3 ms·

Is it fair then to say that the only way to “lose section 230 protection” is to cease having content partners by paying them, or employing them, or something li

Is it fair then to say that the only way to “lose section 230 protection” is to cease having content partners by paying them, or employing them, or something like that? I don’t have a political point with this question and apologies if it was covered in the article and I missed or misunderstood it.

wyattpeak 6y ago
I don't know that that would be losing protections, merely having nothing that qualifies for protection. If there were some content on that site which was 3rd-party generated, say comments, they would presumably remain protected.
toast0 6y ago
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not your lawyer, but allow me to play one on the Internet. Looking at two parts of the law: > 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. > The term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service. I think employing people to create or develop information under your direction would likely cause you to "lose 230 protection," but paying them for content they created or developed independently probably doesn't. If you contract them to independently create something new, it might be your responsibility in part; I dunno. Edit: reviewing the article linked by conistonwater's sibling comment, it seems pretty clear from Blumenthal v. Drudge that a contractor's work is not the site's responsibility. I imagine there could be circumstances where the site specifically sanctionable content, and they might be held responsible.
conistonwater 6y ago
Through [1] I found this article [2], and it seems even if you pay people for content (Blumenthal v. Drudge, page 7; AOL was paying somebody for writing articles and somebody sued both that person and AOL for defamation) you're still explicitly immune under Section 230. (I'm not a lawyer, I find this kind of confusing sometimes.) [1] https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/07/want-to-learn-more-about-section-230-a-guide-to-my-work.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/07/want-to-learn-... [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3025943 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3025943

wyattpeak 6y ago

I don't know that that would be losing protections, merely having nothing that qualifies for protection. If there were some content on that site which was 3rd-party generated, say comments, they would presumably remain protected.

toast0 6y ago

I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not your lawyer, but allow me to play one on the Internet. Looking at two parts of the law: > 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. > The term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service. I think employing people to create or develop information under your direction would likely cause you to "lose 230 protection," but paying them for content they created or developed independently probably doesn't. If you contract them to independently create something new, it might be your responsibility in part; I dunno. Edit: reviewing the article linked by conistonwater's sibling comment, it seems pretty clear from Blumenthal v. Drudge that a contractor's work is not the site's responsibility. I imagine there could be circumstances where the site specifically sanctionable content, and they might be held responsible.

conistonwater 6y ago

Through [1] I found this article [2], and it seems even if you pay people for content (Blumenthal v. Drudge, page 7; AOL was paying somebody for writing articles and somebody sued both that person and AOL for defamation) you're still explicitly immune under Section 230. (I'm not a lawyer, I find this kind of confusing sometimes.) [1] https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/07/want-to-learn-more-about-section-230-a-guide-to-my-work.htm https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/07/want-to-learn-... [2] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3025943 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3025943