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> 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'

• 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.
  • dragonwriter 5y ago
    > So why does section 230 exist? Section 230 is a two-sided safe harbor included as part of the Communications Decency Act (and pretty much the only operative part of that law that wasn't struck down for violating the First Amendment) that exists because: (1) Online services were starting to be targets of legal action targeting them as publishers of libel, slander, pornography, and otherwise unlawful material, relying on the traditional law wherein having an active role in even minimally controlling the content of a publication rather than acting as a purely hands-off distributor of content made one a publisher with liability for unlawful content whether or not they had actual knowledge of the facts making it unlawful. (2) Services that were not actively moderated, avoiding that problem, were also quite prominent, being casually stumbled over (including because of aggressive spam, popups, etc.) by internet users, and causing lots of offense with both illegal and legal-but-offensive content. Section 230’s two-sided safe harbor existed to allow users and providers to use available technology to tailor experiences by enabling and encouraging active private moderation of content, by: (1) Not making users or providers that take any steps to control content automatically liable without notice for all unlawful content in the set of content impacted by their action, (2) Immunizing users and providers from liability for actions taken to restrict access to content that the acting user or provider finds objectionable on any grounds. > If section 230 was a negative right. Section 230 is a negative law, but it is not a 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? It’d be easier to do what the media has always done to prevent liability here, and find someone else (even if anonymous) to say the thing, and then just print that they said it (emphasizing the message, but mentioning the existence of the source), and be protected by the truth defense (because what you published, that whoever it was said the thing) is absolutely true. But, no, Section 230’s good faith restriction means that while something like this would not create liability under Section 230, it would likely also not fall under its protection. So libel laws would be available as a remedy. Section 230’s negative nature means when you go outside it's protection, liability requires some other law. Libel law is another existing law providing liability.