42 ms·

Repealing Section 230 won’t do what anyone wants

170 points by spzx 6y ago

chrisco255 6y ago
There's almost no such thing as "fair and balanced" content moderation. Wu's own bias leaks through in this article, as he lists right wing conspiracy theory but fails to recognize that mainstream news pitched a left wing conspiracy theory against Trump for the better part of 3 years: the "Trump is a Russian asset and puppet" theory. As he states that the left wing is concerned with violence, they failed to take any responsibility for their own rhetoric which lead to riots most of last summer in many major cities. As Wu says, the left thinks "We have a huge problem with fascist disinformation and propaganda". But what they fail to realize is that they've deluded themselves into believing that garden variety conservatism is fascism, because the f word was repeated loudly and often enough by people with influence, that people started to believe it. Nevermind that a healthy democracy demands at least two healthy and functioning parties or you might as well be North Korea. Nevermind that American conservatism has never been about fascism, ever. People are abusing a term, deluding themselves of its validity, flattening other people, and using it to justify the deplatforming of half the country. So much of what we see in politics today is an escalation of reaction and counter-reaction. I would argue that if you are a conservative and you haven't at least flirted with the idea of becoming more of a liberal, if not gone through that paradigm shift yourself, without losing your respect for those that hold conservative values, or vice versa, then you can't even begin to attempt to be unbiased. Unless you can hold both paradigms in your mind without contempt of either, you can't begin to be neutral. So few people are capable of this. I think less then 5% of the general population are, in today's heated political arena. And you can't expect institutions which bias their hiring towards one paradigm or the other to be neutral. If Jack Dorsey is a super liberal guy and he doesn't have a neutral personality himself, how can you expect the culture of Twitter to be neutral? It's far easier for Dorsey, and his Silicon Valley buddies to surround themselves with people from the Valley, or those willing to move to the Valley (who tend to co-opt themselves into the politics and worldviews of the Valley in order to fit in). The reason we feel slighted by Facebook and Twitter in a way that we don't feel towards MSNBC or Fox, is that we basically have to opt into news channels and we always have the option of opting out of cable news altogether. But tech has evolved to the point that you can't easily navigate without touching at least one of these homogeneous, corporate, left wing monopolies. The whole idea of Section 230 was to promote the vibrant free speech discussion forums that existed in the 90s (and still do on dark corners of the world wide web today). It's also evolved to the point that algorithmic feeds have been fine tuned to manipulate human emotions in a way that the 90s framers of the section 230 law could not foresee. Social media and tech companies can alter your perception of reality and regularly do. I agree with using antitrust laws to bust up the multi trillion dollar behemoths. But I don't think "fair content moderation" is a realistic goal, given how few people are even capable of it and given that much of the problem is systemic to the homogeneous monopolies themselves. Ultimately, competition will solve this in the long run, I believe. But like a forest that has grown dangerously thick, it might be time for controlled burns of these corporations to spawn a healthier digital ecosystem.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  The term "fascist" now means "anyone who disagrees with me."
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    It's not a new phenomenon: >George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#%22Fascist%22_as_a_pejorative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#%22Fascist%22_as_a_pej...
  - noahtallen 6y ago
    It’s deeper than that. I think many are simply labeling those using fascist techniques as fascists. Let me explain: During the Great Depression, very similar rhetoric was used to create the authoritarian fascist regimes. One example is the false narrative that one could blame all of their economic problems on certain racial/ethnic groups. The horrid rhetoric suggesting that Jews caused the financial crisis in 1929 is very similar to the horrid rhetoric saying that Mexican immigrants are stealing American jobs and causing widespread economic devastation. We _should_ be very concerned to see concerning patterns repeating themselves. Frankly, if the Republican Party was all about “garden variety conservatism”, it would be banishing the extremists from its ranks. That’s not happening. Are republicans fascist? Maybe not. But do several use fascist techniques? Definitely. And those not actively using those techniques are complacent or even accepting. “Garden variety conservatives” did know what Trump was doing in 2016, and they called him for for it in the Republican primaries. Though I have no rosy view of the Conservative party before then either, it has now overtly embraced many fascist concepts. Though people would still disagree with “garden variety conservatives”, people have a much bigger problem with fascist concepts.
    - ttt0 6y ago
      Similar to how white people are blamed for everything today?
    - np_tedious 6y ago
mynameistoolon 6y ago
>Stated differently, some liberals seem to have the fantasy that potential civil liability would finally force platforms to do more about disinformation on their sites — “to take responsibility.” But what does that mean? Because whatever the moral responsibility may be, there isn’t actually any legal repercussions for republishing, or publishing, crazy propaganda and conspiracy theories. If so, Newsmax and Gateway Pundit and even Fox News would not exist. He's completely wrong here. No one really cares that Brietbart publishes lies to their readers on their own site. What people are upset is that facebook, twitter, reddit, etc allow propaganda and lies to be published on their site for their users. If The_donald wants to make a site and push bullshit, go ahead, people that only want to see The_donald can read it, but coordinating so that hundreds of millions of redditors see bullshit and spread bullshit is ridiculous.
- function_seven 6y ago
  Okay, but what does any of that have to do with Section 230? How would repealing it have any effect on how Facebook treats content on their site vs. how Brietbart does it?
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  > If The_donald wants to make a site and push bullshit I wish this trope would die. Trump was probably the best President since Roosevelt 75 years ago. Virtually all of his policies have been shown to be not only correct, but exhibiting a clearer vision than the DNC can even imagine. All the while dragging the anchor of Pelosi around (besides 2 failed impeachments and the burning of our downtowns, what else did she do for this country in the past 5 years? Worst "leader" ever.) There's a saying that we get the politicians that we deserve. Sadly, we've gone from a great leader to Sleepy Joe Biden (reportedly he goes to sleep at 6 pm daily.)
- Thorrez 6y ago
  Here's an interesting question: would linking to a Breitbart article from Facebook be risky for Facebook if 230 was repealed? That is, we can probably agree that summarizing a Breitbart article into a Facebook post would be risky for Facebook, but a simple link might be fine.
chroem- 6y ago
> What conservatives really seem to want, meanwhile, is something more like a version of the “fairness doctrine” adapted for social media. (Ignore the fact that conservatives used to insist that the fairness doctrine was an unconstitutional left-wing conspiracy to destroy talk radio). This is not a good faith argument, and it's made worse by the fact that (as others have mentioned) Tim Wu coined the concept of net neutrality. Free speech advocates and conservatives want social media to be a dumb pipe that doesn't discriminate on content, much like other internet services. Tim is uncharitably misrepresenting their position here.
- atoav 6y ago
  A dumb pipe within which real world law on speech applies? Or not? If I post defamatory stuff on my website I can be sued. If I do the same on your website, you can be sued unless you fall under that 230 regulation. So this is the choice between "social media is liable for what you say and will therefore censor you" and between "you are liable and can therefore be sued". The option "nobody can get sued" doesn't exist, because although there is free speech, there are limits to it (which get breached on a few times a minute on big platforms). I am not saying whether that is a good thing or not, that is just the current state of affairs. And as the author stated: if you are basing what you say on the truth you might be able to say a lot more (than e.g. if you are spouting weaponized propaganda which is factualy wrong)
- earthscienceman 6y ago
  Wait. Are you sincerely making the argument that conservatives would like the social networks to become public utilities? (following net neutrality) We are living in weird times if a good faith argument really involves assuming conservatives want to make a class of businesses part of the public sector. Something seems off with your reasoning, but if you're right then I'm all about it!
  - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
    Utilities can and are run for profit, they’re regulated though and market standards are set.
WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
Wu is amazingly dead on. Wu's new boss has been parading some wholly wrong assumptions about Section 230. I hope Wu can convert him into the highest ranking politician who understands 230 in a non-delusional way. more reading: 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...
- qudchewer 6y ago
  Double think, double speak are alive and well. Using section 230 in an intelligent manner would require discernment. That doesn't forward anyone's agenda.
schoen 6y ago
(In case anyone doesn't recall, Tim Wu coined the term "net neutrality" and wrote The Master Switch.)
- 0df8dkdf 6y ago
  Excellent book! Made a good case that realize that Internet too was designed to centralize control. As long as the few controls the Internet infrastructure and the space satellite lane, it is NOT FREE.
threatofrain 6y ago
> As this suggests, what the left and right really care about are the content moderation policies of Facebook, Twitter, and so on. And those, as it stands, have little to do with Section 230. > But content moderation, as an exercise of editorial discretion, is protected by the First Amendment. And that Congress can’t repeal. [1] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/418/241.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/418/241.html
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  For folks (like me) who found the link a bit dense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v._Tornillo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v.... > Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case that overturned a Florida state law requiring newspapers to allow equal space in their newspapers to political candidates in the case of a political editorial or endorsement content.
- me2021yuh 6y ago
  But at what point does content moderation turn an editor into the speaker and thus liable? As an extreme case I could censor many letters of your post leaving only a few letters expressing something you never expressed. Many people I've heard from on the right are making this case, not arguing to abolish 230, just to clarify it such that moderation is a form of speech and thus invites liability. Even Dershowitz made that point.
  - 8note 6y ago
    Section 230 is clear on that, isn't it? Does the moderation happen before or after the post is visible?
    - ttt0 6y ago
      On major platforms it's both
  - mdpopescu 6y ago
Jonnax 6y ago
" it is possible that what conservatives want is not to repeal 230, but explicitly condition immunity on a “fair and balanced” content moderation — i.e., a social media fairness doctrine backed up a threat of immunity-stripping." This makes a lot of sense. The idea of making forum owners responsible for the content their users post would result in far harsher moderation. Which is opposite to what they want. Have the calls for Section 230 repeal subsided since the change in administration?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
TameAntelope 6y ago
Conservatives want political affiliation to be a protected class. It makes sense -- they're a minority (especially online, but also offline at a national level), and they'd like to be protected from the majority, who they feel at this moment are persecuting/abusing them for their beliefs. Lots of problems with that (and the irony is palpable), but I think that gets them all the protection they want without any of the Constitutional crisis.
- chii 6y ago
  why should a minority be "protected" just because they are a minority? The only protection offered to a minority is and should be only for abuse of said minority in the past.
  - TameAntelope 6y ago
    There are a bunch of protected classes already in US law, and I believe the reasoning tends to be that the folks in those protected classes would, if not protected, be trampled by the majorities for things the members of those protected classes have no control over. Some protected classes include Americans with disabilities, African-Americans, etc. You can't fire members of the protected class, and (I believe) you can't ban folks from Twitter for being disabled or black. Conservatives seem to want that treatment.
    - luckylion 6y ago
      I think disability or skin-color are bad examples, religion is a better one. You can't change whether you're missing a leg (well... yet) and you can't change the color of your skin. You can (though probably not really actively) change your political convictions the same way you can change your religious beliefs.
      - inglor_cz 6y ago
        I wonder what happens once you can get a new leg and refuse to do so. Will the protections still apply? This is not a morally clear situation; some people may refuse a cloned leg in the future because the price tag will be too high, others for religious reasons etc.
thoughtstheseus 6y ago
There is a huge failure of imagination here. Repealing section 230... Would it completely upend existing social networks and internet norms? Yes, that’s a good thing. Tim talks moderation... we’re not going to moderate billions of people post-230, they’ll just be responsible for their actions.
- function_seven 6y ago
  They’re responsible for their actions today. 230 doesn’t immunize commenters from liability for the words they post online. It protects the platform, while also allowing them to moderate. Post-230, platforms would have to zealously moderate to avoid repercussions. You think bots are a little too aggressive today. Imagine those auto-van dials turned up to 11 if Twitter bore direct responsibility for every word tweeted out.
  - thoughtstheseus 6y ago
    I don’t want them to moderate. Many will/are unhappy with them moderating content. Allow people to moderate their own content. There is a huge market for shifting content curation and moderation to users and away from platforms.
    - adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
      Every site needs moderation. Otherwise it only takes 1 bot posting non-stop racial slurs to make a website completely unusable.
compsciphd 6y ago
I'm not 100% sure if section 230 should protect those platforms providing anonymous speech. While anonymous speech is important for free speech purposes, section 230 is about shifting the liability of the speech from the "publisher" (facebook/twitter, using air quotes as publisher isn't really accurate) to the writer. However, if these platforms are providing anonymous speech, then it makes it much more difficult to actually go after the writer. perhaps one could argue that by providing such a speed bump in the process of figuring out who the writer is facebook/twitter are aiding and abetting said speech and hence have liability from it. And that service providers over a certain size either cannot allow anonymous speech at all, or at best have serious KYC rules with straight forward demasking. I don't like where my thought experiment leads, but I really dont have a good answer for this.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
  This argument isn’t wholly unreasonable. But it would lead, in practical terms, simply to the abolition of anonymous and pseudonymous accounts on social media. I could live with that, but I get the feeling those calling for Sec 230 abolition want something entirely different. I’m also not entirely sure what sort of “liability” people are talking about. In the US, there is very little liability for any sort of speech. Insults, no matter how gross and objectionable, are generally protected as simply being subjective opinions, for example. So is blatant racism. Only statements of facts that are false, made knowingly and with malicious intent, are actionable. I believe very little of what people object to on social media actually falls under that definition.
  - compsciphd 6y ago
    so you're right, but part of the problem is that there is no personal consequence to this anonymous speech. It's also impossible to distinguish between "fake/non verified" users and "real/verified" users on a mass scale. So, I modify my proposal to argue that if we don't want to get rid of anonymous/pseudononymous accounts, we have to take steps to enable users to really devalue the anonymous speech and not put it on the same level as non anonymous speech.
- 6y ago
panny 6y ago
>The right-wing fantasies about 230 repeal are even more off base. For one thing, without Section 230 immunity, a figure like Donald Trump would almost certainly be kicked off Twitter, because he constantly defames people. Tim Wu seems to be misrepresenting what the right wants, or living in a left wing bubble. Repealing 230, for the right is about scorched earth. Deplatform the left too, by repealing 230. The right has already been deplatformed. Trump was already kicked off Twitter. The right has no expectations of Trump returning to twitter. Repeal 230 is about destroying twitter, and all the other left wing social media too.
- cm2187 6y ago
  Agree. And the competition alternative approach would have more weight before the coordinated attack of big tech against Parler. And I am not convinced that social media is something that we will miss. A decentralised approach with lots of independent websites, each responsible for their own opinion, is probably a healthier ecosystem.
- scsilver 6y ago
  Online social media is simply a threat to monopoly over more traditional information grooming that goes on in certain communities.
qudchewer 6y ago
There is someone deciding on what content to post with the New York Times. If a site like twitter is engaging in that activity - then they should loose 230 immunity, because they are acting like a publisher instead of a platform. It seems relatively straight forward, doesn't it? Seems like people aren't thinking very well these days.
- Black101 6y ago
  > Seems like people aren't thinking very well these days. They are thinking that they want to control all content online, that's all. They just aren't going to tell you that.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago
> We don’t like you; we want you to suffer. Very 2020 That seems to sum it up. I don’t think there’s a way to legislate the way we treat and feel about each other. I guess we need to do that the old-fashioned way, by getting out of our pods and talking to each other in person, like the ending scene of Surrogates.
epr 6y ago
https://archive.is/fK5D9 https://archive.is/fK5D9
roenxi 6y ago
There is a point here that transcends what the left and right think will happen: the tech giants are making editorial decisions that are reasonably opinionated. Whether or whether not it does what people want, it needs to be recognised that they are publishers, not dumb platforms. This is an acknowledgement of reality.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  Also a similar point, Congress keeps summoning them and putting pressure on them so it’s almost a damned if you do damned if you don’t scenario. I am greatly opposed to censorship (other than say content that harms children or is fraudulent) and a platform having a stance on what is “truth” or “disinformation” is quite terrifying, but I also get that it’s an unfortunate side effect of the risk aversion song and dance they are being forced to put on. To be clear about freedom of information in general, I think competing theories on things like coronavirus and election fraud should be entirely tolerated, especially when the only apparent consensus comes from blindly “trusting the officials” who are just other human beings. It’s very ivory tower and dystopian of them to want to push a narrative of stability when really there’s so much we don’t know. The idea that we aren’t adults who should be able to question and audit things and have free agency seems like it’s not even on the table anymore which is sad. We’re all walking our liberties into the grave just to avoid uncomfortable topics. Like Cypher in the Matrix, ignorance is bliss, plug my body back in!
- clairity 6y ago
  yes, but that's the easy-to-recognize part. moreover, we all want a line (more like a hyperplanar function, really) to be drawn somewhere, but the hard part is getting everyone to compromise and accept any given imperfectly-drawn line. the core concept of section 230 is that an expressed idea in any form has an author and it's inherently implied that the author endorses that idea by expressing it, but no one else in the chain delivering/amplifying that idea to others necessarily endorses it. the author, then, has liability but the intermediates don't. where it falls apart is dealing with "exceptions". these exceptions are really separate rules about what kinds of content are so egregious as to apply liability to the intermediates in the chain, piercing their liability shield. there's also contention around the plausible deniability provided by section 230 that allows the platforms to express ideas through others (e.g., editorial decisions). you could reasonably argue that an editorial decision is expressing an idea (perhaps different from the curated content's ideas) in itself, and therefore applies liability to the intermediate itself for that editorial decision (e.g., racism as a emergent property of a platform). these kinds of granularities are why i'm partial to the idea of writing regulations as an intent statement (like the above core concept), a descriptive, not prescriptive, elaboration of that intent statement and its major facets, and then numerous examples that give shape to the hyperplanar function without trying to delineate it exactly (and inevitably imperfectly; that is, accepting that it's necessarily imperfect). the populace and (if need be) judges can competently interpolate/extrapolate between the given intent, description, and examples (this takes away power from lawyers as mediators of law, which is a reason it's resisted).
veselin 6y ago
I understand the issue a bit differently. If a user writes some content that stays as a comment somewhere and it is defamatory, then the user is responsible. So far, so good. This is what 230 used to address. But the real issue at play is that an algorithm decides that this content will increase engagement within the platform. And it actually does. Now, I think the company behind this algorithm is responsible for the defamation. For example Facebook uses the current law to hide and so all its fight with disinformation is subject to keeping the same engagement levels, which is obviously a very hard task. (We tried hard, but the problem is too difficult). While the first case is good to address, the second one has severally outgrown it. Thus, so many people are even willing to give up something in order to address it.
- wizzwizz4 6y ago
  Very concisely put.
- adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
  The problem is that without section 230, it becomes impossible for any website to have user hosted content. If websites are responsible for shit their users say, no website that posts user content can exist. No one is going to risk being sued over something a user says.
  - GavinMcG 6y ago
    Fine. Websites aren't responsible for the content. But make them responsible for promoting or curating the content, if they choose to do so. Instagram just shows me all the stuff my friends post. That's it, as far as I can tell. It's great. Facebook amplifies some things and doesn't show me others. If it wants to be in that game, of distorting informational impact, it needs to take responsibility for what it's amplifying.
    - blendergeek 6y ago
      > Instagram just shows me all the stuff my friends post. That's it, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, Instagram is not just "showing you everything your friends post".
TrispusAttucks 6y ago
First, repealing Section 230 is different from reforming Section 230. I mostly see calls for reform - not repeal. Second, many people are debating how they think or believe it should work. Let us instead debate the actual content of Section 230 [1] law. [1] https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_47/Chapter_5/Subchapter_II/Part_I/Section_230 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_47...
molbioguy 6y ago
Worth reading this post on how section 230 is often misunderstood: 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...
fitzie 6y ago
I see three problems with the original posting. First is the presumption that repealing 230 will damage the internet in some way. I think that would have to be demonstrated in some way. tech companies already must have a strong legal department in 2020, especially the smaller unpopular ones fighting for basic banking and internet connectivity. Donald Trump the big defamer as the OP claims, only had one defamation lawsuit, from Stormey Daniels, which went no where. so I don't see how all of a sudden more lawsuits are going to jump in just because they can add twitter as a defendant. the second problem is the misunderstaning of what conservatives want. while it is correct to say that we want the terms of service to be applied consistently, and we disagree with vague labels of hate speech and disinformation, that is nothing like the fairness doctrine which is about balance. the core of what conservatives are asking for is that discussion over what government policy should be should not be censored by these platforms. when we have serious concerns about lockdown policies, election integrity, keeping predators out of girls bathrooms, preventing illegal immigration, these very discussions are censored by these platforms. this is dangerous, of course, because it allows our elected leaders to ignore potentially widely held views, and only see types of conversations that the left leaning heads of media and big tech permits. the third problem is the presumption that the left wants more censorship. while its true that the advocates for more restriction of potentially harmless speech because it is potentially harmful are on the left, there are studies that show people on the left feel more restricted about what they can say and see repercussions on. while there will always be some on the left that truely believes removing dissent is would be an improvement, that isn't widely believed, as anyone can figure out by talking to people with differing political views.
paulryanrogers 6y ago
What if these platforms defaulted to showing everything users opt into, like before the AI started curating for engagement. Then they provided users a choice of curation algorithms tuned in various ways. Then so long as the platforms are removing clearly illegal content they would comply without engaging in editorializing.
woopwoop 6y ago
It's worth remembering that up until very recently section 230 was invoked in these debates mostly by people lying about what it says. When such people change their tune and now say we have to reform or repeal it, I think that should be met with a fair amount of skepticism.
- temp8964 6y ago
  Are you sure people are "lying" about section 230? Or maybe they have different understanding / misunderstanding? Is "lying" becoming another word lost its meaning?
  - the_why_of_y 6y ago
    Others have interpreted these debates in a similar way: https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of...
Consultant32452 6y ago
Repealing 230 is the MAD option. If you're not willing to play ball, we'll destroy the ball.
Firebrand 6y ago
Debating whether repealing Section 230 will suddenly grant people free speech on social media platform is missing the real issue. We should repeal Section 230 in order to destroy the social media industry. Online you do not interact with "regular people" but people who put the most effort into online presence and those people are overwhelmingly individuals with very real mental disorder on the narcissistic spectrum often with other comorbid disorders. On social media in particular you are exposed to both narcissists and in general a narcissistic mode of communication - because that's what social media is. Social media is a vehicle for turning an individual into a narcissistic persona. So even if you are not narcissistic in real life your social media activity will make it look like you are. Social media is very unhealthy. It is a recipe for a mental disorder. It is primarily used by people with mental disorders. It is designed by people with mental disorders. Quit social media—these online free speech advocates just want more people to pay attention to them which leads to more screen addiction. It's cancer for your soul. And I am not sure I am just being metaphorical.
- jedberg 6y ago
  You do realize you are writing this on a social media platform, right?
  - barbacoa 6y ago
    The key difference is AI curation. What you see here depends on what time things get posted and how many up-votes posts get. FB, twitter, et al, decide what to show you based on what they think you will like using opaque complex software. If a newspaper publishes a 'letter to the editor' that is libel they are liable because they chose it to publish. that's what the big tech social media do. If section 230 got repealed it would have effects on sites like HN, but the would be catastrophic for big tech social media.
    - RandallBrown 6y ago
      > What you see here depends on what time things get posted and how many up-votes posts get. Is that not a large part of how most social media algorithms work?
dukeofdoom 6y ago
The tech companies are acting in co-ordinated effort to fortify elections (NY Times article). In helping to elect their preferred candidate, hiding negative stories, and skewed the algorithm for one candidate. At the very least they are making a massive campaign contribution, and section 230 gives them immunity to all the laws that apply. At the worse, they are spreading political propaganda. The anthesis of democracy. They also would not have gotten into market leader position had they disclosed their plans to do this. So I feel its a type of Fraud. Just like Joe Rogan lying to investors about not being censored on Spotify. When it now turns out he is. He personally gained 100 million from this lie. And Spotify investors got scammed. I hope more laws do get made so this kind of manipulation is punished.
- URSpider94 6y ago
  What are “the laws that apply”? Do you not feel like Fox News and OAN made billions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republican candidates? What repercussion did they face? Heck, remind me how we punished the government employees who violated the Hatch act and campaigned for the president while on the government payroll.
  - dukeofdoom 6y ago
    I agree with you. Its a problem that journalists are acting like advocates, or political activists. TV stations don't have section 230 protection. So at least there is some redress for defamation. The Covington kid, Nick Sandman, won a multimillion dollar settlement recently from CNN. However, its not looking like the suit against twitter for being called a "Hacker", by the Store owner, that turned over Hunter Biden's laptop to the FBI will succeed. Twitter called the contents of laptop hacked material, and even banned legitimate newspaper account for a week. The implication of the "hacked material" was that the store owner was a "hacker". The store owner claims the laptop was left behind in his repair store, and he legally gained possession of it. He sued twitter for defamation. Because of section 230 protection, the Judge will likely dismiss this case, on section 230 protection grounds. Something that would not happen if this was done by a newspaper. I think we want conflict of interest laws, that force disclose if you are paid to post, or materially manipulate on behalf of a candidate. In ideal world, I think Journalists should have an ethics body, similar to Engineers. So that at least in the most egregious circumstances, If you are found to be a paid and not disclose it, than you should not get to call yourself a journalist. I watched this American travel Youtuber that lives in China, and does travel promotional content for them sometimes. He come out in favour of a candidate before the election. If he received money for doing that, I think there should be a law, that it should be disclosed by him.
cwhiz 6y ago
Why do we have to be broadly in one of these categories? “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.” This should only be true for platforms that don’t algorithmically curate the content that users see, or platforms that don’t editorialize. I don’t care about hypothetical censorship or bias toward conservatives. I want platforms to stop algorithmically curating content. I want platforms to stop editorializing. These companies are choosing the content that users are seeing, and they are editorializing that content. They don’t deserve Section 230 protection, and they shouldn’t have it.

170 points by spzx 6y ago

There's almost no such thing as "fair and balanced" content moderation. Wu's own bias leaks through in this article, as he lists right wing conspiracy theory but fails to recognize that mainstream news pitched a left wing conspiracy theory against Trump for the better part of 3 years: the "Trump is a Russian asset and puppet" theory. As he states that the left wing is concerned with violence, they failed to take any responsibility for their own rhetoric which lead to riots most of last summer in many major cities. As Wu says, the left thinks "We have a huge problem with fascist disinformation and propaganda". But what they fail to realize is that they've deluded themselves into believing that garden variety conservatism is fascism, because the f word was repeated loudly and often enough by people with influence, that people started to believe it. Nevermind that a healthy democracy demands at least two healthy and functioning parties or you might as well be North Korea. Nevermind that American conservatism has never been about fascism, ever. People are abusing a term, deluding themselves of its validity, flattening other people, and using it to justify the deplatforming of half the country. So much of what we see in politics today is an escalation of reaction and counter-reaction. I would argue that if you are a conservative and you haven't at least flirted with the idea of becoming more of a liberal, if not gone through that paradigm shift yourself, without losing your respect for those that hold conservative values, or vice versa, then you can't even begin to attempt to be unbiased. Unless you can hold both paradigms in your mind without contempt of either, you can't begin to be neutral. So few people are capable of this. I think less then 5% of the general population are, in today's heated political arena. And you can't expect institutions which bias their hiring towards one paradigm or the other to be neutral. If Jack Dorsey is a super liberal guy and he doesn't have a neutral personality himself, how can you expect the culture of Twitter to be neutral? It's far easier for Dorsey, and his Silicon Valley buddies to surround themselves with people from the Valley, or those willing to move to the Valley (who tend to co-opt themselves into the politics and worldviews of the Valley in order to fit in). The reason we feel slighted by Facebook and Twitter in a way that we don't feel towards MSNBC or Fox, is that we basically have to opt into news channels and we always have the option of opting out of cable news altogether. But tech has evolved to the point that you can't easily navigate without touching at least one of these homogeneous, corporate, left wing monopolies. The whole idea of Section 230 was to promote the vibrant free speech discussion forums that existed in the 90s (and still do on dark corners of the world wide web today). It's also evolved to the point that algorithmic feeds have been fine tuned to manipulate human emotions in a way that the 90s framers of the section 230 law could not foresee. Social media and tech companies can alter your perception of reality and regularly do. I agree with using antitrust laws to bust up the multi trillion dollar behemoths. But I don't think "fair content moderation" is a realistic goal, given how few people are even capable of it and given that much of the problem is systemic to the homogeneous monopolies themselves. Ultimately, competition will solve this in the long run, I believe. But like a forest that has grown dangerously thick, it might be time for controlled burns of these corporations to spawn a healthier digital ecosystem.

WalterBright 6y ago
The term "fascist" now means "anyone who disagrees with me."
- Thorrez 6y ago
  It's not a new phenomenon: >George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#%22Fascist%22_as_a_pejorative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism#%22Fascist%22_as_a_pej...
- noahtallen 6y ago
  It’s deeper than that. I think many are simply labeling those using fascist techniques as fascists. Let me explain: During the Great Depression, very similar rhetoric was used to create the authoritarian fascist regimes. One example is the false narrative that one could blame all of their economic problems on certain racial/ethnic groups. The horrid rhetoric suggesting that Jews caused the financial crisis in 1929 is very similar to the horrid rhetoric saying that Mexican immigrants are stealing American jobs and causing widespread economic devastation. We _should_ be very concerned to see concerning patterns repeating themselves. Frankly, if the Republican Party was all about “garden variety conservatism”, it would be banishing the extremists from its ranks. That’s not happening. Are republicans fascist? Maybe not. But do several use fascist techniques? Definitely. And those not actively using those techniques are complacent or even accepting. “Garden variety conservatives” did know what Trump was doing in 2016, and they called him for for it in the Republican primaries. Though I have no rosy view of the Conservative party before then either, it has now overtly embraced many fascist concepts. Though people would still disagree with “garden variety conservatives”, people have a much bigger problem with fascist concepts.
  - ttt0 6y ago
    Similar to how white people are blamed for everything today?
  - np_tedious 6y ago

mynameistoolon 6y ago

>Stated differently, some liberals seem to have the fantasy that potential civil liability would finally force platforms to do more about disinformation on their sites — “to take responsibility.” But what does that mean? Because whatever the moral responsibility may be, there isn’t actually any legal repercussions for republishing, or publishing, crazy propaganda and conspiracy theories. If so, Newsmax and Gateway Pundit and even Fox News would not exist. He's completely wrong here. No one really cares that Brietbart publishes lies to their readers on their own site. What people are upset is that facebook, twitter, reddit, etc allow propaganda and lies to be published on their site for their users. If The_donald wants to make a site and push bullshit, go ahead, people that only want to see The_donald can read it, but coordinating so that hundreds of millions of redditors see bullshit and spread bullshit is ridiculous.

function_seven 6y ago
Okay, but what does any of that have to do with Section 230? How would repealing it have any effect on how Facebook treats content on their site vs. how Brietbart does it?
redis_mlc 6y ago
> If The_donald wants to make a site and push bullshit I wish this trope would die. Trump was probably the best President since Roosevelt 75 years ago. Virtually all of his policies have been shown to be not only correct, but exhibiting a clearer vision than the DNC can even imagine. All the while dragging the anchor of Pelosi around (besides 2 failed impeachments and the burning of our downtowns, what else did she do for this country in the past 5 years? Worst "leader" ever.) There's a saying that we get the politicians that we deserve. Sadly, we've gone from a great leader to Sleepy Joe Biden (reportedly he goes to sleep at 6 pm daily.)
Thorrez 6y ago
Here's an interesting question: would linking to a Breitbart article from Facebook be risky for Facebook if 230 was repealed? That is, we can probably agree that summarizing a Breitbart article into a Facebook post would be risky for Facebook, but a simple link might be fine.

chroem- 6y ago

> What conservatives really seem to want, meanwhile, is something more like a version of the “fairness doctrine” adapted for social media. (Ignore the fact that conservatives used to insist that the fairness doctrine was an unconstitutional left-wing conspiracy to destroy talk radio). This is not a good faith argument, and it's made worse by the fact that (as others have mentioned) Tim Wu coined the concept of net neutrality. Free speech advocates and conservatives want social media to be a dumb pipe that doesn't discriminate on content, much like other internet services. Tim is uncharitably misrepresenting their position here.

atoav 6y ago
A dumb pipe within which real world law on speech applies? Or not? If I post defamatory stuff on my website I can be sued. If I do the same on your website, you can be sued unless you fall under that 230 regulation. So this is the choice between "social media is liable for what you say and will therefore censor you" and between "you are liable and can therefore be sued". The option "nobody can get sued" doesn't exist, because although there is free speech, there are limits to it (which get breached on a few times a minute on big platforms). I am not saying whether that is a good thing or not, that is just the current state of affairs. And as the author stated: if you are basing what you say on the truth you might be able to say a lot more (than e.g. if you are spouting weaponized propaganda which is factualy wrong)
earthscienceman 6y ago
Wait. Are you sincerely making the argument that conservatives would like the social networks to become public utilities? (following net neutrality) We are living in weird times if a good faith argument really involves assuming conservatives want to make a class of businesses part of the public sector. Something seems off with your reasoning, but if you're right then I'm all about it!
- thoughtstheseus 6y ago
  Utilities can and are run for profit, they’re regulated though and market standards are set.

WarOnPrivacy 6y ago

Wu is amazingly dead on. Wu's new boss has been parading some wholly wrong assumptions about Section 230. I hope Wu can convert him into the highest ranking politician who understands 230 in a non-delusional way. more reading: 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...

qudchewer 6y ago
Double think, double speak are alive and well. Using section 230 in an intelligent manner would require discernment. That doesn't forward anyone's agenda.

schoen 6y ago

(In case anyone doesn't recall, Tim Wu coined the term "net neutrality" and wrote The Master Switch.)

0df8dkdf 6y ago
Excellent book! Made a good case that realize that Internet too was designed to centralize control. As long as the few controls the Internet infrastructure and the space satellite lane, it is NOT FREE.

threatofrain 6y ago

> As this suggests, what the left and right really care about are the content moderation policies of Facebook, Twitter, and so on. And those, as it stands, have little to do with Section 230. > But content moderation, as an exercise of editorial discretion, is protected by the First Amendment. And that Congress can’t repeal. [1] https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/418/241.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/418/241.html

TameAntelope 6y ago
For folks (like me) who found the link a bit dense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v._Tornillo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald_Publishing_Co._v.... > Miami Herald Publishing Co. v. Tornillo, 418 U.S. 241 (1974), was a United States Supreme Court case that overturned a Florida state law requiring newspapers to allow equal space in their newspapers to political candidates in the case of a political editorial or endorsement content.
me2021yuh 6y ago
But at what point does content moderation turn an editor into the speaker and thus liable? As an extreme case I could censor many letters of your post leaving only a few letters expressing something you never expressed. Many people I've heard from on the right are making this case, not arguing to abolish 230, just to clarify it such that moderation is a form of speech and thus invites liability. Even Dershowitz made that point.
- 8note 6y ago
  Section 230 is clear on that, isn't it? Does the moderation happen before or after the post is visible?
  - ttt0 6y ago
    On major platforms it's both
- mdpopescu 6y ago

Jonnax 6y ago

" it is possible that what conservatives want is not to repeal 230, but explicitly condition immunity on a “fair and balanced” content moderation — i.e., a social media fairness doctrine backed up a threat of immunity-stripping." This makes a lot of sense. The idea of making forum owners responsible for the content their users post would result in far harsher moderation. Which is opposite to what they want. Have the calls for Section 230 repeal subsided since the change in administration?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

TameAntelope 6y ago

Conservatives want political affiliation to be a protected class. It makes sense -- they're a minority (especially online, but also offline at a national level), and they'd like to be protected from the majority, who they feel at this moment are persecuting/abusing them for their beliefs. Lots of problems with that (and the irony is palpable), but I think that gets them all the protection they want without any of the Constitutional crisis.

chii 6y ago
why should a minority be "protected" just because they are a minority? The only protection offered to a minority is and should be only for abuse of said minority in the past.
- TameAntelope 6y ago
  There are a bunch of protected classes already in US law, and I believe the reasoning tends to be that the folks in those protected classes would, if not protected, be trampled by the majorities for things the members of those protected classes have no control over. Some protected classes include Americans with disabilities, African-Americans, etc. You can't fire members of the protected class, and (I believe) you can't ban folks from Twitter for being disabled or black. Conservatives seem to want that treatment.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    I think disability or skin-color are bad examples, religion is a better one. You can't change whether you're missing a leg (well... yet) and you can't change the color of your skin. You can (though probably not really actively) change your political convictions the same way you can change your religious beliefs.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      I wonder what happens once you can get a new leg and refuse to do so. Will the protections still apply? This is not a morally clear situation; some people may refuse a cloned leg in the future because the price tag will be too high, others for religious reasons etc.

thoughtstheseus 6y ago

There is a huge failure of imagination here. Repealing section 230... Would it completely upend existing social networks and internet norms? Yes, that’s a good thing. Tim talks moderation... we’re not going to moderate billions of people post-230, they’ll just be responsible for their actions.

function_seven 6y ago
They’re responsible for their actions today. 230 doesn’t immunize commenters from liability for the words they post online. It protects the platform, while also allowing them to moderate. Post-230, platforms would have to zealously moderate to avoid repercussions. You think bots are a little too aggressive today. Imagine those auto-van dials turned up to 11 if Twitter bore direct responsibility for every word tweeted out.
- thoughtstheseus 6y ago
  I don’t want them to moderate. Many will/are unhappy with them moderating content. Allow people to moderate their own content. There is a huge market for shifting content curation and moderation to users and away from platforms.
  - adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
    Every site needs moderation. Otherwise it only takes 1 bot posting non-stop racial slurs to make a website completely unusable.

compsciphd 6y ago

I'm not 100% sure if section 230 should protect those platforms providing anonymous speech. While anonymous speech is important for free speech purposes, section 230 is about shifting the liability of the speech from the "publisher" (facebook/twitter, using air quotes as publisher isn't really accurate) to the writer. However, if these platforms are providing anonymous speech, then it makes it much more difficult to actually go after the writer. perhaps one could argue that by providing such a speed bump in the process of figuring out who the writer is facebook/twitter are aiding and abetting said speech and hence have liability from it. And that service providers over a certain size either cannot allow anonymous speech at all, or at best have serious KYC rules with straight forward demasking. I don't like where my thought experiment leads, but I really dont have a good answer for this.

IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
This argument isn’t wholly unreasonable. But it would lead, in practical terms, simply to the abolition of anonymous and pseudonymous accounts on social media. I could live with that, but I get the feeling those calling for Sec 230 abolition want something entirely different. I’m also not entirely sure what sort of “liability” people are talking about. In the US, there is very little liability for any sort of speech. Insults, no matter how gross and objectionable, are generally protected as simply being subjective opinions, for example. So is blatant racism. Only statements of facts that are false, made knowingly and with malicious intent, are actionable. I believe very little of what people object to on social media actually falls under that definition.
- compsciphd 6y ago
  so you're right, but part of the problem is that there is no personal consequence to this anonymous speech. It's also impossible to distinguish between "fake/non verified" users and "real/verified" users on a mass scale. So, I modify my proposal to argue that if we don't want to get rid of anonymous/pseudononymous accounts, we have to take steps to enable users to really devalue the anonymous speech and not put it on the same level as non anonymous speech.
6y ago

panny 6y ago

>The right-wing fantasies about 230 repeal are even more off base. For one thing, without Section 230 immunity, a figure like Donald Trump would almost certainly be kicked off Twitter, because he constantly defames people. Tim Wu seems to be misrepresenting what the right wants, or living in a left wing bubble. Repealing 230, for the right is about scorched earth. Deplatform the left too, by repealing 230. The right has already been deplatformed. Trump was already kicked off Twitter. The right has no expectations of Trump returning to twitter. Repeal 230 is about destroying twitter, and all the other left wing social media too.

cm2187 6y ago
Agree. And the competition alternative approach would have more weight before the coordinated attack of big tech against Parler. And I am not convinced that social media is something that we will miss. A decentralised approach with lots of independent websites, each responsible for their own opinion, is probably a healthier ecosystem.
scsilver 6y ago
Online social media is simply a threat to monopoly over more traditional information grooming that goes on in certain communities.

qudchewer 6y ago

There is someone deciding on what content to post with the New York Times. If a site like twitter is engaging in that activity - then they should loose 230 immunity, because they are acting like a publisher instead of a platform. It seems relatively straight forward, doesn't it? Seems like people aren't thinking very well these days.

Black101 6y ago
> Seems like people aren't thinking very well these days. They are thinking that they want to control all content online, that's all. They just aren't going to tell you that.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ChrisMarshallNY 6y ago

> We don’t like you; we want you to suffer. Very 2020 That seems to sum it up. I don’t think there’s a way to legislate the way we treat and feel about each other. I guess we need to do that the old-fashioned way, by getting out of our pods and talking to each other in person, like the ending scene of Surrogates.

epr 6y ago

https://archive.is/fK5D9 https://archive.is/fK5D9

roenxi 6y ago

There is a point here that transcends what the left and right think will happen: the tech giants are making editorial decisions that are reasonably opinionated. Whether or whether not it does what people want, it needs to be recognised that they are publishers, not dumb platforms. This is an acknowledgement of reality.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
luxuryballs 6y ago
Also a similar point, Congress keeps summoning them and putting pressure on them so it’s almost a damned if you do damned if you don’t scenario. I am greatly opposed to censorship (other than say content that harms children or is fraudulent) and a platform having a stance on what is “truth” or “disinformation” is quite terrifying, but I also get that it’s an unfortunate side effect of the risk aversion song and dance they are being forced to put on. To be clear about freedom of information in general, I think competing theories on things like coronavirus and election fraud should be entirely tolerated, especially when the only apparent consensus comes from blindly “trusting the officials” who are just other human beings. It’s very ivory tower and dystopian of them to want to push a narrative of stability when really there’s so much we don’t know. The idea that we aren’t adults who should be able to question and audit things and have free agency seems like it’s not even on the table anymore which is sad. We’re all walking our liberties into the grave just to avoid uncomfortable topics. Like Cypher in the Matrix, ignorance is bliss, plug my body back in!
clairity 6y ago
yes, but that's the easy-to-recognize part. moreover, we all want a line (more like a hyperplanar function, really) to be drawn somewhere, but the hard part is getting everyone to compromise and accept any given imperfectly-drawn line. the core concept of section 230 is that an expressed idea in any form has an author and it's inherently implied that the author endorses that idea by expressing it, but no one else in the chain delivering/amplifying that idea to others necessarily endorses it. the author, then, has liability but the intermediates don't. where it falls apart is dealing with "exceptions". these exceptions are really separate rules about what kinds of content are so egregious as to apply liability to the intermediates in the chain, piercing their liability shield. there's also contention around the plausible deniability provided by section 230 that allows the platforms to express ideas through others (e.g., editorial decisions). you could reasonably argue that an editorial decision is expressing an idea (perhaps different from the curated content's ideas) in itself, and therefore applies liability to the intermediate itself for that editorial decision (e.g., racism as a emergent property of a platform). these kinds of granularities are why i'm partial to the idea of writing regulations as an intent statement (like the above core concept), a descriptive, not prescriptive, elaboration of that intent statement and its major facets, and then numerous examples that give shape to the hyperplanar function without trying to delineate it exactly (and inevitably imperfectly; that is, accepting that it's necessarily imperfect). the populace and (if need be) judges can competently interpolate/extrapolate between the given intent, description, and examples (this takes away power from lawyers as mediators of law, which is a reason it's resisted).

veselin 6y ago

I understand the issue a bit differently. If a user writes some content that stays as a comment somewhere and it is defamatory, then the user is responsible. So far, so good. This is what 230 used to address. But the real issue at play is that an algorithm decides that this content will increase engagement within the platform. And it actually does. Now, I think the company behind this algorithm is responsible for the defamation. For example Facebook uses the current law to hide and so all its fight with disinformation is subject to keeping the same engagement levels, which is obviously a very hard task. (We tried hard, but the problem is too difficult). While the first case is good to address, the second one has severally outgrown it. Thus, so many people are even willing to give up something in order to address it.

wizzwizz4 6y ago
Very concisely put.
adgjlsfhk1 6y ago
The problem is that without section 230, it becomes impossible for any website to have user hosted content. If websites are responsible for shit their users say, no website that posts user content can exist. No one is going to risk being sued over something a user says.
- GavinMcG 6y ago
  Fine. Websites aren't responsible for the content. But make them responsible for promoting or curating the content, if they choose to do so. Instagram just shows me all the stuff my friends post. That's it, as far as I can tell. It's great. Facebook amplifies some things and doesn't show me others. If it wants to be in that game, of distorting informational impact, it needs to take responsibility for what it's amplifying.
  - blendergeek 6y ago
    > Instagram just shows me all the stuff my friends post. That's it, as far as I can tell. Unfortunately, Instagram is not just "showing you everything your friends post".

TrispusAttucks 6y ago

First, repealing Section 230 is different from reforming Section 230. I mostly see calls for reform - not repeal. Second, many people are debating how they think or believe it should work. Let us instead debate the actual content of Section 230 [1] law. [1] https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_47/Chapter_5/Subchapter_II/Part_I/Section_230 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/United_States_Code/Title_47...

molbioguy 6y ago

Worth reading this post on how section 230 is often misunderstood: 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...

fitzie 6y ago

I see three problems with the original posting. First is the presumption that repealing 230 will damage the internet in some way. I think that would have to be demonstrated in some way. tech companies already must have a strong legal department in 2020, especially the smaller unpopular ones fighting for basic banking and internet connectivity. Donald Trump the big defamer as the OP claims, only had one defamation lawsuit, from Stormey Daniels, which went no where. so I don't see how all of a sudden more lawsuits are going to jump in just because they can add twitter as a defendant. the second problem is the misunderstaning of what conservatives want. while it is correct to say that we want the terms of service to be applied consistently, and we disagree with vague labels of hate speech and disinformation, that is nothing like the fairness doctrine which is about balance. the core of what conservatives are asking for is that discussion over what government policy should be should not be censored by these platforms. when we have serious concerns about lockdown policies, election integrity, keeping predators out of girls bathrooms, preventing illegal immigration, these very discussions are censored by these platforms. this is dangerous, of course, because it allows our elected leaders to ignore potentially widely held views, and only see types of conversations that the left leaning heads of media and big tech permits. the third problem is the presumption that the left wants more censorship. while its true that the advocates for more restriction of potentially harmless speech because it is potentially harmful are on the left, there are studies that show people on the left feel more restricted about what they can say and see repercussions on. while there will always be some on the left that truely believes removing dissent is would be an improvement, that isn't widely believed, as anyone can figure out by talking to people with differing political views.

paulryanrogers 6y ago

What if these platforms defaulted to showing everything users opt into, like before the AI started curating for engagement. Then they provided users a choice of curation algorithms tuned in various ways. Then so long as the platforms are removing clearly illegal content they would comply without engaging in editorializing.

woopwoop 6y ago

It's worth remembering that up until very recently section 230 was invoked in these debates mostly by people lying about what it says. When such people change their tune and now say we have to reform or repeal it, I think that should be met with a fair amount of skepticism.

temp8964 6y ago
Are you sure people are "lying" about section 230? Or maybe they have different understanding / misunderstanding? Is "lying" becoming another word lost its meaning?
- the_why_of_y 6y ago
  Others have interpreted these debates in a similar way: https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of-the https://popehat.substack.com/p/section-230-is-the-subject-of...

Consultant32452 6y ago

Repealing 230 is the MAD option. If you're not willing to play ball, we'll destroy the ball.

Firebrand 6y ago

Debating whether repealing Section 230 will suddenly grant people free speech on social media platform is missing the real issue. We should repeal Section 230 in order to destroy the social media industry. Online you do not interact with "regular people" but people who put the most effort into online presence and those people are overwhelmingly individuals with very real mental disorder on the narcissistic spectrum often with other comorbid disorders. On social media in particular you are exposed to both narcissists and in general a narcissistic mode of communication - because that's what social media is. Social media is a vehicle for turning an individual into a narcissistic persona. So even if you are not narcissistic in real life your social media activity will make it look like you are. Social media is very unhealthy. It is a recipe for a mental disorder. It is primarily used by people with mental disorders. It is designed by people with mental disorders. Quit social media—these online free speech advocates just want more people to pay attention to them which leads to more screen addiction. It's cancer for your soul. And I am not sure I am just being metaphorical.

jedberg 6y ago
You do realize you are writing this on a social media platform, right?
- barbacoa 6y ago
  The key difference is AI curation. What you see here depends on what time things get posted and how many up-votes posts get. FB, twitter, et al, decide what to show you based on what they think you will like using opaque complex software. If a newspaper publishes a 'letter to the editor' that is libel they are liable because they chose it to publish. that's what the big tech social media do. If section 230 got repealed it would have effects on sites like HN, but the would be catastrophic for big tech social media.
  - RandallBrown 6y ago
    > What you see here depends on what time things get posted and how many up-votes posts get. Is that not a large part of how most social media algorithms work?

dukeofdoom 6y ago

The tech companies are acting in co-ordinated effort to fortify elections (NY Times article). In helping to elect their preferred candidate, hiding negative stories, and skewed the algorithm for one candidate. At the very least they are making a massive campaign contribution, and section 230 gives them immunity to all the laws that apply. At the worse, they are spreading political propaganda. The anthesis of democracy. They also would not have gotten into market leader position had they disclosed their plans to do this. So I feel its a type of Fraud. Just like Joe Rogan lying to investors about not being censored on Spotify. When it now turns out he is. He personally gained 100 million from this lie. And Spotify investors got scammed. I hope more laws do get made so this kind of manipulation is punished.

URSpider94 6y ago
What are “the laws that apply”? Do you not feel like Fox News and OAN made billions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republican candidates? What repercussion did they face? Heck, remind me how we punished the government employees who violated the Hatch act and campaigned for the president while on the government payroll.
- dukeofdoom 6y ago
  I agree with you. Its a problem that journalists are acting like advocates, or political activists. TV stations don't have section 230 protection. So at least there is some redress for defamation. The Covington kid, Nick Sandman, won a multimillion dollar settlement recently from CNN. However, its not looking like the suit against twitter for being called a "Hacker", by the Store owner, that turned over Hunter Biden's laptop to the FBI will succeed. Twitter called the contents of laptop hacked material, and even banned legitimate newspaper account for a week. The implication of the "hacked material" was that the store owner was a "hacker". The store owner claims the laptop was left behind in his repair store, and he legally gained possession of it. He sued twitter for defamation. Because of section 230 protection, the Judge will likely dismiss this case, on section 230 protection grounds. Something that would not happen if this was done by a newspaper. I think we want conflict of interest laws, that force disclose if you are paid to post, or materially manipulate on behalf of a candidate. In ideal world, I think Journalists should have an ethics body, similar to Engineers. So that at least in the most egregious circumstances, If you are found to be a paid and not disclose it, than you should not get to call yourself a journalist. I watched this American travel Youtuber that lives in China, and does travel promotional content for them sometimes. He come out in favour of a candidate before the election. If he received money for doing that, I think there should be a law, that it should be disclosed by him.

cwhiz 6y ago

Why do we have to be broadly in one of these categories? “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.” This should only be true for platforms that don’t algorithmically curate the content that users see, or platforms that don’t editorialize. I don’t care about hypothetical censorship or bias toward conservatives. I want platforms to stop algorithmically curating content. I want platforms to stop editorializing. These companies are choosing the content that users are seeing, and they are editorializing that content. They don’t deserve Section 230 protection, and they shouldn’t have it.