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I don't follow your response to cm2187. He means very literally that you wouldn't be able to read comments on hacker news, because without section 230 it would

I don't follow your response to cm2187. He means very literally that you wouldn't be able to read comments on hacker news, because without section 230 it would be legally very dangerous for sites to host user-generated content, such as comments.

vintermann 5y ago
Yet they did host comments, if not exactly in 1990 in hacker news form, then in many years before section 230 and the DMCA. Lawsuits happened, but they were de facto not very effective in getting information taken down (regardless of what they have since been ruled as having been entitled to).
- jasode 5y ago
  >Yet they did host comments, if not exactly in 1990 in hacker news form, then in many years before section 230 [...] Lawsuits happened, but they were de facto not very effective in getting information taken down But lawsuits still cost defendants millions in expensive attorneys' fees to fight them in court. E.g. Oakmont's $200 million lawsuit against Prodigy. [1][2] So it's missing the point if people only emphasize that 1995 Prodigy didn't remove an anonymous user's comment about Oakmont. In other words, leaving the dangerous comment up isn't really "winning". Instead, it's not having to deal with lawsuits at all from future "Oakmonts" that Section 230 clarified. So would HN exist if Paul Graham had to deal with repeated $200 million lawsuits because anonymous posters kept writing "Facebook is a cancer on society..." ? It doesn't seem worth the liability risk without Section 230. [1] https://itif.org/publications/2021/02/22/overview-section-230-what-it-why-it-was-created-and-what-it-has-achieved#_Why_was_Section_230_Created https://itif.org/publications/2021/02/22/overview-section-23... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....
- rsynnott 5y ago
  Section 230 goes back to 1996. There would have been very few websites with comments in 1996 (mainstream web browsers, insofar as there was such a thing as a mainstream web browser in 1996, had only in the last couple of years got the ability to submit HTTP forms). And there were very few users interacting with that internet; only on the order of 100 million, and most of those _very_ infrequently. The scale of the problem is entirely different now.
cblconfederate 5y ago
I mean that they'd switch to chronological mode They 'd have to moderate somehow. In this new world, if it is OK to force porn sites to get the ID card of everyone who posts videos, then HN should also be able to moderate user submissions.

vintermann 5y ago

Yet they did host comments, if not exactly in 1990 in hacker news form, then in many years before section 230 and the DMCA. Lawsuits happened, but they were de facto not very effective in getting information taken down (regardless of what they have since been ruled as having been entitled to).

jasode 5y ago
>Yet they did host comments, if not exactly in 1990 in hacker news form, then in many years before section 230 [...] Lawsuits happened, but they were de facto not very effective in getting information taken down But lawsuits still cost defendants millions in expensive attorneys' fees to fight them in court. E.g. Oakmont's $200 million lawsuit against Prodigy. [1][2] So it's missing the point if people only emphasize that 1995 Prodigy didn't remove an anonymous user's comment about Oakmont. In other words, leaving the dangerous comment up isn't really "winning". Instead, it's not having to deal with lawsuits at all from future "Oakmonts" that Section 230 clarified. So would HN exist if Paul Graham had to deal with repeated $200 million lawsuits because anonymous posters kept writing "Facebook is a cancer on society..." ? It doesn't seem worth the liability risk without Section 230. [1] https://itif.org/publications/2021/02/22/overview-section-230-what-it-why-it-was-created-and-what-it-has-achieved#_Why_was_Section_230_Created https://itif.org/publications/2021/02/22/overview-section-23... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....
rsynnott 5y ago
Section 230 goes back to 1996. There would have been very few websites with comments in 1996 (mainstream web browsers, insofar as there was such a thing as a mainstream web browser in 1996, had only in the last couple of years got the ability to submit HTTP forms). And there were very few users interacting with that internet; only on the order of 100 million, and most of those _very_ infrequently. The scale of the problem is entirely different now.

cblconfederate 5y ago

I mean that they'd switch to chronological mode They 'd have to moderate somehow. In this new world, if it is OK to force porn sites to get the ID card of everyone who posts videos, then HN should also be able to moderate user submissions.