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> Section 230 says that "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by anot

> Section 230 says that "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" So in other words, Twitter and Facebook censored content (and even references to the URL of that content) despite having no obligation to do so. And they censored content that not only they did not create, but was put forward by a traditional newspaper on their "series of tubes." As the content is not prohibited by law, how is that _not_ functioning in an editorial capacity? If Comcast or Cloudflare blocked this exact same content via ipfilters or URL rules, where would the Net "Neutrality" crowd be on this issue? Outside the legal arguments put forward, there is a huge moral hypocrisy here. Net Neutrality advocates have argued that content should not be allowed to be blocked via certain providers (ISPs), while endorsing censorship on others (CDNs, social communication platforms). In the case of Thomas, he's argued against Net Neutrality not on content grounds--but on technical arguments around resource utilization and distribution. Thomas' view is at least consistent as it preserves the idea of _not_ limiting speech, which is more than can be said for the Net "Neutrality" crowd.

patagurbon 6y ago
Internet providers are effectively a monopoly. There's at most 3 providers in an area for cable/fiber. They are utilities. Facebook and Twitter are not. You can still access the NY Post on their website. Twitter and Facebook absolutely have grounds to block content that contains PII or appear to be derived from a hack, especially when both are in effect.
- abernard1 6y ago
  > Facebook and Twitter are not. Facebook and Twitter are also claiming they're not subject to the same rules as traditional broadcast outlets or newspapers. Broadcast media outlets are not monopolies either, and they can't wantonly censor election speech like this by law. If CBS was to decide that all their outlets were going to cover only one candidate's speeches, they would be electioneering, and be afoul of the law. CBS is not even as close to a monopoly as Facebook or Twitter is. We have a case here were two providers took it upon themselves to block references to a newspaper article, relating very directly to speech which would need equal access under any other medium.
  - patagurbon 6y ago
    They're not doing that though. They blocked an article which contained PII, and info derived from a hack (by the articles own admissions), at least for Twitter I believe that was just policy. I think they should've just flagged it. But I imagine you and many others would've had the same problem there. More importantly, you just know any new interpretation will be broad as well? What is your proposed replacement?
  - tynpeddler 6y ago
    > Broadcast media outlets are not monopolies either, and they can't wantonly censor election speech like this by law. You should clarify your argument here. News media can "censor" election speech by simply not covering it. In addition, if a speaker makes factual errors, the news station is under no obligation to refrain from commenting on those errors, nor are they prevented from providing correction. Most importantly, no newspaper is required to cover the same stories as another newspaper. CNN for example, is not required to cover the the particular story you're referencing. Even with the equal-time rule, media outlets have broad discretion about how they choose to cover candidates. For example, Trump benefited enormously in 2016 from an incredibly lopsided distribution of coverage. And all of this ignores that the particular story you seem to be referring to has serious newsworthiness issues.
  - abernard1 6y ago
    > You should clarify your argument here. News media can "censor" election speech by simply not covering it. They, actually, legally cannot if they are public broadcast and not cable [1]. In this case, they blocked a campaign trying to publish on the platforms. It's as close of an analog as possible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      If a candidate swore during an interview, the network would be within their rights to prevent that candidate from speaking on the network until they promised to not violate network policies. "equivalent opportunity" does not mean that they are free to do anything, as long as the rules that twitter has are enforced evenly, it's fine. We just haven't seen the BidenForPresident twitter account tweet Barron's texts with his girlfriend.
- abernard1 6y ago
  > They blocked an article which contained PII, and info derived from a hack (by the articles own admissions), at least for Twitter I believe that was just policy. So wikileaks? Any other articles that happen to have a person's personal info are blocked? Do they block tabloids as well? Was it cool how they unilaterally blocked people from mentioning that said article exists... sans URL and without PII? There's a lot of mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance required to believe this was "just policy". Likewise, why is it such a burden for Twitter to monitor illegal content but not legal content? Is there just so very much illegal content on Twitter relative to legal that they can't manage? But, yeah, they're all over this legal content like a hawk, just coincidentally. (Despite them talking about them implementing restrictions like this for years). It's politically targeted. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it.
  - iaw 6y ago
    > Do they block tabloids as well? NY Post is a tabloid FYI.
    - abernard1 6y ago
      > NY Post is a tabloid FYI. Check and mate. How many NY Post articles do they take down with PII at the request of the person in it?
      - iaw 6y ago
        I don't read papers that aren't trustworthy so I can't tell you. I suspect that posts starting to go viral get flagged more urgently than a run of the mill tabloid story.
      - abernard1 6y ago
        > I don't read papers that aren't trustworthy so I can't tell you. Ugh. You're a hack, and you know that every celebrity that can't get a takedown for their PII on Youtube, Google, Facebook, and Twitter isn't given the same privilege as Joe Biden and his son. If Twitter really has this policy, let's have no more tabloids on that medium. Everybody who issues a takedown should get one. And with celebrities it isn't like Twitter doesn't know. Of course they know. It's selective enforcement of usage of their business. Twitter--much like certain restaurants in Alabama--is saying they will serve certain people, but not others.
klyrs 6y ago
> As the content is not prohibited by law, how is that _not_ functioning in an editorial capacity? I just re-read section 230, and couldn't find any mention of this "editorial" distinction that you're focused on. Are you appealing to law, or your ideology?
- abernard1 6y ago
  Godwin's arguing that the whole argument is moot, because Internet providers aren't functioning as editors, just conduits. From the article: "That brings us back to Thomas, who adopted wholesale the conservatives’ read of Section 230 in his statement this week that accompanied the court’s list of appeals that it has chosen not to hear. (One of the cases the court turned down raised a Section 230 issue.) He begins by embracing a particular idiosyncratic version of the platform/publisher distinction (although he uses the word distributor instead of platform): Thomas> Traditionally, laws governing illegal content distinguished between publishers or speakers (like newspapers) and distributors (like newsstands and libraries). Publishers or speakers were subjected to a higher standard because they exercised editorial control. They could be strictly liable for transmitting illegal content. But distributors were different. They acted as a mere conduit without exercising editorial control, and they often transmitted far more content than they could be expected to review. Distributors were thus liable only when they knew (or constructively knew) that content was illegal." Thomas' argument is essentially repeating what all Internet providers have been saying for my lifetime: "Don't shoot the messenger, we're just the tubes. We don't exercise discretion over the content." The courts looked favorably on that argument for practical reasons. Back then though, providers were typically trying to avoid censoring, due to the fact they were hosting objectionable, possibly illegal content. These same providers are now arguing that the unbearable costs of censorship that they can not possibly withstand for illegal content... well, they in fact can manage to bear for voluntarily censoring legal content. And that particular legal, political content in this case is actually mandated with equal access provisions under election law by all other mediums.
  - 8note 6y ago
    A news stand isn't required to sell every magazine that every publisher makes though, right? Can I force them to buy my book if I say its political?
8note 6y ago
Net neutrality means it's fine for Facebook or Twitter to censor whatever they want. I can always go directly to the NY post to find that article, or discuss it on HN. If instead the ISP was doing that filtering, I wouldn't be able to discuss it anywhere online
- rbecker 6y ago
  Net neutrality means it's not fine for the ISP to do the filtering - that's all it does. It says nothing on whether it's fine if Facebook or Twitter do it.
- abernard1 6y ago
  > If instead the ISP was doing that filtering, I wouldn't be able to discuss it anywhere online If Twitter, Facebook, and Google all blocked some content, the odds of it being found is way less than if a single ISP blocked it. Yes, you, personally would not be able to see it if it was blocked and you had that ISP. But collectively, the content is still there. Facebook and Twitter are 90% of social media and have network effects making alternatives implausible. They're no different than Standard Oil and trains were. ISP like trains shovel 1s and 0s around (raw stuff). But people also particularly cared about getting content or oil (specific stuff). Twitter and Facebook have a monopoly on that "specific stuff" and with legal indemnity to boot. Who cares if you have the capacity to transport oil if you can't actually get it delivered? Who cares if you can get 1s and 0s online if you can't communicate with anybody about relevant content? As an aside, remember when it was social "networking" and not social "media"? Let's not pretend that these folks didn't want to play the content publishing game. It's the only way to funnel clicks into ad revenue.
foogazi 6y ago
HN would block the NY Post article, despite users’ attempts at discussing it - where would that fall on section 230?

patagurbon 6y ago

Internet providers are effectively a monopoly. There's at most 3 providers in an area for cable/fiber. They are utilities. Facebook and Twitter are not. You can still access the NY Post on their website. Twitter and Facebook absolutely have grounds to block content that contains PII or appear to be derived from a hack, especially when both are in effect.

abernard1 6y ago
> Facebook and Twitter are not. Facebook and Twitter are also claiming they're not subject to the same rules as traditional broadcast outlets or newspapers. Broadcast media outlets are not monopolies either, and they can't wantonly censor election speech like this by law. If CBS was to decide that all their outlets were going to cover only one candidate's speeches, they would be electioneering, and be afoul of the law. CBS is not even as close to a monopoly as Facebook or Twitter is. We have a case here were two providers took it upon themselves to block references to a newspaper article, relating very directly to speech which would need equal access under any other medium.
- patagurbon 6y ago
  They're not doing that though. They blocked an article which contained PII, and info derived from a hack (by the articles own admissions), at least for Twitter I believe that was just policy. I think they should've just flagged it. But I imagine you and many others would've had the same problem there. More importantly, you just know any new interpretation will be broad as well? What is your proposed replacement?
- tynpeddler 6y ago
  > Broadcast media outlets are not monopolies either, and they can't wantonly censor election speech like this by law. You should clarify your argument here. News media can "censor" election speech by simply not covering it. In addition, if a speaker makes factual errors, the news station is under no obligation to refrain from commenting on those errors, nor are they prevented from providing correction. Most importantly, no newspaper is required to cover the same stories as another newspaper. CNN for example, is not required to cover the the particular story you're referencing. Even with the equal-time rule, media outlets have broad discretion about how they choose to cover candidates. For example, Trump benefited enormously in 2016 from an incredibly lopsided distribution of coverage. And all of this ignores that the particular story you seem to be referring to has serious newsworthiness issues.
- abernard1 6y ago
  > You should clarify your argument here. News media can "censor" election speech by simply not covering it. They, actually, legally cannot if they are public broadcast and not cable [1]. In this case, they blocked a campaign trying to publish on the platforms. It's as close of an analog as possible. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    If a candidate swore during an interview, the network would be within their rights to prevent that candidate from speaking on the network until they promised to not violate network policies. "equivalent opportunity" does not mean that they are free to do anything, as long as the rules that twitter has are enforced evenly, it's fine. We just haven't seen the BidenForPresident twitter account tweet Barron's texts with his girlfriend.
abernard1 6y ago
> They blocked an article which contained PII, and info derived from a hack (by the articles own admissions), at least for Twitter I believe that was just policy. So wikileaks? Any other articles that happen to have a person's personal info are blocked? Do they block tabloids as well? Was it cool how they unilaterally blocked people from mentioning that said article exists... sans URL and without PII? There's a lot of mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance required to believe this was "just policy". Likewise, why is it such a burden for Twitter to monitor illegal content but not legal content? Is there just so very much illegal content on Twitter relative to legal that they can't manage? But, yeah, they're all over this legal content like a hawk, just coincidentally. (Despite them talking about them implementing restrictions like this for years). It's politically targeted. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it.
- iaw 6y ago
  > Do they block tabloids as well? NY Post is a tabloid FYI.
  - abernard1 6y ago
    > NY Post is a tabloid FYI. Check and mate. How many NY Post articles do they take down with PII at the request of the person in it?
    - iaw 6y ago
      I don't read papers that aren't trustworthy so I can't tell you. I suspect that posts starting to go viral get flagged more urgently than a run of the mill tabloid story.
    - abernard1 6y ago
      > I don't read papers that aren't trustworthy so I can't tell you. Ugh. You're a hack, and you know that every celebrity that can't get a takedown for their PII on Youtube, Google, Facebook, and Twitter isn't given the same privilege as Joe Biden and his son. If Twitter really has this policy, let's have no more tabloids on that medium. Everybody who issues a takedown should get one. And with celebrities it isn't like Twitter doesn't know. Of course they know. It's selective enforcement of usage of their business. Twitter--much like certain restaurants in Alabama--is saying they will serve certain people, but not others.

klyrs 6y ago

> As the content is not prohibited by law, how is that _not_ functioning in an editorial capacity? I just re-read section 230, and couldn't find any mention of this "editorial" distinction that you're focused on. Are you appealing to law, or your ideology?

abernard1 6y ago
Godwin's arguing that the whole argument is moot, because Internet providers aren't functioning as editors, just conduits. From the article: "That brings us back to Thomas, who adopted wholesale the conservatives’ read of Section 230 in his statement this week that accompanied the court’s list of appeals that it has chosen not to hear. (One of the cases the court turned down raised a Section 230 issue.) He begins by embracing a particular idiosyncratic version of the platform/publisher distinction (although he uses the word distributor instead of platform): Thomas> Traditionally, laws governing illegal content distinguished between publishers or speakers (like newspapers) and distributors (like newsstands and libraries). Publishers or speakers were subjected to a higher standard because they exercised editorial control. They could be strictly liable for transmitting illegal content. But distributors were different. They acted as a mere conduit without exercising editorial control, and they often transmitted far more content than they could be expected to review. Distributors were thus liable only when they knew (or constructively knew) that content was illegal." Thomas' argument is essentially repeating what all Internet providers have been saying for my lifetime: "Don't shoot the messenger, we're just the tubes. We don't exercise discretion over the content." The courts looked favorably on that argument for practical reasons. Back then though, providers were typically trying to avoid censoring, due to the fact they were hosting objectionable, possibly illegal content. These same providers are now arguing that the unbearable costs of censorship that they can not possibly withstand for illegal content... well, they in fact can manage to bear for voluntarily censoring legal content. And that particular legal, political content in this case is actually mandated with equal access provisions under election law by all other mediums.
- 8note 6y ago
  A news stand isn't required to sell every magazine that every publisher makes though, right? Can I force them to buy my book if I say its political?

8note 6y ago

Net neutrality means it's fine for Facebook or Twitter to censor whatever they want. I can always go directly to the NY post to find that article, or discuss it on HN. If instead the ISP was doing that filtering, I wouldn't be able to discuss it anywhere online

rbecker 6y ago
Net neutrality means it's not fine for the ISP to do the filtering - that's all it does. It says nothing on whether it's fine if Facebook or Twitter do it.
abernard1 6y ago
> If instead the ISP was doing that filtering, I wouldn't be able to discuss it anywhere online If Twitter, Facebook, and Google all blocked some content, the odds of it being found is way less than if a single ISP blocked it. Yes, you, personally would not be able to see it if it was blocked and you had that ISP. But collectively, the content is still there. Facebook and Twitter are 90% of social media and have network effects making alternatives implausible. They're no different than Standard Oil and trains were. ISP like trains shovel 1s and 0s around (raw stuff). But people also particularly cared about getting content or oil (specific stuff). Twitter and Facebook have a monopoly on that "specific stuff" and with legal indemnity to boot. Who cares if you have the capacity to transport oil if you can't actually get it delivered? Who cares if you can get 1s and 0s online if you can't communicate with anybody about relevant content? As an aside, remember when it was social "networking" and not social "media"? Let's not pretend that these folks didn't want to play the content publishing game. It's the only way to funnel clicks into ad revenue.

foogazi 6y ago

HN would block the NY Post article, despite users’ attempts at discussing it - where would that fall on section 230?