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This is a perfectly sound hypothetical. Do you only allow discussion with people who have experienced a direct hardship? Is that your line for moderation? I'

• parsimo2010 6y ago
  No, but the previous comment looks just specific enough that it seems like they are trying to make an example look like it was a real life example (which would give it a lot of weight) when in reality it was a hypothetical example (which gives it less weight). But to address the argument as a hypothetical, I don't think it's a fully developed argument. Fledgling companies with small user bases have very little liability by virtue of their small community. A platform with a small community can't be used to do harmful things like incite riots and encourage hate crimes unless you are targeting a specific demographic. And if you're targeting a specific demographic that is prone to doing harmful things then you should be moderating it from day 1. If you aren't targeting a dangerous demographic you have to get pretty big before your platform gets dangerous by size alone, and I do think it's reasonable to expect companies to have some moderation figured out before their platform gets so big that it's dangerous. Plus, a small budget doesn't give founders/developers an excuse to not know what their platform is being used for. Hypothetically, if your platform was small and you didn't realize you were catering to Nazis, then you are liable if those Nazis use your platform to organize an armed march/protest that turns into a riot and people get killed. Or at least I think you should be, and that's why I think that Section 230 should be repealed and replaced with something in the middle- not a blanket protection for companies that don't even try to moderate their content, but some protection as long as they are actually trying. Also remember that not moderating your platform doesn't mean that bad things will definitely happen and that you will get sued- Section 230 only applies to civil cases already, and there must be some sort of grievance for someone to sue you. The cops couldn't proactively shut someone down for lack of moderation. So even without Section 230, a company could roll the dice while they were on a shoestring budget if they decided that it was worth it to delay developing a moderation system in favor of a different feature. That's in their right, they just ought to accept the idea that they might get sued if something bad happened because they prioritized work on shiny features. So I guess what I'm saying is yes, I don't think a shoestring budget is a defense for giving a company protections. A new car company can't avoid a lawsuit from ignoring a known safety defect just with the excuse that they didn't have the budget. A startup that can't afford to do something right either shouldn't be doing it or they should accrue some risk.
  • cujo 6y ago
    This last summer with the BLM protests the local town FB group got flooded with people behaving badly and eventually the moderators had to step in and effectively ban a bunch of people and prevent discussion on the topic for a time. This wasn't a group that catered to Nazis. It was a group that asked about the best pizza in town and pointed out when the high school was putting on a play. To say it caught the mods off-guard would be an understatement. Mods had to step in and save the day, but it basically requires someone to watch the service 24/7 during heated times as the threads blow up quickly. They don't take days or weeks to warm up. It just takes an active community and some catalyst event. This was effectively just a forum. It happened in a FB group, but could have just as easily been some local dude hosting a phpbb forum. Same thing. So this is the thing I keep coming back to: why would anyone ever dip their toes in user-created content if 230 is changed/repealed? It's all risk at that point, especially for folks who would aren't quitting their day job for it. Or to put another way, with 230 as it is, Trump can't use twitter/fb/etc, but he can spin up his own phpbb and start his own community there. Why isn't that ok?