deciding what is acceptable speech, you're now responsible for it." And for the record, I absolutely agree.
  - akersten 6y ago
    I only consider sewing-related posts acceptable on my sewing message board. If I moderate anything else, I'm suddenly responsible for any libel that gets posted while I'm asleep? That position is absurd.
    - speeder 6y ago
      I think he meant that people posting instructions on how to see country flags or how to make a swastika or gay rainbow flag should not be moderated, of you do moderate then you are liable (for example if someone post instructions to sew a KKK hood and you refuse to remove that, but you remove other things, then you get sued for condoning hate speech)
      - akersten 6y ago
        That interpretation doesn't follow from GP's position of "if you are deciding what is acceptable speech, you're now responsible for it." Removing off-topic posts is just as much "deciding what is acceptable speech" as is removing on-topic posts that happen to be posts I don't like. That is to say, the consideration of what is on-topic vs. off-topic is at its core a decision of what is acceptable.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        The problem is that it’s very hard to write a law that both bans the moderation of political speech, and would allow the hypothetical sewing forum operator to ban non-sewing content. How do you define political? How do you handle extreme political ideologies that advocate for violence too? Who has the power to decide which speech is moderation proof? How do you avoid abuse when politicians eventually control such a system? And how do you survive legal challenges to the fact that you’ve created a third type of extra protected speech?
        akersten 6y ago
        Right? And even if there were some magical law that could distinguish between "off-topic" and "on-topic," that would still prevent me from running my little sewing site - because if I truly don't want the KKK hoods on there and I remove them, I'm suddenly still responsible for anything else that gets posted. So I'd either get no sleep because I'm constantly reviewing every post, have to hire a dedicated moderation team, or give in to the trolls entirely. S230 is not just a "big tech" shield, it literally enables internet communities as we know them to exist.
    - 6y ago
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    That would have the opposite effect you’re hoping for. If the bar for Twitter becoming responsible for every yahoo’s tweet is set that low, they will have a hair trigger on what it takes to get banned. Why risk it? I guess the alternative is to ban all moderation and let every site turn into Gab, which sounds pretty awful to me.
CerealFounder 6y ago
Libertarians are real free enterprise until it affects their lives... But before I get thrashed for hurthing feelings, the real problem is these networks act like pubs and open networks. Paid amplification is almost certainly the problem in that it allows money to act as speech. by allowing it to reach more people that didnt seek it. Historically a wild fringe idea stayed that way because it was hard to convert people at scale. Now a fringe/bad idea coming from a group of power and "pump up the juice." It would be interesting if they either limited the pay for audience equation or create hypertransperency around who is behind the message. All in all, Facebook is going to be heavily regulated over the next decade and I hope they're diversifying somewhere. The newspapers were fractured, "The Bells," and it seems historically governments step in after about 10-20 years of abuse.
- tomohawk 6y ago
  What is "free enterprise" about the activities of monopolies like Google? Monopolies restrain trade an prevent free enterprise. Google and the other monopolies do not deserve any special protection.
- api 6y ago
  Paid amplification isn't the fundamental problem, but it contributes. The root of all evil on the Internet in the past 10-15 years is algorithmic timelines and algorithmic content curation whose goal function is to increase engagement. What increases engagement? Fear, hate, conflict, and spectacle. The media has understood this for years: "if it bleeds it leads." People have a strong bias to stare at danger, probably a social adaptation to notice if a mountain lion is attacking your tribe. But when you apply it to user-generated free content, the result is the familiar "rabbit hole" and "filter bubble" phenomena and folie a deux at scale. Back when humans directly curated content via curated lists, organic timelines that were actually just timelines, and organic non-spam-driven hyperlinking, everything was more rational and less toxic. (Even Reddit/HN style voting is better if it's truly organic and not biased by some algorithm, though it does lead to a different sort of "Borg" phenomenon sometimes.) Even the fringe was far less toxic and more reasonable. Go find some conspiracy or other fringe topic sites from prior to 2010 on the Wayback Machine. The problem isn't humans. The problem is that we stuck a middleman in front of human group communication and programmed that middleman to bias what messages are shown in a way that tends to amplify negativity, irrationality, and fluff as opposed to more useful and interesting but less dopamine-releasing content.
Artistry121 6y ago
I actually believe that and the fact that a "fact checking" button sparked this is evidence of that. It's not liberal or conservative - its government attempts to limit information and discussion. And it should be fought. These sites remove doxxing and hate from many angles. Look at the subreddit communities reddit has banned - they're not all right wing - many are just bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti... Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, etc. all are right leaning individuals who have a massive following via these platforms. Logan Paul was deplatformed and he's not right wing. And both sides have a ton of people being trolls. Did you ever read r/theDonald or r/Conservative or comments sections on Sargon of Aakaad? Fox News' Tucker Carlson segments are routinely recommended by the youtube algorithm to me despite me having no interest in him and rarely or never clicking on them. Does anyone actually believe this is an authoritarian attempt to squash speech that is "speaking truth to power"? Yes - this speaks to my lived experience and my understood experience of the trend in authoritarian countries.
manfredo 6y ago
I'm not sure how this makes the internet better. So now sites have to host actual neo Nazis and the KKK for fear of losing section 230 protections? Oh and if you have a site focused on programming or motorcycling you have to host completely off topic content because otherwise you lose section 230 protections? The whole point of section 230 is to make it so that sites can moderate user generated content without becoming legally liable for it. Removing this forces every site to become 4chan for fear of losing section 230 protections. This isn't a positive change in my view.
youareostriches 6y ago
Reddit prohibits content which: * Is illegal * Is involuntary pornography * Is sexual or suggestive content involving minors * Encourages or incites violence * Threatens, harasses, or bullies or encourages others to do so * Is personal and confidential information * Impersonates an individual or entity in a misleading or deceptive manner * Uses Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services * Is spam* https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy A few of the banned subreddits are: * Beatingwomen * Braincels * CreepShots * CringeAnarchy * DarkNetMarkets * Deepfakes * FatPeopleHate * Gore Your position basically insinuates that right-wing discourse is impossible without violating these rules. But I think that’s pretty unfair considering the range and depth of conservative intellectual thought. Maybe you should encourage the more moderate segments of conservatism to speak out against extremists who use the language of racist violence instead of defending them.
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  Also, /r/conservative is a thing, and they’re not exactly a bastion of the type of free speech they’re advocating; it’s super easy to get banned from that sub.
mcintyre1994 6y ago
It's hard not to see this as an authoritarian backlash to "speaking truth to power" when the President is arguing Twitter should lose 230 because they fact checked his tweet. Fact checking a President's tweet translates quite naturally to speaking truth to power.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  It's also editorializing Twitter...ergo Twitter is no longer a neutral platform and should be subject to all the same liabilities that Fox, CNN, etc are including libel and defamation.
  - akersten 6y ago
    What? Not only does the legal concept of a "neutral platform" not exist, the examples you cite (Fox, CNN) are certainly not "neutral platforms." They aren't responsible for what their commenters post on their sites either (and it is certainly... eye-opening to check out their comment sections sometimes). Twitter already does have libel liabilities, just like Fox and CNN, if they were to themselves post something libelous - just like if Fox were to produce a segment themselves that is libelous.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      No they don't. Twitter cannot be sued for something someone tweets that is false or defamatory about someone else. That individual tweeter is responsible. Unlike Fox or CNN who are responsible for what their reporters and commentators say. If Twitter ventures against the spirit of 230 protection, which was designed to protect neutral platforms like a utility, then they deserve to lose it. It's not about who produces a segment, Twitter is clearly the publisher and distributor. 230 was designed to protect free speech not to allow unlimited corporate intervention into speech.
      - vkou 6y ago
        Fox has been photoshopping a man with an assault rifle onto pictures of a peaceful protest for the last week. What legal consequences have they faced, or are they going to face for these blatant lies?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
aa66tt55rr44 6y ago
None of those sites are left-leaning
sgift 6y ago
> This is the result of years of work to remove any dissenting voice from the generally Left-leaning sites of the Internet Not a single one of the big sites is left-leaning, they are centrist (at most) and behave accordingly. The problem is that so many people believe the center is farther on the right than it is, so every centrist argument becomes left wing extremism, what is called centrist is really right wing and what is called right wing is extreme right. With that in mind it's no surprise right wing content gets blocked more often - the left wing equivalent (e.g. kill everyone in the name of the class fight!) doesn't really exist on Twitter & co.

all_factz 6y ago

I’d rather the sites themselves decide than the US government decide. You can always go to a different site. But once we have the government intervening and saying “this is what is acceptable speech online, this is what isn’t”, that’s a whole nother level of censorship I’d rather avoid.

commandlinefan 6y ago
> this is what is acceptable speech online, this is what isn’t But that isn't what they're saying. They're saying, "if you are deciding what is acceptable speech, you're now responsible for it." And for the record, I absolutely agree.
- akersten 6y ago
  I only consider sewing-related posts acceptable on my sewing message board. If I moderate anything else, I'm suddenly responsible for any libel that gets posted while I'm asleep? That position is absurd.
  - speeder 6y ago
    I think he meant that people posting instructions on how to see country flags or how to make a swastika or gay rainbow flag should not be moderated, of you do moderate then you are liable (for example if someone post instructions to sew a KKK hood and you refuse to remove that, but you remove other things, then you get sued for condoning hate speech)
    - akersten 6y ago
      That interpretation doesn't follow from GP's position of "if you are deciding what is acceptable speech, you're now responsible for it." Removing off-topic posts is just as much "deciding what is acceptable speech" as is removing on-topic posts that happen to be posts I don't like. That is to say, the consideration of what is on-topic vs. off-topic is at its core a decision of what is acceptable.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      The problem is that it’s very hard to write a law that both bans the moderation of political speech, and would allow the hypothetical sewing forum operator to ban non-sewing content. How do you define political? How do you handle extreme political ideologies that advocate for violence too? Who has the power to decide which speech is moderation proof? How do you avoid abuse when politicians eventually control such a system? And how do you survive legal challenges to the fact that you’ve created a third type of extra protected speech?
      - akersten 6y ago
        Right? And even if there were some magical law that could distinguish between "off-topic" and "on-topic," that would still prevent me from running my little sewing site - because if I truly don't want the KKK hoods on there and I remove them, I'm suddenly still responsible for anything else that gets posted. So I'd either get no sleep because I'm constantly reviewing every post, have to hire a dedicated moderation team, or give in to the trolls entirely. S230 is not just a "big tech" shield, it literally enables internet communities as we know them to exist.
  - 6y ago
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  That would have the opposite effect you’re hoping for. If the bar for Twitter becoming responsible for every yahoo’s tweet is set that low, they will have a hair trigger on what it takes to get banned. Why risk it? I guess the alternative is to ban all moderation and let every site turn into Gab, which sounds pretty awful to me.

CerealFounder 6y ago

Libertarians are real free enterprise until it affects their lives... But before I get thrashed for hurthing feelings, the real problem is these networks act like pubs and open networks. Paid amplification is almost certainly the problem in that it allows money to act as speech. by allowing it to reach more people that didnt seek it. Historically a wild fringe idea stayed that way because it was hard to convert people at scale. Now a fringe/bad idea coming from a group of power and "pump up the juice." It would be interesting if they either limited the pay for audience equation or create hypertransperency around who is behind the message. All in all, Facebook is going to be heavily regulated over the next decade and I hope they're diversifying somewhere. The newspapers were fractured, "The Bells," and it seems historically governments step in after about 10-20 years of abuse.

tomohawk 6y ago
What is "free enterprise" about the activities of monopolies like Google? Monopolies restrain trade an prevent free enterprise. Google and the other monopolies do not deserve any special protection.
api 6y ago
Paid amplification isn't the fundamental problem, but it contributes. The root of all evil on the Internet in the past 10-15 years is algorithmic timelines and algorithmic content curation whose goal function is to increase engagement. What increases engagement? Fear, hate, conflict, and spectacle. The media has understood this for years: "if it bleeds it leads." People have a strong bias to stare at danger, probably a social adaptation to notice if a mountain lion is attacking your tribe. But when you apply it to user-generated free content, the result is the familiar "rabbit hole" and "filter bubble" phenomena and folie a deux at scale. Back when humans directly curated content via curated lists, organic timelines that were actually just timelines, and organic non-spam-driven hyperlinking, everything was more rational and less toxic. (Even Reddit/HN style voting is better if it's truly organic and not biased by some algorithm, though it does lead to a different sort of "Borg" phenomenon sometimes.) Even the fringe was far less toxic and more reasonable. Go find some conspiracy or other fringe topic sites from prior to 2010 on the Wayback Machine. The problem isn't humans. The problem is that we stuck a middleman in front of human group communication and programmed that middleman to bias what messages are shown in a way that tends to amplify negativity, irrationality, and fluff as opposed to more useful and interesting but less dopamine-releasing content.

Artistry121 6y ago

I actually believe that and the fact that a "fact checking" button sparked this is evidence of that. It's not liberal or conservative - its government attempts to limit information and discussion. And it should be fought. These sites remove doxxing and hate from many angles. Look at the subreddit communities reddit has banned - they're not all right wing - many are just bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversial_Reddit_communiti... Jordan Peterson, Dave Rubin, etc. all are right leaning individuals who have a massive following via these platforms. Logan Paul was deplatformed and he's not right wing. And both sides have a ton of people being trolls. Did you ever read r/theDonald or r/Conservative or comments sections on Sargon of Aakaad? Fox News' Tucker Carlson segments are routinely recommended by the youtube algorithm to me despite me having no interest in him and rarely or never clicking on them. Does anyone actually believe this is an authoritarian attempt to squash speech that is "speaking truth to power"? Yes - this speaks to my lived experience and my understood experience of the trend in authoritarian countries.

manfredo 6y ago

I'm not sure how this makes the internet better. So now sites have to host actual neo Nazis and the KKK for fear of losing section 230 protections? Oh and if you have a site focused on programming or motorcycling you have to host completely off topic content because otherwise you lose section 230 protections? The whole point of section 230 is to make it so that sites can moderate user generated content without becoming legally liable for it. Removing this forces every site to become 4chan for fear of losing section 230 protections. This isn't a positive change in my view.

youareostriches 6y ago

Reddit prohibits content which: * Is illegal * Is involuntary pornography * Is sexual or suggestive content involving minors * Encourages or incites violence * Threatens, harasses, or bullies or encourages others to do so * Is personal and confidential information * Impersonates an individual or entity in a misleading or deceptive manner * Uses Reddit to solicit or facilitate any transaction or gift involving certain goods and services * Is spam* https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy A few of the banned subreddits are: * Beatingwomen * Braincels * CreepShots * CringeAnarchy * DarkNetMarkets * Deepfakes * FatPeopleHate * Gore Your position basically insinuates that right-wing discourse is impossible without violating these rules. But I think that’s pretty unfair considering the range and depth of conservative intellectual thought. Maybe you should encourage the more moderate segments of conservatism to speak out against extremists who use the language of racist violence instead of defending them.

ashtonkem 6y ago
Also, /r/conservative is a thing, and they’re not exactly a bastion of the type of free speech they’re advocating; it’s super easy to get banned from that sub.

mcintyre1994 6y ago

It's hard not to see this as an authoritarian backlash to "speaking truth to power" when the President is arguing Twitter should lose 230 because they fact checked his tweet. Fact checking a President's tweet translates quite naturally to speaking truth to power.

chrisco255 6y ago
It's also editorializing Twitter...ergo Twitter is no longer a neutral platform and should be subject to all the same liabilities that Fox, CNN, etc are including libel and defamation.
- akersten 6y ago
  What? Not only does the legal concept of a "neutral platform" not exist, the examples you cite (Fox, CNN) are certainly not "neutral platforms." They aren't responsible for what their commenters post on their sites either (and it is certainly... eye-opening to check out their comment sections sometimes). Twitter already does have libel liabilities, just like Fox and CNN, if they were to themselves post something libelous - just like if Fox were to produce a segment themselves that is libelous.
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    No they don't. Twitter cannot be sued for something someone tweets that is false or defamatory about someone else. That individual tweeter is responsible. Unlike Fox or CNN who are responsible for what their reporters and commentators say. If Twitter ventures against the spirit of 230 protection, which was designed to protect neutral platforms like a utility, then they deserve to lose it. It's not about who produces a segment, Twitter is clearly the publisher and distributor. 230 was designed to protect free speech not to allow unlimited corporate intervention into speech.
    - vkou 6y ago
      Fox has been photoshopping a man with an assault rifle onto pictures of a peaceful protest for the last week. What legal consequences have they faced, or are they going to face for these blatant lies?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

aa66tt55rr44 6y ago

None of those sites are left-leaning

sgift 6y ago

> This is the result of years of work to remove any dissenting voice from the generally Left-leaning sites of the Internet Not a single one of the big sites is left-leaning, they are centrist (at most) and behave accordingly. The problem is that so many people believe the center is farther on the right than it is, so every centrist argument becomes left wing extremism, what is called centrist is really right wing and what is called right wing is extreme right. With that in mind it's no surprise right wing content gets blocked more often - the left wing equivalent (e.g. kill everyone in the name of the class fight!) doesn't really exist on Twitter & co.