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I never stated or implied that Section 230 barred censorship. It does, however, protect service providers from the liability that a publisher would take on for

I never stated or implied that Section 230 barred censorship. It does, however, protect service providers from the liability that a publisher would take on for publishing content that otherwise should be censored. As these companies voluntarily embrace more censorship, they are calling into question their status as "service providers" since they are effectively operating as publishers; i.e., not protected under 230. > there has never been a set of free speech protections “normally recognized by content platforms” I agree; legally there hasn't been anything like that, but in the past, those platforms were demonstrably more reluctant to censor political content (e.g., views that didn't align with the company's political views) because they knew that more active involvement might jeopardize their classification as neutral platforms (along with their protections under 230 as described above). In effect, they stayed out of politics not by law, but out of fear of being forced to censor all content if they became "publishers". Now that machine learning has made the censoring part easier, they're less concerned about that happening. However, at the moment they want to have their cake and eat it too – controlling content as they wish while also enjoying the protections of 230.

nobody9999 6y ago
>I never stated or implied that Section 230 barred censorship. It does, however, protect service providers from the liability that a publisher would take on for publishing content that otherwise should be censored. As these companies voluntarily embrace more censorship, they are calling into question their status as "service providers" since they are effectively operating as publishers; i.e., not protected under 230. No. That's not what section 230 says. There is no distinction in section 230 between "platform" and "publisher." This has been noted and detailed repeatedly in this discussion. Please see this[0] which will explain, in explicit detail, why you are wrong about section 230. [0] 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...
- curiousgeorgio 6y ago
  The objections you're raising (and repeated on sites like the one you posted) are a matter of interpretation of the law, and people on both sides of the political spectrum are now realizing that the law needs clarification. It is not a settled matter by any means, and our lawmakers are still debating the issue. When a company like Twitter censors the president of the United States, while also embedding their own editorial comments over the content he posted, those actions could easily be seen as falling outside 230 (even if courts haven't decided that in the past). No one denies the fact that the internet today is very different from when 230 was drafted, and from a moral standpoint, we absolutely need more clarification codified into the law. If your town's public square were seized by one of the richest companies in the world, and they began exerting political control over who was allowed to speak in the town square, it would certainly raise some red flags and likely encourage legal changes (even if, for a time, it was perfectly legal). The 230 debate isn't even the core of my argument (if you read my previous comments). The point is, whether through legal means or simply by way of market pressure, we should not be allowing these companies to control the political discussion in such heavy-handed ways. Diversity of opinion is diversity, and we need more of it - not less (it's ironic how some push so hard for diversity, yet seem to think we can't handle it when it comes to speech). I'm sure it's hard to imagine, but if they started silencing liberal views, there's no doubt there would be an uproar among democrats. Apart from any legal changes that may come, we vote with our clicks and platform usage, and there's a growing number of people who are tired of these political censorship games, so they're leaving for other platforms with less political bias. As censorship increases, that will likely accelerate. This is the last of my comments in this thread.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > The objections you're raising (and repeated on sites like the one you posted) are a matter of interpretation of the law, No, they are a matter of clear and unambiguous historical fact. > and people on both sides of the political spectrum are now realizing that the law needs clarification. No, subsets within each major party are adopting preferences for regulation with opposed purposes to those for which CDA Section 230 was originally adopted. Which we could debate the merits of, but it's simply factually wrong to describe actions of the type that both the plain text and the legislative history of Section 230 show clearly to be exactly what 230 was adopted to remove existing barriers to are somehow in conflict with Section 230’s protections or purpose.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> As these companies voluntarily embrace more censorship, they are calling into question their status as "service providers" since they are effectively operating as publishers; i.e., not protected under 230. 230 was expressly adopted to let service providers (and users!) of interactive computer services take actions that would otherwise make them publishers without the liability that goes with that, with regard to content that is created by someone else. That's it's whole purpose. Key operative text: “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” and ”No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of [...] 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” https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230# https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230#

nobody9999 6y ago

>I never stated or implied that Section 230 barred censorship. It does, however, protect service providers from the liability that a publisher would take on for publishing content that otherwise should be censored. As these companies voluntarily embrace more censorship, they are calling into question their status as "service providers" since they are effectively operating as publishers; i.e., not protected under 230. No. That's not what section 230 says. There is no distinction in section 230 between "platform" and "publisher." This has been noted and detailed repeatedly in this discussion. Please see this[0] which will explain, in explicit detail, why you are wrong about section 230. [0] 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...

curiousgeorgio 6y ago
The objections you're raising (and repeated on sites like the one you posted) are a matter of interpretation of the law, and people on both sides of the political spectrum are now realizing that the law needs clarification. It is not a settled matter by any means, and our lawmakers are still debating the issue. When a company like Twitter censors the president of the United States, while also embedding their own editorial comments over the content he posted, those actions could easily be seen as falling outside 230 (even if courts haven't decided that in the past). No one denies the fact that the internet today is very different from when 230 was drafted, and from a moral standpoint, we absolutely need more clarification codified into the law. If your town's public square were seized by one of the richest companies in the world, and they began exerting political control over who was allowed to speak in the town square, it would certainly raise some red flags and likely encourage legal changes (even if, for a time, it was perfectly legal). The 230 debate isn't even the core of my argument (if you read my previous comments). The point is, whether through legal means or simply by way of market pressure, we should not be allowing these companies to control the political discussion in such heavy-handed ways. Diversity of opinion is diversity, and we need more of it - not less (it's ironic how some push so hard for diversity, yet seem to think we can't handle it when it comes to speech). I'm sure it's hard to imagine, but if they started silencing liberal views, there's no doubt there would be an uproar among democrats. Apart from any legal changes that may come, we vote with our clicks and platform usage, and there's a growing number of people who are tired of these political censorship games, so they're leaving for other platforms with less political bias. As censorship increases, that will likely accelerate. This is the last of my comments in this thread.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > The objections you're raising (and repeated on sites like the one you posted) are a matter of interpretation of the law, No, they are a matter of clear and unambiguous historical fact. > and people on both sides of the political spectrum are now realizing that the law needs clarification. No, subsets within each major party are adopting preferences for regulation with opposed purposes to those for which CDA Section 230 was originally adopted. Which we could debate the merits of, but it's simply factually wrong to describe actions of the type that both the plain text and the legislative history of Section 230 show clearly to be exactly what 230 was adopted to remove existing barriers to are somehow in conflict with Section 230’s protections or purpose.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> As these companies voluntarily embrace more censorship, they are calling into question their status as "service providers" since they are effectively operating as publishers; i.e., not protected under 230. 230 was expressly adopted to let service providers (and users!) of interactive computer services take actions that would otherwise make them publishers without the liability that goes with that, with regard to content that is created by someone else. That's it's whole purpose. Key operative text: “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” and ”No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of [...] 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” https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230# https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230#