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Repealing 230 would literally kill large swaths of the internet. If platforms like Twitter or Reddit were legally responsible for what their users post, they wo

Repealing 230 would literally kill large swaths of the internet. If platforms like Twitter or Reddit were legally responsible for what their users post, they would need to institute white lists to avoid being bankrupted. Can you imagine the amount of low-level casual defamation across the entirety of Facebook? Or Reddit? The amount of copyrighted material stolen and posted? There would be an overnight industry of people shadow-posting defamatory statements and then turning around and suing the platforms for hosting it. It's literally the dumbest idea possible.

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SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
Heck, under the precedent that Section 230 was meant to overturn, Twitter could sue HN for a lot of what people are saying right here. I struggle to even engage with the idea sometimes because you're 100% right that it doesn't make sense.
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dane-pgp 4y ago
> It's literally the dumbest idea possible. Unless the aim was literally to destroy these large left-leaning, people-empowering, highly profitable, internationally reaching businesses. Now imagine which political party and which geopolitical adversary would like to make the internet less liberal, silence the powerless, make American tax revenue lower, and make more space for authoritarian voices on the world stage.
- aiilns 4y ago
  Facebook, twitter, etc left-leaning in the US sense where left is right and right is near the edge of the right spectrum I get. But people-empowering? These large platforms are very much anti-democratic and anti-empowering people. Even more, subverting peoples wills about what they buy by managing what they see and algorithmically trying to guide what they should think is very much anti people. Any people empowering is merely a side effect and not at all the purpose
  - dane-pgp 4y ago
    I see what you're saying, and there's definitely reason to question which entities have gained the most influence from social media (out of corporations, governments, or activists). As for "the purpose" of social media, I suppose a simple reductive answer would be "to make money", but there were (and I think still are) people who are idealistic about social media giving a voice to the voiceless, even if you think that, in practice, commercial messages and misinformation end up having a bigger and more negative effect. A thought experiment I think is useful is to imagine how Western political discourse could have been shaped (by politicians and the traditional media) if grassroots movements couldn't form and raise awareness through things like "hashtag activism".[0] The fact that authoritarian countries invest resources in censoring or banning social media also seems to confirm that they see it as a threat rather than a harmless distraction. [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism

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SpicyLemonZest 4y ago

Heck, under the precedent that Section 230 was meant to overturn, Twitter could sue HN for a lot of what people are saying right here. I struggle to even engage with the idea sometimes because you're 100% right that it doesn't make sense.

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dane-pgp 4y ago

> It's literally the dumbest idea possible. Unless the aim was literally to destroy these large left-leaning, people-empowering, highly profitable, internationally reaching businesses. Now imagine which political party and which geopolitical adversary would like to make the internet less liberal, silence the powerless, make American tax revenue lower, and make more space for authoritarian voices on the world stage.

aiilns 4y ago
Facebook, twitter, etc left-leaning in the US sense where left is right and right is near the edge of the right spectrum I get. But people-empowering? These large platforms are very much anti-democratic and anti-empowering people. Even more, subverting peoples wills about what they buy by managing what they see and algorithmically trying to guide what they should think is very much anti people. Any people empowering is merely a side effect and not at all the purpose
- dane-pgp 4y ago
  I see what you're saying, and there's definitely reason to question which entities have gained the most influence from social media (out of corporations, governments, or activists). As for "the purpose" of social media, I suppose a simple reductive answer would be "to make money", but there were (and I think still are) people who are idealistic about social media giving a voice to the voiceless, even if you think that, in practice, commercial messages and misinformation end up having a bigger and more negative effect. A thought experiment I think is useful is to imagine how Western political discourse could have been shaped (by politicians and the traditional media) if grassroots movements couldn't form and raise awareness through things like "hashtag activism".[0] The fact that authoritarian countries invest resources in censoring or banning social media also seems to confirm that they see it as a threat rather than a harmless distraction. [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/hashtagactivism