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To use the actual text, it indemnifies them from lawsuits arising from: > any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of m

To use the actual text, it indemnifies them from lawsuits arising from: > 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; So long as their actions are in good faith, and the content can be lumped into "otherwise objectionable" (as I'm sure most anything could), they are well within Section 230 protection. Even if they have an implicit bias in their moderation. Even if they have an explicit bias in their moderation that they put in their ToS. It specifically says "that the provider or user considers obscene...", which explicitly states the bias of the provider is considered. The only way Twitters moderation could remove their Section 230 protections is if they did it in bad faith. If they were doing it specifically to try to lose Trump the election, that might count as bad faith because it has nothing to do with limiting access. They are, however, free to remove everything he posts because they find him to be objectionable. Or to remove things they think they are objectionable. Or to only remove violations of their ToS when Trump does it, because they find him or his past patterns objectionable. Or because they find it more likely to lead to flamewars, etc on the site when he does it. Etc, etc, it's mostly a hypothetical because you have to prove bad faith, which is hard unless someone is dumb enough to write it in an email.

afiori 6y ago
The following is my uninformed opinion, you can probably skip it; I recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OhE4w0TAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OhE4w0TAU for a competent commentary. Anyway: Twitter violating its own ToS and/or promises to the users sounds like an example of bad faith. (This would not apply if Twitter's marketing was 'Fuck you! we do whatever we want', instead they promote themselves as a fair platform) Moreover the entire exemption does not apply when the `provider` is not a provider but is actually a publisher using editorial discretion. (for example if twitter decided to ban false statements in tweets this would clearly put them outside of section 230 immunity)
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  I would recommend citing legal scholars instead of YouTube personalities. The person you are quoting its a Canadian lawyer of no meaningful repute who gave up his legal career of a paltry decade to become a YouTube influencer. He has never even been licensed to practice law in the United States. His opinion is out of sync with what legal scholars and indeed an what an author of the law says the law means. Just on a laymans reading of the text good faith isn't given in some universal context of fairness or fair play it is given in the sentence. > 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; Good faith herein means actually because they found it objectionable not for some ulterior motive. In order to assert that the removal wasn't protected under 230 you would be asked to prove the contents of the minds of the decision makers that the removal was NOT because they found it objectionable. They could literally argue that they found the effort to influence the election itself objectionable and suppressed it therefore and be safe within the boundaries of the law. In fact good faith .... otherwise objectionable is so broad as to encompass virtually any removal for any reason Furthermore finding that one removal wasn't protected under 230 wouldn't magically dispel all legal protection it would mean for the purpose of THAT removal someone could sue them if they had just legal grounds. I don't believe your source provided one.
  - afiori 6y ago
    Personally* I have doubts[1] about this reasoning, in that it doesn't cover how this would not apply to the New York Times. I can agree with your interpretation that where the protection of section 230 applies companies would be allowed to remove basically whatever they want. But there need to be a criterion distinguishing why Twitter can claim this immunity while newspapers cannot. The rights granted need to have some kind of obligation. From what I understand the people that are trying to attack this immunity have mostly given up with the argument "Twitter monopolized a space for discussions so it should be held to constitutional standards like telephone companies" or "social media platforms are clearly acting as publishers of their content" and are rather trying to push "social media companies falsely promised open forums to users and content creators only to hit them with draconian rules once a monopoly was established" (had facebook (or youtube) had the same ToS since its inception it would have never become a monopoly). With this last argument the entire question of section 230 is sidestepped. As far as I understand it will not actually accomplish anything soon; a lawsuit on these premises was successful against Patreon, but those were very special circumstances. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/13/proving-too-much/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/13/proving-too-much/ * I am even more remote from the US than a Canadian lawyer, but I do not see my role as telling the courts what they should do, but rather as someone that is trying to understand what is happening and trying to develop informed opinions.

afiori 6y ago

The following is my uninformed opinion, you can probably skip it; I recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OhE4w0TAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1OhE4w0TAU for a competent commentary. Anyway: Twitter violating its own ToS and/or promises to the users sounds like an example of bad faith. (This would not apply if Twitter's marketing was 'Fuck you! we do whatever we want', instead they promote themselves as a fair platform) Moreover the entire exemption does not apply when the `provider` is not a provider but is actually a publisher using editorial discretion. (for example if twitter decided to ban false statements in tweets this would clearly put them outside of section 230 immunity)

michaelmrose 6y ago
I would recommend citing legal scholars instead of YouTube personalities. The person you are quoting its a Canadian lawyer of no meaningful repute who gave up his legal career of a paltry decade to become a YouTube influencer. He has never even been licensed to practice law in the United States. His opinion is out of sync with what legal scholars and indeed an what an author of the law says the law means. Just on a laymans reading of the text good faith isn't given in some universal context of fairness or fair play it is given in the sentence. > 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; Good faith herein means actually because they found it objectionable not for some ulterior motive. In order to assert that the removal wasn't protected under 230 you would be asked to prove the contents of the minds of the decision makers that the removal was NOT because they found it objectionable. They could literally argue that they found the effort to influence the election itself objectionable and suppressed it therefore and be safe within the boundaries of the law. In fact good faith .... otherwise objectionable is so broad as to encompass virtually any removal for any reason Furthermore finding that one removal wasn't protected under 230 wouldn't magically dispel all legal protection it would mean for the purpose of THAT removal someone could sue them if they had just legal grounds. I don't believe your source provided one.
- afiori 6y ago
  Personally* I have doubts[1] about this reasoning, in that it doesn't cover how this would not apply to the New York Times. I can agree with your interpretation that where the protection of section 230 applies companies would be allowed to remove basically whatever they want. But there need to be a criterion distinguishing why Twitter can claim this immunity while newspapers cannot. The rights granted need to have some kind of obligation. From what I understand the people that are trying to attack this immunity have mostly given up with the argument "Twitter monopolized a space for discussions so it should be held to constitutional standards like telephone companies" or "social media platforms are clearly acting as publishers of their content" and are rather trying to push "social media companies falsely promised open forums to users and content creators only to hit them with draconian rules once a monopoly was established" (had facebook (or youtube) had the same ToS since its inception it would have never become a monopoly). With this last argument the entire question of section 230 is sidestepped. As far as I understand it will not actually accomplish anything soon; a lawsuit on these premises was successful against Patreon, but those were very special circumstances. [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/13/proving-too-much/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/13/proving-too-much/ * I am even more remote from the US than a Canadian lawyer, but I do not see my role as telling the courts what they should do, but rather as someone that is trying to understand what is happening and trying to develop informed opinions.