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Section 230 is the regulation. >any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user consider

Section 230 is the regulation. >any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or The problem was that censorship on social media has not been done in good faith and has far exceeded these regulations. Yet nobody ever got around to punishing social media for their violation of these regulations. Now that Elon has made the effort to get Twitter into compliance and stop violating regulations, now you call them unregulated and want to change the rules? I hope that Biden and friends try to change the rules so close to midterms. Lets see how that democracy goes after that.

dragonwriter 5y ago
> Yet nobody ever got around to punishing social media for their violation of these regulations. That's a negative regulation, thee only actor that can violate it is government. It is impossible for a social media platform to violate the cited regulation. It's true that if there is another regulation applicable to platform conduct, there are platform actions that would take the platform out of the immunity provided by the cited regulation (but those hypothetical other regulations would also be constrained by the First Amendment, whether or not the Section 230 immunity applied.)
- incomingpain 5y ago
  >That's a negative regulation, thee only actor that can violate it is government. It is impossible for a social media platform to violate the cited regulation. No, they list out exactly what they may censor like porn. Twitter doesn't do that. It's their choice to do less and that's fine. The problem is that they can't do more. That's a positive regulation. >It's true that if there is another regulation applicable to platform conduct, there are platform actions that would take the platform out of the immunity provided by the cited regulation (but those hypothetical other regulations would also be constrained by the First Amendment, whether or not the Section 230 immunity applied.) It's a positive regulation because we regulate media more. We say as a publisher you cant do lots of things that say wikipedia or twitter can do. The caveat is that you can't later regulate more so that you basically are a publisher but without the liability. That would break the system. Something the article missed is that Obama did explain that anything they do can't conflict with free speech. Therefore it's pointless to go more than section 230.
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > No, they list out exactly what they may censor like porn. Twitter doesn't do that. It's their choice to do less and that's fine. The problem is that they can't do more. That's a positive regulation. That is not the way that any court I'm aware of has ever interpreted Section 230, and it's not the way the original author of Section 230 has ever interpreted it either. Section 230 is not a list that describes the only things you are allowed to censor. It's a regulation on the government that prevents them from treating proactive moderation as liability for other unmoderated content. Section 230 does not require that a site avoid censoring certain kinds of information.
    - incomingpain 5y ago
      >That is not the way that any court I'm aware of has ever interpreted Section 230, and it's not the way the original author of Section 230 has ever interpreted it either. I'm not a supreme court justice. >Section 230 is not a list that describes the only things you are allowed to censor. It's a regulation on the government that prevents them from treating proactive moderation as liability for unmoderated content. So why does section 230 exist? In a situation like if you are CNN. You publish lies on your platform like Nick Sandman is a white supremacist. You are liable as the publisher. If someone on twitter says nick sandman is a white supremacist like so many celebrities did. Twitter is not liable, they aren't the publisher. If section 230 was a negative right. If you were CNN, you would legally become like twitter but censor every subject to the point that people can only say nick sandman is a white supremacist. You aren't liable anymore right? You can say whatever you want right?
      - danShumway 5y ago
        > I'm not a supreme court justice. Okay, so you have even less authority to dictate what Section 230 actually means. Are you arguing about what Section 230 actually does, or are you arguing about what you personally would like it to do, because those are two very different conversations to have. > So why does section 230 exist? For a lot of reasons, one giant one being that Congress wanted to make it easier for companies to censor in certain situations. Section 230 was born out of two lawsuits about illegal content against two early Internet companies, one completely unmoderated and one where the company in question had been trying to do some moderation, but some illegal content still slipped past. The one who was doing no moderation at all successfully got off with the defense that it was not a publisher, the company that had been doing some moderation didn't. From Wikipedia: > Service providers made their Congresspersons aware of these cases, believing that if followed by other courts across the nation, the cases would stifle the growth of the Internet. United States Representative Christopher Cox (R-CA) had read an article about the two cases and felt the decisions were backwards. "It struck me that if that rule was going to take hold then the internet would become the Wild West and nobody would have any incentive to keep the internet civil," Cox stated. Section 230 has a number of benefits, including benefits that reduce censorship online by making it safer to operate smaller forums (including HN). But it also allows communities to more easily moderate without that moderation being treated as itself a liability risk. But don't take my word for it, go read up on the actual people who wrote the bill that are still alive today and who have on multiple occasions commented on their intentions. The bill was never intended to restrict what content platforms could moderate. > You aren't liable anymore right? You can say whatever you want right? Section 230 is a protection against speech that your users say. CNN is still liable for its own speech (and so is Twitter for that matter), but it is not liable for the speech that happens in its comments section.
TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago
Yes Section 230 is mentioned in the article.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> Yet nobody ever got around to punishing social media for their violation of these regulations. That's a negative regulation, thee only actor that can violate it is government. It is impossible for a social media platform to violate the cited regulation. It's true that if there is another regulation applicable to platform conduct, there are platform actions that would take the platform out of the immunity provided by the cited regulation (but those hypothetical other regulations would also be constrained by the First Amendment, whether or not the Section 230 immunity applied.)

incomingpain 5y ago
>That's a negative regulation, thee only actor that can violate it is government. It is impossible for a social media platform to violate the cited regulation. No, they list out exactly what they may censor like porn. Twitter doesn't do that. It's their choice to do less and that's fine. The problem is that they can't do more. That's a positive regulation. >It's true that if there is another regulation applicable to platform conduct, there are platform actions that would take the platform out of the immunity provided by the cited regulation (but those hypothetical other regulations would also be constrained by the First Amendment, whether or not the Section 230 immunity applied.) It's a positive regulation because we regulate media more. We say as a publisher you cant do lots of things that say wikipedia or twitter can do. The caveat is that you can't later regulate more so that you basically are a publisher but without the liability. That would break the system. Something the article missed is that Obama did explain that anything they do can't conflict with free speech. Therefore it's pointless to go more than section 230.
- danShumway 5y ago
  > No, they list out exactly what they may censor like porn. Twitter doesn't do that. It's their choice to do less and that's fine. The problem is that they can't do more. That's a positive regulation. That is not the way that any court I'm aware of has ever interpreted Section 230, and it's not the way the original author of Section 230 has ever interpreted it either. Section 230 is not a list that describes the only things you are allowed to censor. It's a regulation on the government that prevents them from treating proactive moderation as liability for other unmoderated content. Section 230 does not require that a site avoid censoring certain kinds of information.
  - incomingpain 5y ago
    >That is not the way that any court I'm aware of has ever interpreted Section 230, and it's not the way the original author of Section 230 has ever interpreted it either. I'm not a supreme court justice. >Section 230 is not a list that describes the only things you are allowed to censor. It's a regulation on the government that prevents them from treating proactive moderation as liability for unmoderated content. So why does section 230 exist? In a situation like if you are CNN. You publish lies on your platform like Nick Sandman is a white supremacist. You are liable as the publisher. If someone on twitter says nick sandman is a white supremacist like so many celebrities did. Twitter is not liable, they aren't the publisher. If section 230 was a negative right. If you were CNN, you would legally become like twitter but censor every subject to the point that people can only say nick sandman is a white supremacist. You aren't liable anymore right? You can say whatever you want right?
    - danShumway 5y ago
      > I'm not a supreme court justice. Okay, so you have even less authority to dictate what Section 230 actually means. Are you arguing about what Section 230 actually does, or are you arguing about what you personally would like it to do, because those are two very different conversations to have. > So why does section 230 exist? For a lot of reasons, one giant one being that Congress wanted to make it easier for companies to censor in certain situations. Section 230 was born out of two lawsuits about illegal content against two early Internet companies, one completely unmoderated and one where the company in question had been trying to do some moderation, but some illegal content still slipped past. The one who was doing no moderation at all successfully got off with the defense that it was not a publisher, the company that had been doing some moderation didn't. From Wikipedia: > Service providers made their Congresspersons aware of these cases, believing that if followed by other courts across the nation, the cases would stifle the growth of the Internet. United States Representative Christopher Cox (R-CA) had read an article about the two cases and felt the decisions were backwards. "It struck me that if that rule was going to take hold then the internet would become the Wild West and nobody would have any incentive to keep the internet civil," Cox stated. Section 230 has a number of benefits, including benefits that reduce censorship online by making it safer to operate smaller forums (including HN). But it also allows communities to more easily moderate without that moderation being treated as itself a liability risk. But don't take my word for it, go read up on the actual people who wrote the bill that are still alive today and who have on multiple occasions commented on their intentions. The bill was never intended to restrict what content platforms could moderate. > You aren't liable anymore right? You can say whatever you want right? Section 230 is a protection against speech that your users say. CNN is still liable for its own speech (and so is Twitter for that matter), but it is not liable for the speech that happens in its comments section.

TAKEMYMONEY 5y ago

Yes Section 230 is mentioned in the article.