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There's a lot of misguided talk about Section 230 in this thread, but I wonder if repealing it actually is the answer for a different reason: maybe websites, in

by creato 6y ago

There's a lot of misguided talk about Section 230 in this thread, but I wonder if repealing it actually is the answer for a different reason: maybe websites, including social media, should be liable for the content they host? Repealing section 230 would effectively make courts the moderators of the internet, which is probably the closest institution we have to something that most people would accept as a moderator. It would be prohibitively expensive of course, and would probably mean that social media could not operate as it exists today. But maybe that is the logical conclusion to this whole mess? Maybe the power to reach millions of people shouldn't be "cheap". Perhaps the result is that there would be tiers of social media accounts. People wouldn't be going viral at random with stupid hot takes, and it would be expensive (liability insurance?) to be an "influencer".

avalys 6y ago
What do you think your liability proposal might mean for a website like Hacker News? Or any kind of online forum, Stack Overflow, etc.?
- creato 6y ago
  It'd be a lot harder to run them, that's for sure. This is not an easy problem. There are obviously a lot of upsides to social media: stack overflow is very useful, I think hacker news is a positive contribution to society, and even FB and youtube and such provide a lot of positive value. That doesn't mean that they aren't also capable of producing enormous negative contributions as well. As useful as stack overflow is, how does the magnitude of that positive contribution compare to e.g. a Myanmar genocide?
raxxorrax 6y ago
That is the issue I have with people in favor of more content removal, because it would end right at that point if this is escalated further. But since for logistical reasons we cannot have legal proceedings for every internet comment, sites would only allow the most mundane of opinions. It would make me angry, because we would loose something very great about the internet because someone got too offended and couldn't just shut off their device. It is like destroying the pyramids because you don't like edges. Maybe a separate children-net would be the solution.

by creato 6y ago

avalys 6y ago

What do you think your liability proposal might mean for a website like Hacker News? Or any kind of online forum, Stack Overflow, etc.?

creato 6y ago
It'd be a lot harder to run them, that's for sure. This is not an easy problem. There are obviously a lot of upsides to social media: stack overflow is very useful, I think hacker news is a positive contribution to society, and even FB and youtube and such provide a lot of positive value. That doesn't mean that they aren't also capable of producing enormous negative contributions as well. As useful as stack overflow is, how does the magnitude of that positive contribution compare to e.g. a Myanmar genocide?

raxxorrax 6y ago

That is the issue I have with people in favor of more content removal, because it would end right at that point if this is escalated further. But since for logistical reasons we cannot have legal proceedings for every internet comment, sites would only allow the most mundane of opinions. It would make me angry, because we would loose something very great about the internet because someone got too offended and couldn't just shut off their device. It is like destroying the pyramids because you don't like edges. Maybe a separate children-net would be the solution.