4 ms·

You seem slightly confused about what 230 does. What it does is allow companies to do some moderation without legally liable as publishers for all content they

by shkkmo 5y ago

You seem slightly confused about what 230 does. What it does is allow companies to do some moderation without legally liable as publishers for all content they host. Without section 230 companies have a choice to either do no moderation or to assume full liability as publishers. Section 230 was created to encorage online moderation by removing the liability that moderation would bring in an offline context.

incomingpain 5y ago
>You seem slightly confused about what 230 does. What it does is allow companies to do some moderation without legally liable as publishers for all content they host. I did copy and paste the law. It's clear to me what is says and the free speech that is required. Censorship must be done in good faith. >Without section 230 companies have a choice to either do no moderation or to assume full liability as publishers. Without section 230 they would assume full liability as publisher. >Section 230 was created to encorage online moderation by removing the liability that moderation would bring in an offline context. Section 230 was created to allow entities like twitter to exist. Without section 230 twitter stops existing. Let's be realistic, Elon just put $9 billion down because his poll showed significant problem with censorship. Fixing this will take twitter from $40 billion to much higher.
- pmyteh 5y ago
  There was case law before s.230 was passed, which said what parent claimed: if you moderated your content you carried liability as a publisher, if you were careful not to look at what went up on your service then you didn't. s.230 was added to the Communications Decency Act specifically to remove that perverse incentive in order to encourage 'family friendly' moderation. That's it. It doesn't anywhere require good faith. The entire legislative history is on record. And it long predates Twitter.
  - incomingpain 5y ago
    >There was case law before s.230 was passed, The CDA was from 1996. What social media predated 1996? Even ICQ does not predate the CDA. > It doesn't anywhere require good faith. I literally copy and pasted the law. It literally has the words good faith in it. >The entire legislative history is on record. And it long predates Twitter. Section 230 long predated all of the things. It is how they function today.
    - papercrane 5y ago
      > The CDA was from 1996. What social media predated 1996? Even ICQ does not predate the CDA. Forums existed well before 1996. Both CompuServe and Prodigy were found liable for things people posted on forums on their platforms.
      - incomingpain 5y ago
        >Forums existed well before 1996. Both CompuServe and Prodigy were found liable for things people posted on forums on their platforms. Dont take me as opposing the CDA. I think Section 230 is superb and necessary. What I believe is that we simply enforce the rules. Free speech is guaranteed on twitter.
        papercrane 5y ago
        Your reading of the "good faith" requirement is not in line with how it's been interpreted by the courts. https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/ https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
    - pmyteh 5y ago
      'Social media' in the web 2.0 sense is post 1996, but there were plenty of websites with comments sections and online forums before that. Cases over intermediary liability for online content have some antiquity; in Cubby v. CompuServe (776 F. Supp. 135; S.D.N.Y. 1991), for example, CompuServe were found non-liable because they had no first-hand knowledge of the defamatory posting. Whereas in Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy (No. 31063/94, 1995 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 229; N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 24, 1995) Prodigy were found liable as the publisher because they'd set content rules and run a filter over users' contributions. Congress thought that latter result was unhelpful (because it incentivised people to run cesspools rather than to actively moderate them) and legislated. And sorry, I should have been clearer on good faith. The section preventing providers being liable as a publisher (which is the core of s.230's value to social media platforms) has no good faith requirement. "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." (s.230(c)1) is the whole clause. Platforms don't acquire intermediary liability even if they delete every post praising the Yankees while laughing maniacally and falsely claiming it's a result of profanity use. They simply aren't "treated as the publisher or speaker" full stop. The good faith language comes from (c)2, which further limits liability (to the speaker) for good faith removals on the grounds that the speech might be offensive. That's not an intermediary liability issue, as such, though.

by shkkmo 5y ago

incomingpain 5y ago

>You seem slightly confused about what 230 does. What it does is allow companies to do some moderation without legally liable as publishers for all content they host. I did copy and paste the law. It's clear to me what is says and the free speech that is required. Censorship must be done in good faith. >Without section 230 companies have a choice to either do no moderation or to assume full liability as publishers. Without section 230 they would assume full liability as publisher. >Section 230 was created to encorage online moderation by removing the liability that moderation would bring in an offline context. Section 230 was created to allow entities like twitter to exist. Without section 230 twitter stops existing. Let's be realistic, Elon just put $9 billion down because his poll showed significant problem with censorship. Fixing this will take twitter from $40 billion to much higher.

pmyteh 5y ago
There was case law before s.230 was passed, which said what parent claimed: if you moderated your content you carried liability as a publisher, if you were careful not to look at what went up on your service then you didn't. s.230 was added to the Communications Decency Act specifically to remove that perverse incentive in order to encourage 'family friendly' moderation. That's it. It doesn't anywhere require good faith. The entire legislative history is on record. And it long predates Twitter.
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >There was case law before s.230 was passed, The CDA was from 1996. What social media predated 1996? Even ICQ does not predate the CDA. > It doesn't anywhere require good faith. I literally copy and pasted the law. It literally has the words good faith in it. >The entire legislative history is on record. And it long predates Twitter. Section 230 long predated all of the things. It is how they function today.
  - papercrane 5y ago
    > The CDA was from 1996. What social media predated 1996? Even ICQ does not predate the CDA. Forums existed well before 1996. Both CompuServe and Prodigy were found liable for things people posted on forums on their platforms.
    - incomingpain 5y ago
      >Forums existed well before 1996. Both CompuServe and Prodigy were found liable for things people posted on forums on their platforms. Dont take me as opposing the CDA. I think Section 230 is superb and necessary. What I believe is that we simply enforce the rules. Free speech is guaranteed on twitter.
      - papercrane 5y ago
        Your reading of the "good faith" requirement is not in line with how it's been interpreted by the courts. https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/ https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
  - pmyteh 5y ago
    'Social media' in the web 2.0 sense is post 1996, but there were plenty of websites with comments sections and online forums before that. Cases over intermediary liability for online content have some antiquity; in Cubby v. CompuServe (776 F. Supp. 135; S.D.N.Y. 1991), for example, CompuServe were found non-liable because they had no first-hand knowledge of the defamatory posting. Whereas in Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy (No. 31063/94, 1995 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 229; N.Y. Sup. Ct. May 24, 1995) Prodigy were found liable as the publisher because they'd set content rules and run a filter over users' contributions. Congress thought that latter result was unhelpful (because it incentivised people to run cesspools rather than to actively moderate them) and legislated. And sorry, I should have been clearer on good faith. The section preventing providers being liable as a publisher (which is the core of s.230's value to social media platforms) has no good faith requirement. "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." (s.230(c)1) is the whole clause. Platforms don't acquire intermediary liability even if they delete every post praising the Yankees while laughing maniacally and falsely claiming it's a result of profanity use. They simply aren't "treated as the publisher or speaker" full stop. The good faith language comes from (c)2, which further limits liability (to the speaker) for good faith removals on the grounds that the speech might be offensive. That's not an intermediary liability issue, as such, though.