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> As I said and you conveniently ignore, user generated content would have to be scrubbed from the Internet except from the big players like Facebook I've repe

> As I said and you conveniently ignore, user generated content would have to be scrubbed from the Internet except from the big players like Facebook I've repeated it ad nauseam but I'll repeat it again - this is just hyperbole. In what capacity do the majority of Internet users aggregate the content of others? I'm thinking about my own use of the Internet. In what capacity do I own domains or applications where I personally publish the content generated by others? Let's consider a few possible cases (which do not apply to me). I have a blog with a comment section. Someone posts some comment that leaves me open to legal liability. I have a few options including turning off comments on my blog, moderating all comments on my blog before they go live, paying a third party to handle moderation (and indemnify/insure me against legal liability). Second, I am passionate about some hobby and wish to create a public forum on a domain I host that allows for the discussion. Malicious participants start to show up that start to post content on this unmoderated forum that open me up to legal liability. Again, I have to deal with this now in some capacity. Third, I am an entrepreneur with my sights on a startup. This startup is like an Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumbler/Blogger, Medium, Quora, Yahoo Answers, Stack Overflow etc. I am concerned that malicious actors will use my new venture to publish malicious content. Right now, I don't care I just build it without any worry. Without Section 230 I have to seriously think about how I ensure content is moderated. I'm just not seeing the Internet break in any of these scenarios. I'm not seeing the Internet being scrubbed of content. In fact, as far as I can tell all of the above happens already to some degree. Do you expect defamatory content on stack overflow? Or do you expect it to be removed?

davorak 6y ago
> paying a third party to handle moderation (and indemnify/insure me against legal liability). For any criminal material that makes it through the 3rd party moderation the publisher will be criminal liable. The third party can pay for the publishers lawyer to defend the publisher in court, but if the publisher is found guilty they will be the one in jail not the third party moderation service. Ensuring the above does not happen is in part why Section 230 was put in place, at least to my understanding. Your argument here does not seem to consider criminal liability does that change your outlook or was it already incorporated in your viewpoint somehow?
giantrobot 6y ago
You don't see the Internet breaking in your scenarios yet in all three the extra liability on the part of the host completely changes the calculus of even bothering with the endeavor. You may not want to start a Quora competitor but someone else likely does. The needless extra liability either breaks the business model entirely or makes it too expensive for a new player to break in. So the extra liability just locks in the big players. You're also far too focused on sites you seem to dislike. Making hosts liable for user content will also affect every single industry forum, mailing list, or chat system. A flame war on a Linux distros mailing list could very easily get that distro sued out of existence just defending itself. Even an innocent error on a wiki could open up a bunch of volunteers to legal liability. The core problem that you're ignoring or not seeing is user content doesn't need to be libelous or illegal to end up in court. There's legal trolls that sue people for stupid or frivolous shit all the time. Simply defending yourself costs money which is something a Linux distro or a fan maintained wiki don't tend to have in abundance. It's hard enough to sue some mailing list member or wiki contributor that it tends to only happen with legitimate issues. But if the bar is lowered that hosts become liable for user content the legal trolls will descend. It's not just the legal trolls with civil suits, there will be plenty of DAs and AGs looking for easy wins (to score political points) that will go after sites for stupid reasons. Sites that can't afford some moderation service or liability insurance will just avoid user generated content. They'll also remove existing content, you know - scrub it from their site, because there's no way of knowing it won't attract a lawsuit. You assume defamatory content gets tagged by the poster as "#defamatory" and it's then immediately obvious. Stack Overflow might take down an obvious troll post but what about a post pointing out a bug in a software product? If some developer became sufficiently upset they could sue SO because someone pointed out a major bug in their software. A completely above board discussion of a bug could easily be seen by the developer as defamatory. Just responding to a suit would cost SO money let alone actually defending themselves. There's a wide gulf between dealing with obviously offensive/malicious content and being under constant threat of legal action no matter how good your moderation. If you don't publish anyone else's content you're fine. I don't give a shit about you. Maybe your personally published content is worthwhile, maybe it's complete shit. I don't know or care. But I do know there's some YouTube channels I really enjoy that wouldn't exist without YouTube as a platform. I have also benefited a great deal from Wikipedia among several other wikis that would not be able to operate if they were constantly threatened in court. I've definitely benefitted from product reviews, restaurant reviews, and OpenStreetMap contributions. All of that content I know has been worthwhile and I would much rather it exist and the platforms that enable it to exist.

davorak 6y ago

> paying a third party to handle moderation (and indemnify/insure me against legal liability). For any criminal material that makes it through the 3rd party moderation the publisher will be criminal liable. The third party can pay for the publishers lawyer to defend the publisher in court, but if the publisher is found guilty they will be the one in jail not the third party moderation service. Ensuring the above does not happen is in part why Section 230 was put in place, at least to my understanding. Your argument here does not seem to consider criminal liability does that change your outlook or was it already incorporated in your viewpoint somehow?

giantrobot 6y ago

You don't see the Internet breaking in your scenarios yet in all three the extra liability on the part of the host completely changes the calculus of even bothering with the endeavor. You may not want to start a Quora competitor but someone else likely does. The needless extra liability either breaks the business model entirely or makes it too expensive for a new player to break in. So the extra liability just locks in the big players. You're also far too focused on sites you seem to dislike. Making hosts liable for user content will also affect every single industry forum, mailing list, or chat system. A flame war on a Linux distros mailing list could very easily get that distro sued out of existence just defending itself. Even an innocent error on a wiki could open up a bunch of volunteers to legal liability. The core problem that you're ignoring or not seeing is user content doesn't need to be libelous or illegal to end up in court. There's legal trolls that sue people for stupid or frivolous shit all the time. Simply defending yourself costs money which is something a Linux distro or a fan maintained wiki don't tend to have in abundance. It's hard enough to sue some mailing list member or wiki contributor that it tends to only happen with legitimate issues. But if the bar is lowered that hosts become liable for user content the legal trolls will descend. It's not just the legal trolls with civil suits, there will be plenty of DAs and AGs looking for easy wins (to score political points) that will go after sites for stupid reasons. Sites that can't afford some moderation service or liability insurance will just avoid user generated content. They'll also remove existing content, you know - scrub it from their site, because there's no way of knowing it won't attract a lawsuit. You assume defamatory content gets tagged by the poster as "#defamatory" and it's then immediately obvious. Stack Overflow might take down an obvious troll post but what about a post pointing out a bug in a software product? If some developer became sufficiently upset they could sue SO because someone pointed out a major bug in their software. A completely above board discussion of a bug could easily be seen by the developer as defamatory. Just responding to a suit would cost SO money let alone actually defending themselves. There's a wide gulf between dealing with obviously offensive/malicious content and being under constant threat of legal action no matter how good your moderation. If you don't publish anyone else's content you're fine. I don't give a shit about you. Maybe your personally published content is worthwhile, maybe it's complete shit. I don't know or care. But I do know there's some YouTube channels I really enjoy that wouldn't exist without YouTube as a platform. I have also benefited a great deal from Wikipedia among several other wikis that would not be able to operate if they were constantly threatened in court. I've definitely benefitted from product reviews, restaurant reviews, and OpenStreetMap contributions. All of that content I know has been worthwhile and I would much rather it exist and the platforms that enable it to exist.