16 ms·

Section 230 Explained

183 points by gok 6y ago

dionian 6y ago
If platforms are going to start acting like publishers, they should no longer get special treatment when compared to other publishers. Remember, if the info platform monopolies help the democrats today, they can help the republicans tomorrow.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I'd suggest reading through some of the resources linked in the article. The idea that Section 230 gives special treatment to "platforms" as opposed to "publishers" is common but false. The Techdirt one (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...) in particular I think helps clear up the confusion.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. If they don't get special treatment as opposed to publishers, why is explicitly mentioned that they shall not be treated as the publisher? If there's no difference, what's the point in that?
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      "Publisher" here doesn't refer to a special legal status. This sentence just means that, if you post something on a website, it's still you and not the website who said it. This law is applicable to any website, even ones which make no attempt to be a neutral platform.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Probably because publishers are, by default, more liable (as liable as any other legal entity) and thus the law aims to reduce liability for the parties in question (the platform creators like twitter, facebook) so that the positive economic impact attributed to these platforms isn't burdened by the law.
  - tim44 6y ago
    > To be a bit more explicit: at no point in any court case regarding Section 230 is there a need to determine whether or not a particular website is a "platform" or a 'publisher.' What matters is solely the content in question. If that content is created by someone else, the website hosting it cannot be sued over it. > Really, this is the simplest, most basic understanding of Section 230: it is about placing the liability for content online on whoever created that content, and not on whoever is hosting it. If you understand that one thing, you'll understand most of the most important things about Section 230. The way I understand it, these big sites aren't simply hosting content, they are themselves creators through editorializing content and so should not enjoy a blanket immunity.
- jhayward 6y ago
  > Remember, if the info platform monopolies help the democrats today, they can help the republicans tomorrow. Facebook has had its thumb on the 'balance' scale in favor of ultra-right-wing sites for half a decade, at least. - Zuckerberg calling a group of non-profit news sites "not real news" [1] - Zuckerberg ordering the algorithm of the news feed to be biased toward promoting Breitbart et. al. [2] [1] https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/1317124357873860609 https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/1317124357873860609 [2] https://twitter.com/dnvolz/status/1317160066047479809 https://twitter.com/dnvolz/status/1317160066047479809 [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-politics-11602853200 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-pol...
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  > Remember, if the info platform monopolies help the democrats today, they can help the republicans tomorrow. They do?
  - dimitrios1 6y ago
    Case in point: two town halls yesterday. One gets asked about their most current scandal (tax returns), another doesn't get a single question about their scandal (burisima). The media is undoubtably carrying water for Joe Biden. That isn't even arguable anymore. The question is why?
    - srdev 6y ago
      That just demonstrates that there isn't an easily definable political neutral. From my point of view, the "Burisma scandal" got all the attention it deserved. The reason the media isn't harping on it is because it wasn't a scandal, and one political party was desperately trying to make it so. In the same way, a lot of people would say it would be neutral for media to present arguments that global warming is not man-made, but people who care about scientific fact would claim that even presenting the skeptic argument is non-neutral, sense you are signal boosting an argument with no basis in reality.
      - dimitrios1 6y ago
        Jesus Christ I haven't realized just how far we have fallen until this comment. I don't necessarily blame anyone for thinking the way they do, it just baffles me. For the endless commentary on Trump profiting off the presidency, Trump running an "organized crime family", Trump this Trump that, we have actual hard, concrete evidence that a Vice President's cocaine addicted son was selling access to the office (presumably to fuel his addiction), and on top of that his father lied constantly to the American people about it. How is this not a scandal?
        srdev 6y ago
        > For the endless commentary on Trump profiting off the presidency, Trump running an "organized crime family", Trump this Trump that, we have actual hard, concrete evidence that a Vice President's cocaine addicted son was selling access to the office (presumably to fuel his addiction), and on top of that his father lied constantly to the American people about it. The dispute is that we don't agree on whether there is concrete evidence that the vice president's son sold access to his office. Hunter certainly capitalized on his name, but to this point there is no hard evidence that this resulted in political access to Biden, that Biden accepted any money, or that Biden gave any favors with regard to Hunter's associates. If you can't prove any of those things, then hammering on it endlessly with no new evidence or any change in the story would be journalistic malpractice.
- ChrisClark 6y ago
  I think this comes down to the fact that removing lies and fake news hurts Republicans at this point in time. If in the future the Democrats are the lying ones, then those lies deserve to be removed too.
  - jedmeyers 6y ago
    How do you know who is actually lying if half the information is removed from the sources you usually read?
    - ardy42 6y ago
      > How do you know who is actually lying if half the information is removed from the sources that you usually read? As far as I know, they're not broadly removing "half the information" (which I'm taking to refer to conservative viewpoints), but disinformation related to QAnon, voting, covid, etc. Disinformation is not something that will help anyone make better judgements. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-media-social-media-elections-mark-zuckerberg-14e8073ce6f7bd2a674c99ac7bbfc240 https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-media-social-media-... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54443878 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54443878 https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/11/facebook-covid-misinformation-takedowns/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/11/faceboo... https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-twitter-block-trump-post-for-spreading-covid-19-misinformation/ https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-twitter-block-trump-post-... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-election-exclusive-idUSKCN1MP2G9 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-election-exclusi... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-facebook-bans-us-ads-that-call-voting-fraud-widespread-or-election/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-fa...
  - ojnabieoot 6y ago
    This tidbit from a WSJ story is rather revealing of the actual issue going on here[1]: > In late 2017, when Facebook tweaked its newsfeed algorithm to minimize the presence of political news, policy executives were concerned about the outsize impact of the changes on the right, including the Daily Wire, people familiar with the matter said. Engineers redesigned their intended changes so that left-leaning sites like Mother Jones were affected more than previously planned, the people said. Mr. Zuckerberg approved the plans. That is: Facebook decided to intervene to benefit the right. I don't think this is just because of right-wingers at Facebook: surely a large part of it is bad-faith attacks from people like Ted Cruz. The idea that Twitter and Facebook are conspiring to suppress legitimate criticism of Biden and thereby defeat Trump is plain ridiculous. [1] Story is here: https://t.co/sjOYrLQdc3?amp=1 https://t.co/sjOYrLQdc3?amp=1 but I got the blurb from this tweet: https://twitter.com/patcaldwell/status/1317140564169625600 https://twitter.com/patcaldwell/status/1317140564169625600
- ChrisClark 6y ago
  Platforms and publishers are no different under Section 230. Platforms are not getting anything special.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    False. "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher..." The whole point is that the provider of the interactive computer service (ie "the platform") is not to be treated as the publisher of anything anybody says on the platform.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  From Popehat's post: > Among the most common lies: Section 230 requires sites to choose between being a “platform” or “publisher” The idea that Twitter moderating its users' posts means it's acting like a "publisher" is nothing but Republican propaganda[1]: >Furthermore, a number of senators have prominently criticized Section 230. For example, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) repeatedly (but completely falsely) claims that Section 230 only applies to “neutral public forums." Threatening Twitter and Facebook with liability for their users' content is authoritarian suppression of free speech. The US government should not be forcing Twitter or any other social media service to carry the president's re-election propaganda - even if the propaganda is factual, let alone if it's full of holes and lies like the NY Post story. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3306737 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3306737
  - luckylion 6y ago
    From the comment: > If platforms are going to start acting like publishers, they should no longer get special treatment when compared to other publishers. The GP doesn't argue that Section 230 says this or that, they're arguing that internet companies who act like news sites should be subject to the same laws as news sites.
    - ojnabieoot 6y ago
      The problem is that Twitter and Facebook are not acting like news sites because 1) they don't write the stories or in any way pay the journalists 2) news is a minority of the content 3) moderation is not the same thing as curation 4) hosting a story is not the same thing as publishing it. If I post an NBC News article to Twitter, NBC is the publisher. If that article contains libel, NBC is the one on the hook in court, not Twitter. (However, if Twitter discovered the article was very likely libelous then it would be both reasonable and responsible to restrict sharing the article). GP is really making one of two authoritarian arguments: a) Platforms are not allowed to make broad decisions about what sorts of content they want to host. Presumably GP would then also agree that YouTube's ban on pornography means that YouTube is a "publisher," and that every time Reddit remove a racist subreddit that it is acting like a "publisher." b) If a platform does not want to host the president's dishonest re-election propaganda, they should expect to face financial and legal consequences. Of course nobody would really say "b" out loud, hence the word games about "you see, Mastadon is a platform but Twitter is a publisher."
- Analemma_ 6y ago
  This is exactly the misconception that Ken is trying to correct. There is no difference between platforms and publishers according to Section 230, and there is no "special treatment". This meme has sprung up out of nowhere because people are angry at the social media companies and want to think that anger has legal backing, but it doesn't.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    No. It's not what Ken is trying to correct, because this is an opinion, not an interpretation of the law. Furthermore, as for the law, there is a difference between platforms and publishers. Section 230 says that platforms will not be treated as publishers.
    - jtbayly 6y ago
      For the people downvoting my comment, please note the following from Section 230: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher..." FB and Twitter are interactive computer services in this case, and we call them "platforms." The law says they are not to be treated as the publisher of the content that users post on their site. Thus, there is a big difference between a platform and a publisher. That's the whole point of the law. Downvote all you want, but... that's the law.
      - coldpie 6y ago
        You have to read the whole sentence: > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. The law doesn't establish two categories, called "publisher" and "platform." It says, if User writes something on Website, then Website will not be treated as the publisher of whatever User wrote. Instead, User will be treated as the publisher. It defines who is responsible for the content that is served by Website: the User who wrote it, not the Website that served it. At no point does it create a category called "publisher" who is subject to different rules from a category called "platform."
throwawaysea 6y ago
This is one take, but another take is what Section 230 should be, putting aside legal technicalities. We have expectations on how big tech companies should operate, and they are not being met. Facebook is bigger than any country. Twitter is bigger than most. They are the digital public square. Even if US law permits them to act as they will, it is dangerous for our society to have organizations that are essentially utilities provide a non-neutral platform. It doesn't make a difference if a private company is censoring you - the distinction is just cosmetic. The impact is as real as a government censoring you, since any alternative avenue of speech is significantly less effective and for most intents and purposes, simply doesn't exist.
- esoterica 6y ago
  Facebook and Twitter are absolutely not even close to being utilities. Utilities are essential services AND have monopoly power. Facebook and Twitter are neither essential services nor do they have monopoly power (there are a billion other websites you can post on, and the barrier to entry to creating your own website is close to zero). Being big is not the same as being a monopoly. McDonald's is big, but they are not a monopoly because they have a lot of competitors. Regulating Facebook or Twitter as utilities would be as dumb as regulating Mcdonald's as if it were a utility.
  - j4nt4b 6y ago
    I think that Twitter and Facebook are a lot closer to the United States Postal Service than they are to McDonald's. Imagine getting banned from sending/receiving mail and having your home or business address "delisted" by a private company, and then you get closer to what is going on.
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      If you get banned from Twitter, you can go to Facebook, just like if you get banned from McDonald's you can go to Burger King. If you make a habit of shitting in the dining rooms, you'll likely find yourself banned from all the restaurants eventually.
jtchang 6y ago
Having read it over and thought about it I don't think I'd want to give up all the freedoms we have on posting whatever the heck we want. If it means Facebook ends up with hate speech and antivax groups so be it. I think the alternative is worse: where if I were going to build some type of new forum I'd have to be liable for everything anyone posts. I want to see new ideas being tried without fear of litigation.
- originalvichy 6y ago
  That scary thought is the reason why I sympathize with big tech even though they don't always do the right thing with bans and restrictions. They are literally in new grounds. We haven't had this world of technological discussion available to us ever before. Most things are being done for the first time ever right now. I remember how tought it was to moderate IRC channels that were larger than a certain amount of users. Imagine having to wrangle HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of users by trying to outmaneuver all the bad faith, harmful actors. I'd rather live in a world where people can create websites and moderate them as they wish, since the alternative is probably no website at all since you are bound to run into bad faith actors in life. As long as we can still freely create websites online there should not be people who are against moderation.
EdJiang 6y ago
If you haven't read Section 230, go do so now. It's enabled the development of the modern internet as we know it, and the meat is only 3 sentences. The rest is preamble or interactions with other laws. > (c) Protection for "Good Samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material > (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. > (2) Civil liability > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of- > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or > (B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1). https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:47%20section:230%20edition:prelim) https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:47%20section:...
- wahern 6y ago
  I don't think it would be world ending to get rid of Section 230. I almost would like to see it happen, if only because it would have precisely the opposite effect expected by all the people whining about being censored. Though, I suppose you can't be censored if the channel itself is extinguished. More practically, the technically literate would go back to the world of Usenet, mailing-lists, and minimalistic forums like HN, hopefully inventing distributed reputation systems in the process. I have this vague idea for PGP web of trust-like signing of Usenet posts (published as hidden posts when readers +1/-1) which are then SPAM scored based on the depth of the attestation chain to the reader's own trusted posters, which may have been seeded from one or more centralized databases of group maintainers, similar to the current registration system for moderated Usenet groups except you could freely choose alternative registrars.
  - throwawaygh 6y ago
    The plan is not to repeal Section 230. The plan is to make protection contingent on appeasing political appointees at the FTC. Whoever controls the FTC will be able to (and will) pressure the major social media networks into acting as a propaganda arm for their political party. As dystopian as FB and Twitter are today, in this case, the medicine is poison. See https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-legislation-amend-section-230-immunity-big-tech-companies https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-legi...
bosswipe 6y ago
They're using revocation of 230 as extortion to try to abridge the freedom of the press.
- splintercell 6y ago
  Do you think conservatives are being censored by the big tech platforms? Would your answer pass the veil of ignorance?
  - bosswipe 6y ago
    Everybody is being censored on all these platforms, it's called moderation. Most people appreciate it, including you or you would be commenting on 4chan instead of the heavily moderated HN.
    - pyronik19 6y ago
      That's really a manipulation of the term "moderation". They aren't removing swear words or nipples... They are deciding what is the "correct" information and then decide what we all get to see. If they got out of business because they abused the immunity grant they were given so be it. I won't miss them. All of social media can burn for all I care.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - throw_m239339 6y ago
    Well, conservatives should have thought about it like 10 years ago when that cabal against conservative point of view started on social media or in the Silicon Valley. Instead they chose to rely on businesses that were largely operated by "progressives" whatever it means today. They had an opportunity to create conservative social networks, they didn't. This isn't a good reason why section 230 should be revoked. Yes, Twitter is biased against conservatives, but that's OK, conservatives should go create their own Twitter, that's the point of the web anybody can create their own thing, the more competition the better.
partiallypro 6y ago
I have not yet read this piece, but Ken has turned into a completely different person since ~2016 and I'm not sure he's quite an unbiased legal source at this point. Edit: I read the piece and generally agree, but Ken has become increasingly partisan over the past few years to the point where I have had to stop following him.
zaroth 6y ago
The problem is not that Section 230 clearly requires platforms to be neutral. The problem is that it doesn’t. Section 230 isn't in the Bill of Rights. It's a legislative gift that was given to internet companies to help them grow by granting them a special legal shield for all the highly problematic content that they host and monetize. If they want to editorialize on the back of that content, then I don't see why they should have such special status. We do not need to eliminate Section 230. But the definition of 'Good Samaritan' blocking and 'good faith efforts' should explicitly not include the editorial decisions of a publisher.
- roywiggins 6y ago
  If you tried to enforce a "neutrality" requirement, you'd slam face-first into the First Amendment. It would be government mandated viewpoint discrimination.
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    which is why the legal exemption should be tossed entirely, and new publishers like twitter and facebook who have demonstrated control of what gets seen on their platform, should be liable for the content on their platforms.
    - roywiggins 6y ago
      That would make Hacker News liable for any defamation posted in the comments section. Well done, you just killed HN.
      - LegitShady 6y ago
        shrug if thats the cost of stopping technocratic control of the flow of information in society and openly censoring, its cheap.
        roywiggins 6y ago
        Throwing out all online discussion fora is rather throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The replacement would be centralized media companies that have total and absolute control over information flow. Goodbye Mastodon (every Mastodon instance is liable for all toots). Goodbye Internet Archive (can't host content that might be defamatory, they'll be liable). Goodbye GitHub pull requests (Git would be liable for any defamation contained in them). And so on.
convery 6y ago
You can't claim you're not a publisher when you start promoting stories that push one narrative while blacklisting stories questioning that narrative. Imagine a news site that accepts submissions from the public, but filter which content is visible based on their own views, claiming no responsibility for the BS they allow on the frontpage.
- basch 6y ago
  yes you can, thats what 230 protects. a private companies ability to censor reach does not turn it into a speaker. you can selectively choose what to allow and what to deny on your platform. like a spam filter, but for anything.
  - LegitShady 6y ago
    right, which is why section 230 should be repealed, because they're censoring politically and control what people see, shaping public opinion in large ways. They should be liable for the content of their platforms since they demonstrated the ability to control whats on them. They'd get freedom to control their platform, just without a special legal exemption that gives them immunity from the results of their control on of their platform.
    - darkwizard42 6y ago
      The results of the control of their platform are... that you can choose not to use it. Section 230 says you have a right to speech, not a right to a platform giving you reach.
      - LegitShady 6y ago
        I don't use it, I just dont want them to have legal exemptions other publishers don't get while they control what information people are or aren't allowed to see.
    - basch 6y ago
      >They'd get freedom to control their platform, just without a special legal exemption that gives them immunity from the results of their control on of their platform. Exactly, thats the point. It's a market economy of platforms. >they're censoring politically and control what people see, shaping public opinion in large ways. Companies are allowed to choose what they say and project outward. The problem here is a lack of interoperability between platforms, institutional silos. Standardized data exports and imports. Cross platform messaging and subscription. 230 exists precisely to prevent the world you are advocating. It's not an accidentally careless law that had a loophole, it's intent is to protect private companies first amendment rights. >They should be liable for the content of their platforms since they demonstrated the ability to control whats on them. Says who? I dont think they have at all demonstrated they are good at controlling whats on their platforms. They are ok at at, at best.
iron0013 6y ago
Moderators, stop editorializing via title manipulation! The title of this article is “Section 230 Is The Subject of The Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen”, and the article only makes sense if read in light of its actual title as given by the author, not the edited manipulated title you have given it on HN!
- judge2020 6y ago
  Not sure if this is satirical, but HN aims to prevent clickbait and other 'spam' - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572466
- dang 6y ago
  It was an obviously baity title and that is bog standard HN moderation. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24805143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24805143 We've since changed the URL (and the title) in keeping with another HN principle, of favoring original sources. The Popehat article is really just a list of links with a bunch of extra Popehattiness.
  - iron0013 6y ago
    Unbelievable. The next time another reactionary outrage-bait piece from Quillette or Unherd or Matt Taibbi or the National Review worms its way to the front page are you going to swap out its url for a totally different article on a totally different website only nominally on the same topic? The point of the original article wasn’t just that people misunderstand section 230, it’s that republican politicians are conducting a propaganda campaign to willfully misrepresent section 230–and every thread on HN where someone launches into that tired and fallacious “publisher vs platform” spiel is evidence that it’s working. Facts aren’t inherently clickbait just because they displease the conservative HN massive.
    - dang 6y ago
      I respect how strongly you feel about this. I don't think the situation is as you describe it though. Basically everyone with strong political convictions is furious at HN for being outrageously (as they feel) slanted toward the opposing side. But it simply is not so. I suppose this is a consequence of the "if you're not for us you're against us" mentality, which is the essential political stance, though growing in intensity lately. The reason we do these sorts of edits is not driven by politics but by the attempt to optimize HN for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). The principles of how we do that have been worked out over the years, and they're not derived from political positions. Curiosity likes to cut across such boundaries—being limited by boundaries is not in its nature. I get that above a certain threshold of political passion, the feeling becomes that the site ought not to be optimized for curiosity, but rather for political justice or some value like that. That's understandable—those are also good values. HN would just be a totally different kind of site if we did that. The question then is whether a site dedicated to curiosity has the right to exist on the web or not—including under current political conditions. I think it does. Why shouldn't it?
iron0013 6y ago
In case you haven’t noticed, the willful misinterpretation of section 230 that popehat is describing is so common on HN that it has effectively become the party line, and any attempts to correct such “misunderstandings” (lies) are met with heavy downvoting.
InfiniteRand 6y ago
How does this work for a "Letters to the Editor" type section in a newspaper? Or what separates a heavily moderated online forum from a volunteer run online magazine? Is it the asking for submissions part?
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  Newspapers are publishers. They've never tried pretending they're platforms. They have editorial control because they are clear and forthright about who they are and what they do.
  - klyrs 6y ago
    There is no difference between a "publisher" and a "platform" under section 230.
    - Karunamon 6y ago
      We're talking about amending section 230. Maybe there should be.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ReptileMan 6y ago
Can we leave section 230 as is for non profits and small businesses and treat FAANGs differently with different rules. Scale matters.
- eli 6y ago
  How about we leave Section 230 completely alone and if we have problems with FAANG we pass new laws to address those problems directly.
dilly_li 6y ago
Why are so many replies under this post shown in faded gray?
- judge2020 6y ago
  This is from other users (with a certain amount of karma) voting down these comments. See "Why don't I see down arrows?" on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Why%20don't%20I%20see%20down%20arrows%3F https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Why%20don'...
- jb775 6y ago
  Those are comments from non-democrats
- kibwen 6y ago
  Comments with net negative votes get faded out. Remember that HN is just as much of a political battleground as any other forum (don't fall into the common trap of thinking that tech folks are "above politics"), and that those who benefit from the exceedingly effective propaganda mentioned in the OP aren't going to quietly yield control of the narrative.
- eranimo 6y ago
  Because there are a lot of conservative Trump-supporting HN posters in these comments downvoting everybody who doesn't want the Internet destroyed.
h2odragon 6y ago
one of his links (EFF) mentions "Fair and transparent moderation" ... I'd be happy to see that, but aside from it being something societies have had problems with in the past; can anyone actually suggest that's what's happening now? Are twitter and facebook being fair and transparent? Isn't the very fact we're having the argument evidence that it's such a difficult problem we need some interim solution while the perfect AI algorithm gets worked out? Some solution that can last for a while if the perfect AI moderators never come.
reggieband 6y ago
I'm having a moment here where I am considering this from another viewpoint. While I hate the idea of siding with Ted Cruz on literally anything I want to take a moment to really consider something. Section 230 makes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Instagram and even Hacker News possible. Revoking Section 230 could expose those platforms to the possibility of liability for content posted on them. This might cause a re-shaping of the Internet in general. Part of me seriously wonders - would that necessarily be a bad thing? I am not convinced, by any stretch of the imagination, that these social media opinion aggregation platforms are universally positive. Everyone keeps acting like the existence of Facebook somehow democratizes content publishing for the masses, even when we are faced with clear evidence that this isn't the case. The centralized nature of Facebook actually allows for larger scale manipulation of the narrative. And how would this affect Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Netflix and other sites? I suppose opening them up to liability for negative reviews could be a problem. I'm thinking on the fly here, but if Facebook just disappeared off of the Internet tomorrow - I'm not really sure I would mourn that. And if new Internet companies were burdened with stricter moderation requirements (or the need to stand behind every piece of content posted onto their site), maybe that would actually be good? Maybe that would drive people to create their own websites once again. I'm sure I haven't thought deeply enough on this but I definitely feel the tide here is a knee-jerk protection of Section 230. Yet the companies it protects the most are the ones I feel are the worst.
- klyrs 6y ago
  Would the forums of yesteryear survive? The early 2000s saw a veritable utopia of information sharing, as people with special interests came online and formed groups to discuss and collaborate on those interests. Would the open source software community survive? My world revolves around github more than any other site; would ticket discussions be forced back to mailing lists? Would mail readers pick that slack up, and re-implement social media over email?
  - reggieband 6y ago
    > Would the forums of yesteryear survive? I know this is questioning some fundamental assumptions of most of our moral principals, but I am literally questioning: should they survive? It seems everyone is assuming that they should. Some seem to suggest they should for abstract "free speech at all costs" philosophy. Others are assuming they have some kind of positive effect, either on personal growth or economic activity. > Would the open source software community survive? I'm not sure how Section 230 applies to code but I don't think public forums like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube are necessary for open source software to continue (any more than they were necessary for it to start, which happened long before they existed). Besides, what I'm pondering is the centralized aggregation points. People could still host blogs, they are just directly liable for the content they post (as they likely are now).
ry454 6y ago
I believe that the debate around Section 230 is a sign of the growing consensus among the ruling class that Project Internet is complete, that it's successfully deployed a world wide surveillance framework, and that no further growth for the sake of the growth, which could destabilize the said framework, is needed, and thus it's time to close the gates and fortify the site from competitors. One fact supporting this stance is the rapidly growing popularity of the so called "end-to-end encryption" idea, that could crack the foundation of surveillance, unless hard measures are taken right now.
jb775 6y ago
I feel like this guy still doesn't get the actual point why politicians are talking about section 230. They aren't directly rebutting the language of the law, they're threatening to amend/repeal section 230 since they know social media giants depend it to exist in their current form.
chemeng 6y ago
Though the law makes no distinction of publisher vs platform, I think people's intuitive sense that something is "wrong" is valid even though they may not be able to express it clearly. Publisher vs platform is just the easiest/closest way to express it for them. For me, the problematic/key question and example is Facebook's (News) Feed. When content is collected, curated (algorithmically) with specific intent, published/presented in a particular order and layout to communicate and derive revenue, at what point is it a creative work with authorship? If I prompt 100 people to comment on a topic by placing information in front of them, and then take portions of those comments, reorder and present them to you shaped by an overarching narrative of "what you may find interesting related to this topic" and place it on the front page of my website, in what way is this different than a newspaper? A newspaper can be sued for defamation, however, Section 230 (c)(1) shields Facebook from any liability in the case where this selective curation and display of information contains known falsehoods or defamations. If any reasonable curator of facts (reporter) or newspaper editorial board would identify and reject these falsehoods or otherwise be sued, does Facebook get a pass because it was a computer curating? *Edit: The reason I think this may be problematic is that it removes any check on purposeful misinformation that has traditionally existed on our previous methods of speech amplification (newspapers, tv, radio). Facebook has no incentive not to publish the most engaging information even if it is false, as it cannot be sued. If it could be, you would see it actively prevent misinformation. The standard would be what the courts would find it responsible for under existing libel laws, which is a difficult bar to clear, particularly for public persons, but is the only restraint on yellow journalism we've traditionally had.
eli 6y ago
It's somewhat ironic that HN's moderators apparently changed the title of this submission from "Section 230 Is The Subject of The Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen" to the apparently less objectionable "What Section 230 really means"
- dang 6y ago
  That's just bog standard HN moderation to make titles less baity. If we didn't do that, HN would be a completely different site—and not in a way that most HN users would appreciate. Having the titles on the front page be 'bookish' (to use pg's original term) is one of the core principles here. We've since changed both the URL and the title.
  - eli 6y ago
    Fair enough! It just feels like a funny meta example of why one might want to "editorialize" content without also being forced to moderate every single thing posted.
dang 6y ago
Url changed from https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of..., which points to this and a bunch of other articles, and doesn't add much otherwise (other than Popehat-style snark). If one of the other URLs is a better fit, we can change it again.
- revnode 6y ago
  Isn't this an example of what we're talking about? Even if this change is objectively better, there were many comments posted here with the original URL as the intended target and now their comments are directed at a different URL, all done without their explicit consent?
  - klyrs 6y ago
    Yeah, site operators will exert editorial control. This is quite a pertinent example. I think Popehat is great, sometimes, but I also like HN's anti-snark guidelines because it brings the conversation up a level. Would I have made the same choice as dang today? Maybe not. Do I appreciate his transparency? Yes. Do I agree that it fits with the site guidelines? Yes. As for the comments... I've read them a few times throughout the day. And lemme tell ya, folks are rarely responding to the Popehat article. But, given that the Popehat article was essentially a bunch of links to other articles after a couple of snarky paragraphs framing the issue, that's not too bad. At least one dead comment was griping about Popehat. Womp womp. Was the change made without the explicit consent of every user? Um... Yes. But what entitles us to that level of control over HN? This isn't a direct democracy, it's a news aggregator. This site also allows us to edit our comments, without the explicit consent of every person who responds to them. Would it be appropriate to sue HN into oblivion over this? Please, oh please, no.
    - revnode 6y ago
      > But what entitles us to that level of control over HN? What entitles you to that level of control over email? If any of the emails you sent were modified by Google, you would be outraged, but we should just accept "editorial control" over Twitter, Facebook, HN, etc.? I think that's the real debate happening here. It's not just about censorship, it's about exercising control over the content. Many feel strongly that this sort of control should be in the hands of the creators of that content, not editors/moderators/site owners/etc. > This site also allows us to edit our comments, without the explicit consent of every person who responds to them. I would be ok if the person who originally submitted the article made that change himself and there was a history associated with the submission that showed the change. That's the creator exercising control. > This isn't a direct democracy, it's a news aggregator. It's kind of acting like a newspaper though? If content is being edited, that's the job of an editor. I don't think it's such a far stretch to imagine top comments being edited to improve the conversation, etc. at that point, what's the distinction with a newspaper?
cblconfederate 6y ago
> Section 230 should be revoked immediately No, instead it should be expanded to every publication.
cwhiz 6y ago
I genuinely don’t mind if the internet is fundamentally reset. I am completely unconvinced that Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other such services are net benefit for humanity. Being able to yell at each other in giant anonymous forums is not something that I think worth protecting. Perhaps we should go back to peer to peer communication. So to those who keep saying “the internet as we know it as at stake”, I say... so what? Maybe we got it wrong.
- alexmingoia 6y ago
  You don’t speak for we. I enjoy Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. You don’t have to use them. Why can’t you respect that not everyone likes or wants to use the same websites that you do?
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    You just have missed the I. There were several.
- amanaplanacanal 6y ago
  So... no user generated content at all? That seems to be where you are headed here. You mention peer to peer, but where do I host content then? Even my ISP could be liable for allowing access to it.
  - cwhiz 6y ago
    Distributed and decentralized networks and databases. Communities can form and police themselves, but no central servers or authorities will be involved. It wouldn’t be the end of internet communities but it would be the end of centralized, public, internet communities.
    - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
      So no public internet? You only forward packets for people you trust? This seems... less than optimal.

183 points by gok 6y ago

If platforms are going to start acting like publishers, they should no longer get special treatment when compared to other publishers. Remember, if the info platform monopolies help the democrats today, they can help the republicans tomorrow.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
I'd suggest reading through some of the resources linked in the article. The idea that Section 230 gives special treatment to "platforms" as opposed to "publishers" is common but false. The Techdirt one (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...) in particular I think helps clear up the confusion.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. If they don't get special treatment as opposed to publishers, why is explicitly mentioned that they shall not be treated as the publisher? If there's no difference, what's the point in that?
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    "Publisher" here doesn't refer to a special legal status. This sentence just means that, if you post something on a website, it's still you and not the website who said it. This law is applicable to any website, even ones which make no attempt to be a neutral platform.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    Probably because publishers are, by default, more liable (as liable as any other legal entity) and thus the law aims to reduce liability for the parties in question (the platform creators like twitter, facebook) so that the positive economic impact attributed to these platforms isn't burdened by the law.
- tim44 6y ago
  > To be a bit more explicit: at no point in any court case regarding Section 230 is there a need to determine whether or not a particular website is a "platform" or a 'publisher.' What matters is solely the content in question. If that content is created by someone else, the website hosting it cannot be sued over it. > Really, this is the simplest, most basic understanding of Section 230: it is about placing the liability for content online on whoever created that content, and not on whoever is hosting it. If you understand that one thing, you'll understand most of the most important things about Section 230. The way I understand it, these big sites aren't simply hosting content, they are themselves creators through editorializing content and so should not enjoy a blanket immunity.
jhayward 6y ago
> Remember, if the info platform monopolies help the democrats today, they can help the republicans tomorrow. Facebook has had its thumb on the 'balance' scale in favor of ultra-right-wing sites for half a decade, at least. - Zuckerberg calling a group of non-profit news sites "not real news" [1] - Zuckerberg ordering the algorithm of the news feed to be biased toward promoting Breitbart et. al. [2] [1] https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/1317124357873860609 https://twitter.com/mathewi/status/1317124357873860609 [2] https://twitter.com/dnvolz/status/1317160066047479809 https://twitter.com/dnvolz/status/1317160066047479809 [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-politics-11602853200 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-mark-zuckerberg-learned-pol...
formerly_proven 6y ago
> Remember, if the info platform monopolies help the democrats today, they can help the republicans tomorrow. They do?
- dimitrios1 6y ago
  Case in point: two town halls yesterday. One gets asked about their most current scandal (tax returns), another doesn't get a single question about their scandal (burisima). The media is undoubtably carrying water for Joe Biden. That isn't even arguable anymore. The question is why?
  - srdev 6y ago
    That just demonstrates that there isn't an easily definable political neutral. From my point of view, the "Burisma scandal" got all the attention it deserved. The reason the media isn't harping on it is because it wasn't a scandal, and one political party was desperately trying to make it so. In the same way, a lot of people would say it would be neutral for media to present arguments that global warming is not man-made, but people who care about scientific fact would claim that even presenting the skeptic argument is non-neutral, sense you are signal boosting an argument with no basis in reality.
    - dimitrios1 6y ago
      Jesus Christ I haven't realized just how far we have fallen until this comment. I don't necessarily blame anyone for thinking the way they do, it just baffles me. For the endless commentary on Trump profiting off the presidency, Trump running an "organized crime family", Trump this Trump that, we have actual hard, concrete evidence that a Vice President's cocaine addicted son was selling access to the office (presumably to fuel his addiction), and on top of that his father lied constantly to the American people about it. How is this not a scandal?
      - srdev 6y ago
        > For the endless commentary on Trump profiting off the presidency, Trump running an "organized crime family", Trump this Trump that, we have actual hard, concrete evidence that a Vice President's cocaine addicted son was selling access to the office (presumably to fuel his addiction), and on top of that his father lied constantly to the American people about it. The dispute is that we don't agree on whether there is concrete evidence that the vice president's son sold access to his office. Hunter certainly capitalized on his name, but to this point there is no hard evidence that this resulted in political access to Biden, that Biden accepted any money, or that Biden gave any favors with regard to Hunter's associates. If you can't prove any of those things, then hammering on it endlessly with no new evidence or any change in the story would be journalistic malpractice.
ChrisClark 6y ago
I think this comes down to the fact that removing lies and fake news hurts Republicans at this point in time. If in the future the Democrats are the lying ones, then those lies deserve to be removed too.
- jedmeyers 6y ago
  How do you know who is actually lying if half the information is removed from the sources you usually read?
  - ardy42 6y ago
    > How do you know who is actually lying if half the information is removed from the sources that you usually read? As far as I know, they're not broadly removing "half the information" (which I'm taking to refer to conservative viewpoints), but disinformation related to QAnon, voting, covid, etc. Disinformation is not something that will help anyone make better judgements. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-media-social-media-elections-mark-zuckerberg-14e8073ce6f7bd2a674c99ac7bbfc240 https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-media-social-media-... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54443878 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54443878 https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/11/facebook-covid-misinformation-takedowns/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/11/faceboo... https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-twitter-block-trump-post-for-spreading-covid-19-misinformation/ https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-twitter-block-trump-post-... https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-election-exclusive-idUSKCN1MP2G9 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-election-exclusi... https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-facebook-bans-us-ads-that-call-voting-fraud-widespread-or-election/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-politics/article-fa...
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  This tidbit from a WSJ story is rather revealing of the actual issue going on here[1]: > In late 2017, when Facebook tweaked its newsfeed algorithm to minimize the presence of political news, policy executives were concerned about the outsize impact of the changes on the right, including the Daily Wire, people familiar with the matter said. Engineers redesigned their intended changes so that left-leaning sites like Mother Jones were affected more than previously planned, the people said. Mr. Zuckerberg approved the plans. That is: Facebook decided to intervene to benefit the right. I don't think this is just because of right-wingers at Facebook: surely a large part of it is bad-faith attacks from people like Ted Cruz. The idea that Twitter and Facebook are conspiring to suppress legitimate criticism of Biden and thereby defeat Trump is plain ridiculous. [1] Story is here: https://t.co/sjOYrLQdc3?amp=1 https://t.co/sjOYrLQdc3?amp=1 but I got the blurb from this tweet: https://twitter.com/patcaldwell/status/1317140564169625600 https://twitter.com/patcaldwell/status/1317140564169625600
ChrisClark 6y ago
Platforms and publishers are no different under Section 230. Platforms are not getting anything special.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  False. "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher..." The whole point is that the provider of the interactive computer service (ie "the platform") is not to be treated as the publisher of anything anybody says on the platform.
ojnabieoot 6y ago
From Popehat's post: > Among the most common lies: Section 230 requires sites to choose between being a “platform” or “publisher” The idea that Twitter moderating its users' posts means it's acting like a "publisher" is nothing but Republican propaganda[1]: >Furthermore, a number of senators have prominently criticized Section 230. For example, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) repeatedly (but completely falsely) claims that Section 230 only applies to “neutral public forums." Threatening Twitter and Facebook with liability for their users' content is authoritarian suppression of free speech. The US government should not be forcing Twitter or any other social media service to carry the president's re-election propaganda - even if the propaganda is factual, let alone if it's full of holes and lies like the NY Post story. [1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3306737 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3306737
- luckylion 6y ago
  From the comment: > If platforms are going to start acting like publishers, they should no longer get special treatment when compared to other publishers. The GP doesn't argue that Section 230 says this or that, they're arguing that internet companies who act like news sites should be subject to the same laws as news sites.
  - ojnabieoot 6y ago
    The problem is that Twitter and Facebook are not acting like news sites because 1) they don't write the stories or in any way pay the journalists 2) news is a minority of the content 3) moderation is not the same thing as curation 4) hosting a story is not the same thing as publishing it. If I post an NBC News article to Twitter, NBC is the publisher. If that article contains libel, NBC is the one on the hook in court, not Twitter. (However, if Twitter discovered the article was very likely libelous then it would be both reasonable and responsible to restrict sharing the article). GP is really making one of two authoritarian arguments: a) Platforms are not allowed to make broad decisions about what sorts of content they want to host. Presumably GP would then also agree that YouTube's ban on pornography means that YouTube is a "publisher," and that every time Reddit remove a racist subreddit that it is acting like a "publisher." b) If a platform does not want to host the president's dishonest re-election propaganda, they should expect to face financial and legal consequences. Of course nobody would really say "b" out loud, hence the word games about "you see, Mastadon is a platform but Twitter is a publisher."
Analemma_ 6y ago
This is exactly the misconception that Ken is trying to correct. There is no difference between platforms and publishers according to Section 230, and there is no "special treatment". This meme has sprung up out of nowhere because people are angry at the social media companies and want to think that anger has legal backing, but it doesn't.
- jtbayly 6y ago
  No. It's not what Ken is trying to correct, because this is an opinion, not an interpretation of the law. Furthermore, as for the law, there is a difference between platforms and publishers. Section 230 says that platforms will not be treated as publishers.
  - jtbayly 6y ago
    For the people downvoting my comment, please note the following from Section 230: "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher..." FB and Twitter are interactive computer services in this case, and we call them "platforms." The law says they are not to be treated as the publisher of the content that users post on their site. Thus, there is a big difference between a platform and a publisher. That's the whole point of the law. Downvote all you want, but... that's the law.
    - coldpie 6y ago
      You have to read the whole sentence: > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. The law doesn't establish two categories, called "publisher" and "platform." It says, if User writes something on Website, then Website will not be treated as the publisher of whatever User wrote. Instead, User will be treated as the publisher. It defines who is responsible for the content that is served by Website: the User who wrote it, not the Website that served it. At no point does it create a category called "publisher" who is subject to different rules from a category called "platform."

throwawaysea 6y ago

This is one take, but another take is what Section 230 should be, putting aside legal technicalities. We have expectations on how big tech companies should operate, and they are not being met. Facebook is bigger than any country. Twitter is bigger than most. They are the digital public square. Even if US law permits them to act as they will, it is dangerous for our society to have organizations that are essentially utilities provide a non-neutral platform. It doesn't make a difference if a private company is censoring you - the distinction is just cosmetic. The impact is as real as a government censoring you, since any alternative avenue of speech is significantly less effective and for most intents and purposes, simply doesn't exist.

esoterica 6y ago
Facebook and Twitter are absolutely not even close to being utilities. Utilities are essential services AND have monopoly power. Facebook and Twitter are neither essential services nor do they have monopoly power (there are a billion other websites you can post on, and the barrier to entry to creating your own website is close to zero). Being big is not the same as being a monopoly. McDonald's is big, but they are not a monopoly because they have a lot of competitors. Regulating Facebook or Twitter as utilities would be as dumb as regulating Mcdonald's as if it were a utility.
- j4nt4b 6y ago
  I think that Twitter and Facebook are a lot closer to the United States Postal Service than they are to McDonald's. Imagine getting banned from sending/receiving mail and having your home or business address "delisted" by a private company, and then you get closer to what is going on.
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    If you get banned from Twitter, you can go to Facebook, just like if you get banned from McDonald's you can go to Burger King. If you make a habit of shitting in the dining rooms, you'll likely find yourself banned from all the restaurants eventually.

jtchang 6y ago

Having read it over and thought about it I don't think I'd want to give up all the freedoms we have on posting whatever the heck we want. If it means Facebook ends up with hate speech and antivax groups so be it. I think the alternative is worse: where if I were going to build some type of new forum I'd have to be liable for everything anyone posts. I want to see new ideas being tried without fear of litigation.

originalvichy 6y ago
That scary thought is the reason why I sympathize with big tech even though they don't always do the right thing with bans and restrictions. They are literally in new grounds. We haven't had this world of technological discussion available to us ever before. Most things are being done for the first time ever right now. I remember how tought it was to moderate IRC channels that were larger than a certain amount of users. Imagine having to wrangle HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of users by trying to outmaneuver all the bad faith, harmful actors. I'd rather live in a world where people can create websites and moderate them as they wish, since the alternative is probably no website at all since you are bound to run into bad faith actors in life. As long as we can still freely create websites online there should not be people who are against moderation.

EdJiang 6y ago

If you haven't read Section 230, go do so now. It's enabled the development of the modern internet as we know it, and the meat is only 3 sentences. The rest is preamble or interactions with other laws. > (c) Protection for "Good Samaritan" blocking and screening of offensive material > (1) Treatment of publisher or speaker > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. > (2) Civil liability > No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of- > (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or > (B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1). https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:47%20section:230%20edition:prelim) https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:47%20section:...

wahern 6y ago
I don't think it would be world ending to get rid of Section 230. I almost would like to see it happen, if only because it would have precisely the opposite effect expected by all the people whining about being censored. Though, I suppose you can't be censored if the channel itself is extinguished. More practically, the technically literate would go back to the world of Usenet, mailing-lists, and minimalistic forums like HN, hopefully inventing distributed reputation systems in the process. I have this vague idea for PGP web of trust-like signing of Usenet posts (published as hidden posts when readers +1/-1) which are then SPAM scored based on the depth of the attestation chain to the reader's own trusted posters, which may have been seeded from one or more centralized databases of group maintainers, similar to the current registration system for moderated Usenet groups except you could freely choose alternative registrars.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  The plan is not to repeal Section 230. The plan is to make protection contingent on appeasing political appointees at the FTC. Whoever controls the FTC will be able to (and will) pressure the major social media networks into acting as a propaganda arm for their political party. As dystopian as FB and Twitter are today, in this case, the medicine is poison. See https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-legislation-amend-section-230-immunity-big-tech-companies https://www.hawley.senate.gov/senator-hawley-introduces-legi...

bosswipe 6y ago

They're using revocation of 230 as extortion to try to abridge the freedom of the press.

splintercell 6y ago
Do you think conservatives are being censored by the big tech platforms? Would your answer pass the veil of ignorance?
- bosswipe 6y ago
  Everybody is being censored on all these platforms, it's called moderation. Most people appreciate it, including you or you would be commenting on 4chan instead of the heavily moderated HN.
  - pyronik19 6y ago
    That's really a manipulation of the term "moderation". They aren't removing swear words or nipples... They are deciding what is the "correct" information and then decide what we all get to see. If they got out of business because they abused the immunity grant they were given so be it. I won't miss them. All of social media can burn for all I care.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- throw_m239339 6y ago
  Well, conservatives should have thought about it like 10 years ago when that cabal against conservative point of view started on social media or in the Silicon Valley. Instead they chose to rely on businesses that were largely operated by "progressives" whatever it means today. They had an opportunity to create conservative social networks, they didn't. This isn't a good reason why section 230 should be revoked. Yes, Twitter is biased against conservatives, but that's OK, conservatives should go create their own Twitter, that's the point of the web anybody can create their own thing, the more competition the better.

partiallypro 6y ago

I have not yet read this piece, but Ken has turned into a completely different person since ~2016 and I'm not sure he's quite an unbiased legal source at this point. Edit: I read the piece and generally agree, but Ken has become increasingly partisan over the past few years to the point where I have had to stop following him.

zaroth 6y ago

The problem is not that Section 230 clearly requires platforms to be neutral. The problem is that it doesn’t. Section 230 isn't in the Bill of Rights. It's a legislative gift that was given to internet companies to help them grow by granting them a special legal shield for all the highly problematic content that they host and monetize. If they want to editorialize on the back of that content, then I don't see why they should have such special status. We do not need to eliminate Section 230. But the definition of 'Good Samaritan' blocking and 'good faith efforts' should explicitly not include the editorial decisions of a publisher.

roywiggins 6y ago
If you tried to enforce a "neutrality" requirement, you'd slam face-first into the First Amendment. It would be government mandated viewpoint discrimination.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  which is why the legal exemption should be tossed entirely, and new publishers like twitter and facebook who have demonstrated control of what gets seen on their platform, should be liable for the content on their platforms.
  - roywiggins 6y ago
    That would make Hacker News liable for any defamation posted in the comments section. Well done, you just killed HN.
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      shrug if thats the cost of stopping technocratic control of the flow of information in society and openly censoring, its cheap.
      - roywiggins 6y ago
        Throwing out all online discussion fora is rather throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The replacement would be centralized media companies that have total and absolute control over information flow. Goodbye Mastodon (every Mastodon instance is liable for all toots). Goodbye Internet Archive (can't host content that might be defamatory, they'll be liable). Goodbye GitHub pull requests (Git would be liable for any defamation contained in them). And so on.

convery 6y ago

You can't claim you're not a publisher when you start promoting stories that push one narrative while blacklisting stories questioning that narrative. Imagine a news site that accepts submissions from the public, but filter which content is visible based on their own views, claiming no responsibility for the BS they allow on the frontpage.

basch 6y ago
yes you can, thats what 230 protects. a private companies ability to censor reach does not turn it into a speaker. you can selectively choose what to allow and what to deny on your platform. like a spam filter, but for anything.
- LegitShady 6y ago
  right, which is why section 230 should be repealed, because they're censoring politically and control what people see, shaping public opinion in large ways. They should be liable for the content of their platforms since they demonstrated the ability to control whats on them. They'd get freedom to control their platform, just without a special legal exemption that gives them immunity from the results of their control on of their platform.
  - darkwizard42 6y ago
    The results of the control of their platform are... that you can choose not to use it. Section 230 says you have a right to speech, not a right to a platform giving you reach.
    - LegitShady 6y ago
      I don't use it, I just dont want them to have legal exemptions other publishers don't get while they control what information people are or aren't allowed to see.
  - basch 6y ago
    >They'd get freedom to control their platform, just without a special legal exemption that gives them immunity from the results of their control on of their platform. Exactly, thats the point. It's a market economy of platforms. >they're censoring politically and control what people see, shaping public opinion in large ways. Companies are allowed to choose what they say and project outward. The problem here is a lack of interoperability between platforms, institutional silos. Standardized data exports and imports. Cross platform messaging and subscription. 230 exists precisely to prevent the world you are advocating. It's not an accidentally careless law that had a loophole, it's intent is to protect private companies first amendment rights. >They should be liable for the content of their platforms since they demonstrated the ability to control whats on them. Says who? I dont think they have at all demonstrated they are good at controlling whats on their platforms. They are ok at at, at best.

iron0013 6y ago

Moderators, stop editorializing via title manipulation! The title of this article is “Section 230 Is The Subject of The Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen”, and the article only makes sense if read in light of its actual title as given by the author, not the edited manipulated title you have given it on HN!

judge2020 6y ago
Not sure if this is satirical, but HN aims to prevent clickbait and other 'spam' - see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572466 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6572466
dang 6y ago
It was an obviously baity title and that is bog standard HN moderation. More at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24805143 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24805143 We've since changed the URL (and the title) in keeping with another HN principle, of favoring original sources. The Popehat article is really just a list of links with a bunch of extra Popehattiness.
- iron0013 6y ago
  Unbelievable. The next time another reactionary outrage-bait piece from Quillette or Unherd or Matt Taibbi or the National Review worms its way to the front page are you going to swap out its url for a totally different article on a totally different website only nominally on the same topic? The point of the original article wasn’t just that people misunderstand section 230, it’s that republican politicians are conducting a propaganda campaign to willfully misrepresent section 230–and every thread on HN where someone launches into that tired and fallacious “publisher vs platform” spiel is evidence that it’s working. Facts aren’t inherently clickbait just because they displease the conservative HN massive.
  - dang 6y ago
    I respect how strongly you feel about this. I don't think the situation is as you describe it though. Basically everyone with strong political convictions is furious at HN for being outrageously (as they feel) slanted toward the opposing side. But it simply is not so. I suppose this is a consequence of the "if you're not for us you're against us" mentality, which is the essential political stance, though growing in intensity lately. The reason we do these sorts of edits is not driven by politics but by the attempt to optimize HN for curiosity (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=curiosity%20optimiz%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). The principles of how we do that have been worked out over the years, and they're not derived from political positions. Curiosity likes to cut across such boundaries—being limited by boundaries is not in its nature. I get that above a certain threshold of political passion, the feeling becomes that the site ought not to be optimized for curiosity, but rather for political justice or some value like that. That's understandable—those are also good values. HN would just be a totally different kind of site if we did that. The question then is whether a site dedicated to curiosity has the right to exist on the web or not—including under current political conditions. I think it does. Why shouldn't it?

iron0013 6y ago

In case you haven’t noticed, the willful misinterpretation of section 230 that popehat is describing is so common on HN that it has effectively become the party line, and any attempts to correct such “misunderstandings” (lies) are met with heavy downvoting.

InfiniteRand 6y ago

How does this work for a "Letters to the Editor" type section in a newspaper? Or what separates a heavily moderated online forum from a volunteer run online magazine? Is it the asking for submissions part?

Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Newspapers are publishers. They've never tried pretending they're platforms. They have editorial control because they are clear and forthright about who they are and what they do.
- klyrs 6y ago
  There is no difference between a "publisher" and a "platform" under section 230.
  - Karunamon 6y ago
    We're talking about amending section 230. Maybe there should be.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

ReptileMan 6y ago

Can we leave section 230 as is for non profits and small businesses and treat FAANGs differently with different rules. Scale matters.

eli 6y ago
How about we leave Section 230 completely alone and if we have problems with FAANG we pass new laws to address those problems directly.

dilly_li 6y ago

Why are so many replies under this post shown in faded gray?

judge2020 6y ago
This is from other users (with a certain amount of karma) voting down these comments. See "Why don't I see down arrows?" on https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Why%20don't%20I%20see%20down%20arrows%3F https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#:~:text=Why%20don'...
jb775 6y ago
Those are comments from non-democrats
kibwen 6y ago
Comments with net negative votes get faded out. Remember that HN is just as much of a political battleground as any other forum (don't fall into the common trap of thinking that tech folks are "above politics"), and that those who benefit from the exceedingly effective propaganda mentioned in the OP aren't going to quietly yield control of the narrative.
eranimo 6y ago
Because there are a lot of conservative Trump-supporting HN posters in these comments downvoting everybody who doesn't want the Internet destroyed.

h2odragon 6y ago

one of his links (EFF) mentions "Fair and transparent moderation" ... I'd be happy to see that, but aside from it being something societies have had problems with in the past; can anyone actually suggest that's what's happening now? Are twitter and facebook being fair and transparent? Isn't the very fact we're having the argument evidence that it's such a difficult problem we need some interim solution while the perfect AI algorithm gets worked out? Some solution that can last for a while if the perfect AI moderators never come.

reggieband 6y ago

I'm having a moment here where I am considering this from another viewpoint. While I hate the idea of siding with Ted Cruz on literally anything I want to take a moment to really consider something. Section 230 makes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Instagram and even Hacker News possible. Revoking Section 230 could expose those platforms to the possibility of liability for content posted on them. This might cause a re-shaping of the Internet in general. Part of me seriously wonders - would that necessarily be a bad thing? I am not convinced, by any stretch of the imagination, that these social media opinion aggregation platforms are universally positive. Everyone keeps acting like the existence of Facebook somehow democratizes content publishing for the masses, even when we are faced with clear evidence that this isn't the case. The centralized nature of Facebook actually allows for larger scale manipulation of the narrative. And how would this affect Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Netflix and other sites? I suppose opening them up to liability for negative reviews could be a problem. I'm thinking on the fly here, but if Facebook just disappeared off of the Internet tomorrow - I'm not really sure I would mourn that. And if new Internet companies were burdened with stricter moderation requirements (or the need to stand behind every piece of content posted onto their site), maybe that would actually be good? Maybe that would drive people to create their own websites once again. I'm sure I haven't thought deeply enough on this but I definitely feel the tide here is a knee-jerk protection of Section 230. Yet the companies it protects the most are the ones I feel are the worst.

klyrs 6y ago
Would the forums of yesteryear survive? The early 2000s saw a veritable utopia of information sharing, as people with special interests came online and formed groups to discuss and collaborate on those interests. Would the open source software community survive? My world revolves around github more than any other site; would ticket discussions be forced back to mailing lists? Would mail readers pick that slack up, and re-implement social media over email?
- reggieband 6y ago
  > Would the forums of yesteryear survive? I know this is questioning some fundamental assumptions of most of our moral principals, but I am literally questioning: should they survive? It seems everyone is assuming that they should. Some seem to suggest they should for abstract "free speech at all costs" philosophy. Others are assuming they have some kind of positive effect, either on personal growth or economic activity. > Would the open source software community survive? I'm not sure how Section 230 applies to code but I don't think public forums like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube are necessary for open source software to continue (any more than they were necessary for it to start, which happened long before they existed). Besides, what I'm pondering is the centralized aggregation points. People could still host blogs, they are just directly liable for the content they post (as they likely are now).

ry454 6y ago

I believe that the debate around Section 230 is a sign of the growing consensus among the ruling class that Project Internet is complete, that it's successfully deployed a world wide surveillance framework, and that no further growth for the sake of the growth, which could destabilize the said framework, is needed, and thus it's time to close the gates and fortify the site from competitors. One fact supporting this stance is the rapidly growing popularity of the so called "end-to-end encryption" idea, that could crack the foundation of surveillance, unless hard measures are taken right now.

jb775 6y ago

I feel like this guy still doesn't get the actual point why politicians are talking about section 230. They aren't directly rebutting the language of the law, they're threatening to amend/repeal section 230 since they know social media giants depend it to exist in their current form.

chemeng 6y ago

Though the law makes no distinction of publisher vs platform, I think people's intuitive sense that something is "wrong" is valid even though they may not be able to express it clearly. Publisher vs platform is just the easiest/closest way to express it for them. For me, the problematic/key question and example is Facebook's (News) Feed. When content is collected, curated (algorithmically) with specific intent, published/presented in a particular order and layout to communicate and derive revenue, at what point is it a creative work with authorship? If I prompt 100 people to comment on a topic by placing information in front of them, and then take portions of those comments, reorder and present them to you shaped by an overarching narrative of "what you may find interesting related to this topic" and place it on the front page of my website, in what way is this different than a newspaper? A newspaper can be sued for defamation, however, Section 230 (c)(1) shields Facebook from any liability in the case where this selective curation and display of information contains known falsehoods or defamations. If any reasonable curator of facts (reporter) or newspaper editorial board would identify and reject these falsehoods or otherwise be sued, does Facebook get a pass because it was a computer curating? *Edit: The reason I think this may be problematic is that it removes any check on purposeful misinformation that has traditionally existed on our previous methods of speech amplification (newspapers, tv, radio). Facebook has no incentive not to publish the most engaging information even if it is false, as it cannot be sued. If it could be, you would see it actively prevent misinformation. The standard would be what the courts would find it responsible for under existing libel laws, which is a difficult bar to clear, particularly for public persons, but is the only restraint on yellow journalism we've traditionally had.

eli 6y ago

It's somewhat ironic that HN's moderators apparently changed the title of this submission from "Section 230 Is The Subject of The Most Effective Legal Propaganda I've Ever Seen" to the apparently less objectionable "What Section 230 really means"

dang 6y ago
That's just bog standard HN moderation to make titles less baity. If we didn't do that, HN would be a completely different site—and not in a way that most HN users would appreciate. Having the titles on the front page be 'bookish' (to use pg's original term) is one of the core principles here. We've since changed both the URL and the title.
- eli 6y ago
  Fair enough! It just feels like a funny meta example of why one might want to "editorialize" content without also being forced to moderate every single thing posted.

dang 6y ago

Url changed from https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of..., which points to this and a bunch of other articles, and doesn't add much otherwise (other than Popehat-style snark). If one of the other URLs is a better fit, we can change it again.

revnode 6y ago
Isn't this an example of what we're talking about? Even if this change is objectively better, there were many comments posted here with the original URL as the intended target and now their comments are directed at a different URL, all done without their explicit consent?
- klyrs 6y ago
  Yeah, site operators will exert editorial control. This is quite a pertinent example. I think Popehat is great, sometimes, but I also like HN's anti-snark guidelines because it brings the conversation up a level. Would I have made the same choice as dang today? Maybe not. Do I appreciate his transparency? Yes. Do I agree that it fits with the site guidelines? Yes. As for the comments... I've read them a few times throughout the day. And lemme tell ya, folks are rarely responding to the Popehat article. But, given that the Popehat article was essentially a bunch of links to other articles after a couple of snarky paragraphs framing the issue, that's not too bad. At least one dead comment was griping about Popehat. Womp womp. Was the change made without the explicit consent of every user? Um... Yes. But what entitles us to that level of control over HN? This isn't a direct democracy, it's a news aggregator. This site also allows us to edit our comments, without the explicit consent of every person who responds to them. Would it be appropriate to sue HN into oblivion over this? Please, oh please, no.
  - revnode 6y ago
    > But what entitles us to that level of control over HN? What entitles you to that level of control over email? If any of the emails you sent were modified by Google, you would be outraged, but we should just accept "editorial control" over Twitter, Facebook, HN, etc.? I think that's the real debate happening here. It's not just about censorship, it's about exercising control over the content. Many feel strongly that this sort of control should be in the hands of the creators of that content, not editors/moderators/site owners/etc. > This site also allows us to edit our comments, without the explicit consent of every person who responds to them. I would be ok if the person who originally submitted the article made that change himself and there was a history associated with the submission that showed the change. That's the creator exercising control. > This isn't a direct democracy, it's a news aggregator. It's kind of acting like a newspaper though? If content is being edited, that's the job of an editor. I don't think it's such a far stretch to imagine top comments being edited to improve the conversation, etc. at that point, what's the distinction with a newspaper?

cblconfederate 6y ago

> Section 230 should be revoked immediately No, instead it should be expanded to every publication.

cwhiz 6y ago

I genuinely don’t mind if the internet is fundamentally reset. I am completely unconvinced that Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and other such services are net benefit for humanity. Being able to yell at each other in giant anonymous forums is not something that I think worth protecting. Perhaps we should go back to peer to peer communication. So to those who keep saying “the internet as we know it as at stake”, I say... so what? Maybe we got it wrong.

alexmingoia 6y ago
You don’t speak for we. I enjoy Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc. You don’t have to use them. Why can’t you respect that not everyone likes or wants to use the same websites that you do?
- cwhiz 6y ago
  You just have missed the I. There were several.
amanaplanacanal 6y ago
So... no user generated content at all? That seems to be where you are headed here. You mention peer to peer, but where do I host content then? Even my ISP could be liable for allowing access to it.
- cwhiz 6y ago
  Distributed and decentralized networks and databases. Communities can form and police themselves, but no central servers or authorities will be involved. It wouldn’t be the end of internet communities but it would be the end of centralized, public, internet communities.
  - amanaplanacanal 6y ago
    So no public internet? You only forward packets for people you trust? This seems... less than optimal.