4 ms·

> Despite their ire, most Republicans have not backed the report's proposed changes in antitrust law but instead discussed stripping social media companies of l

> Despite their ire, most Republicans have not backed the report's proposed changes in antitrust law but instead discussed stripping social media companies of legal protections they are accorded under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The law gives companies immunity over content posted on their sites by users. Most of what I have heard Republicans focusing on has been "anti-Conservative bias" in social media platform, but I don't understand how limiting Section 230 protections would address that. Is the idea that any proposals would require moderation practices that follow certain standards set out to avoid "political bias?" I can't understand this push as anything other than a punitive measure to hurt tech companies.

bobthepanda 6y ago
Depending on what happens the net outcome of repealing 230 might actually hurt conservatism on online platforms, since right now Twitter, Youtube, Facebook et al are not party to things like the billion dollar Dominion lawsuit against Fox News and Newsmax. Those news networks have deplatformed Mike Lindell because him actively spewing conspiracy theories on the Dominion voting machines undermines their defense in that lawsuit.
- NationalPark 6y ago
  Of course it would hurt "conservatism on online platforms", repealing section 230 would effectively cause social media companies to shut their business down over night to avoid liability. Hackernews would certainly shut down. Nobody with any familiarity with the law actually supports repealing it, but for some reason it became a cause celebre of the far right. Maybe, "fuck the mods!!!" just doesn't have the same ring it used to?
kaiju0 6y ago
They wanted to hold speech to account for things they didn't like. Right now they can't.
root_axis 6y ago
One thing repealing section 230 would definitely do is bring big tech business operations to a screeching halt. Republicans are betting on the fact that big tech would be willing to do anything to avoid that outcome.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > One thing repealing section 230 would definitely do is bring big tech business operations to a screeching halt. Not all big tech business, just the no-prior-review dissemination of user-generated content. EDIT: At least, without some kind of financial protection against publication liability, such as the user providing indemnification with proof of adequate liability coverage. So, things like say Github Enterprise would still exist but probably be more costly once all associated costs are take into account, but free-of-charge individual accounts would either not continue or, if MS could subsidize them from Enterprise profits and saw value in having them, they’d be much more aggressively scanned for “bad” content and summarily deleted if there were any signs detected. And the same kind of calculus would apply all over the net. It would definitely narrow the voices that have reach, both in number and ideological distribution.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    You're right, I should have said "social media" instead of "big tech".
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      While I quibble with your original presentation, the impact is much bigger than “social media” as usually understood; see my edit. While it wouldn’t kill big tech, it would radically transform big tech and every person, business, and other entity that interacts with it. It might not be the single biggest economy-slowing piece of legislation adopted in the history of the US, but…ok, yeah, it definitely would be.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Most of what I have heard Republicans focusing on has been “anti-Conservative bias” in social media platform, but I don’t understand how limiting Section 230 protections would address that. The idea is to return to the non-online liability regime where reduced (distributor, notice-based) liability for unlawful content generally requires the absence of involvement in crafting/altering/moderating content (though it does allow binary select/not-select, including with an ideological bias.) 230 allows immunity to publisher (on its face, and as applied by the courts even distributor) liability so long as its terms are met. This probably wouldn’t help the cause Republicans nominally seek to advance with it (though it would help the cause of narrowing political engagement that they are pursuing through every other means, which suggests an alternative motivation to the public one), since while it might encourage providers to not moderate content from users while continuing to allow them to distribute material on the site, it would encourage blanket bans like the one Trump received, at a minimum, or shutting off public access entirely; its dubious that free public distribution, even with ad support, is viable online with distributor liability generally applied , and its clear it is not with publisher liability generally applied. Responding to notice of unlawful content on more than a best-effort basis (as distributor liability would require) is very hard to scale, and preemptively preventing it entirely as publisher liability would require absolutely does not scale.
vharuck 6y ago
>Most of what I have heard Republicans focusing on has been "anti-Conservative bias" in social media platform, but I don't understand how limiting Section 230 protections would address that. It's a meaningless flag to gather behind, not something they ever wanted to actually do. They can shout their support because they know the Democrats will stop it and thus fall into the "bad guy" role. It's a wedge issue now.

bobthepanda 6y ago

Depending on what happens the net outcome of repealing 230 might actually hurt conservatism on online platforms, since right now Twitter, Youtube, Facebook et al are not party to things like the billion dollar Dominion lawsuit against Fox News and Newsmax. Those news networks have deplatformed Mike Lindell because him actively spewing conspiracy theories on the Dominion voting machines undermines their defense in that lawsuit.

NationalPark 6y ago
Of course it would hurt "conservatism on online platforms", repealing section 230 would effectively cause social media companies to shut their business down over night to avoid liability. Hackernews would certainly shut down. Nobody with any familiarity with the law actually supports repealing it, but for some reason it became a cause celebre of the far right. Maybe, "fuck the mods!!!" just doesn't have the same ring it used to?

kaiju0 6y ago

They wanted to hold speech to account for things they didn't like. Right now they can't.

root_axis 6y ago

One thing repealing section 230 would definitely do is bring big tech business operations to a screeching halt. Republicans are betting on the fact that big tech would be willing to do anything to avoid that outcome.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> One thing repealing section 230 would definitely do is bring big tech business operations to a screeching halt. Not all big tech business, just the no-prior-review dissemination of user-generated content. EDIT: At least, without some kind of financial protection against publication liability, such as the user providing indemnification with proof of adequate liability coverage. So, things like say Github Enterprise would still exist but probably be more costly once all associated costs are take into account, but free-of-charge individual accounts would either not continue or, if MS could subsidize them from Enterprise profits and saw value in having them, they’d be much more aggressively scanned for “bad” content and summarily deleted if there were any signs detected. And the same kind of calculus would apply all over the net. It would definitely narrow the voices that have reach, both in number and ideological distribution.
- root_axis 6y ago
  You're right, I should have said "social media" instead of "big tech".
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    While I quibble with your original presentation, the impact is much bigger than “social media” as usually understood; see my edit. While it wouldn’t kill big tech, it would radically transform big tech and every person, business, and other entity that interacts with it. It might not be the single biggest economy-slowing piece of legislation adopted in the history of the US, but…ok, yeah, it definitely would be.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> Most of what I have heard Republicans focusing on has been “anti-Conservative bias” in social media platform, but I don’t understand how limiting Section 230 protections would address that. The idea is to return to the non-online liability regime where reduced (distributor, notice-based) liability for unlawful content generally requires the absence of involvement in crafting/altering/moderating content (though it does allow binary select/not-select, including with an ideological bias.) 230 allows immunity to publisher (on its face, and as applied by the courts even distributor) liability so long as its terms are met. This probably wouldn’t help the cause Republicans nominally seek to advance with it (though it would help the cause of narrowing political engagement that they are pursuing through every other means, which suggests an alternative motivation to the public one), since while it might encourage providers to not moderate content from users while continuing to allow them to distribute material on the site, it would encourage blanket bans like the one Trump received, at a minimum, or shutting off public access entirely; its dubious that free public distribution, even with ad support, is viable online with distributor liability generally applied , and its clear it is not with publisher liability generally applied. Responding to notice of unlawful content on more than a best-effort basis (as distributor liability would require) is very hard to scale, and preemptively preventing it entirely as publisher liability would require absolutely does not scale.

vharuck 6y ago

>Most of what I have heard Republicans focusing on has been "anti-Conservative bias" in social media platform, but I don't understand how limiting Section 230 protections would address that. It's a meaningless flag to gather behind, not something they ever wanted to actually do. They can shout their support because they know the Democrats will stop it and thus fall into the "bad guy" role. It's a wedge issue now.