4 ms·

Whenever somebody says something grotesquely stupid or defamatory and someone attempts to sue them over it and they hide behind Section 230.

triceratops 4y ago
That's not what a common carrier is. Section 230 doesn't define common carriers or hold common carriers not liable for their users' posts. It has nothing to do with common carriers. Please educate yourself. Section 230 says to information service providers "We understand your users might say stupid shit from time to time. Since, unlike a newspaper that prints letters from the editor, you can't actually vet their blatherings in real time, you're off the hook for this stuff. As long as you take down anything illegal as soon as you find out. Otherwise you're free to curate these posts in any way your heart desires." The law actually recognizes that internet platforms aren't like old media and accommodates their unique constraints. If this shield didn't exist, information service providers would have the following options: 1. Hold all posts in a moderation queue, and publish them only after review. 2. Verify every signed-up user's identity and current address so that libel lawsuits or law enforcement can be referred to them. 3. Some combination of 1 and 2. So do you wanna give Zuck a copy of your passport? Or wait 20 hours until your food pictures are posted? If neither of those sound appealing to you, Section 230 is a good thing.
- UncleMeat 4y ago
  Yeah the people who think that repealing 230 would make all social media stop moderating are simply fooling themselves. The result would be absolutely extreme moderation that accepted huge numbers of false positives just to ensure that nothing bad got through, or even just the complete end of user generated content.
  - EarlKing 4y ago
    Good thing I never suggested that, and much as with the drafting of Section 230, we are perfectly capable of drafting a new law to qualify the protections thereunder. In fact, that was done most recently with FOSTA/SESTA to combat sex trafficking. If they're going to be treated as a special category somewhere between common carriers and publishers, that category requires qualification.
- EarlKing 4y ago
  > That's not what a common carrier is. Section 230 doesn't define common carriers or hold common carriers not liable for their users' posts. It has nothing to do with common carriers. sigh That is literally what they are. Section 230 was enacted specifically to allow internet-adjacent services to avoid being treated as publishers for purposes of user-contributed content despite also engaging in some manner of curation (particularly with respect to removing obscene materials pursuant to the Communications Decency Act). You don't get to pretend they're not operating as a common carrier just because you grepped 47 U.S.C. § 230 and didn't find the words "Common Carrier" in it. > Please educate yourself. This is unnecessarily rude. HN is not Reddit. Please don't condescend like that. > The law actually recognizes that internet platforms aren't like old media and accommodates their unique constraints. Except, of course, that they are. You're either some specie of Common Carrier (in which case you aren't liable for what flows through your service), or you're a Publisher. If you want some manner of media via between the two then there needs to be some qualification of what you need to do in order to get the best of both worlds, and right now Section 230 simply doesn't provide that. It allows them to pretend to be a Common Carrier when someone says something outrageous and they want to escape liability for it, and pretend to be a Publisher when someone says something they don't like. > So do you wanna give Zuck a copy of your passport? Or wait 20 hours until your food pictures are posted? If neither of those sound appealing to you, Section 230 is a good thing. ...or we could just write a new law that allows you to be treated as a Common Carrier but only subject to certain express conditions... which oddly enough is exactly what everyone and their brother has been saying for years now. I for one would be perfectly happy attaching a simple requirement that they not engage in viewpoint discrimination ('editorializing'), but merely remove posts that are off-topic, uncivil, or otherwise of low-quality according to clear, specific, and objectively verifiable standards. Is there some reason we shouldn't want that?
  - triceratops 4y ago
    > You're either some specie of Common Carrier...or you're a Publisher Section 230 calls them "information service providers", which makes them neither. You're saying stuff that you wish was in the law. Information service providers are not held liable for their users' content because it would be infeasible to police it properly in real-time. This is common sense. It's emphatically not because they're "claiming common carrier status to avoid liability". By allowing them to moderate and curate content on the platform the law outright says they aren't common carriers, because common carriers have to..."carry". Your phone company can't randomly bleep out your swear words in your conversations. Internet Service Providers aren't even treated as common carriers. Why the heck should apps that work on top of them be treated as such? Is every 1-800 number a common carrier? > according to clear, specific, and objectively verifiable standards Every social platform has a terms of service and usually, community guidelines. Beyond that who defines and decides this? You want the government getting involved in this? How is that better for "free speech"? I'd prefer to let the free market decide, personally. It's weird to see conservatives argue against that.

triceratops 4y ago

That's not what a common carrier is. Section 230 doesn't define common carriers or hold common carriers not liable for their users' posts. It has nothing to do with common carriers. Please educate yourself. Section 230 says to information service providers "We understand your users might say stupid shit from time to time. Since, unlike a newspaper that prints letters from the editor, you can't actually vet their blatherings in real time, you're off the hook for this stuff. As long as you take down anything illegal as soon as you find out. Otherwise you're free to curate these posts in any way your heart desires." The law actually recognizes that internet platforms aren't like old media and accommodates their unique constraints. If this shield didn't exist, information service providers would have the following options: 1. Hold all posts in a moderation queue, and publish them only after review. 2. Verify every signed-up user's identity and current address so that libel lawsuits or law enforcement can be referred to them. 3. Some combination of 1 and 2. So do you wanna give Zuck a copy of your passport? Or wait 20 hours until your food pictures are posted? If neither of those sound appealing to you, Section 230 is a good thing.

UncleMeat 4y ago
Yeah the people who think that repealing 230 would make all social media stop moderating are simply fooling themselves. The result would be absolutely extreme moderation that accepted huge numbers of false positives just to ensure that nothing bad got through, or even just the complete end of user generated content.
- EarlKing 4y ago
  Good thing I never suggested that, and much as with the drafting of Section 230, we are perfectly capable of drafting a new law to qualify the protections thereunder. In fact, that was done most recently with FOSTA/SESTA to combat sex trafficking. If they're going to be treated as a special category somewhere between common carriers and publishers, that category requires qualification.
EarlKing 4y ago
> That's not what a common carrier is. Section 230 doesn't define common carriers or hold common carriers not liable for their users' posts. It has nothing to do with common carriers. sigh That is literally what they are. Section 230 was enacted specifically to allow internet-adjacent services to avoid being treated as publishers for purposes of user-contributed content despite also engaging in some manner of curation (particularly with respect to removing obscene materials pursuant to the Communications Decency Act). You don't get to pretend they're not operating as a common carrier just because you grepped 47 U.S.C. § 230 and didn't find the words "Common Carrier" in it. > Please educate yourself. This is unnecessarily rude. HN is not Reddit. Please don't condescend like that. > The law actually recognizes that internet platforms aren't like old media and accommodates their unique constraints. Except, of course, that they are. You're either some specie of Common Carrier (in which case you aren't liable for what flows through your service), or you're a Publisher. If you want some manner of media via between the two then there needs to be some qualification of what you need to do in order to get the best of both worlds, and right now Section 230 simply doesn't provide that. It allows them to pretend to be a Common Carrier when someone says something outrageous and they want to escape liability for it, and pretend to be a Publisher when someone says something they don't like. > So do you wanna give Zuck a copy of your passport? Or wait 20 hours until your food pictures are posted? If neither of those sound appealing to you, Section 230 is a good thing. ...or we could just write a new law that allows you to be treated as a Common Carrier but only subject to certain express conditions... which oddly enough is exactly what everyone and their brother has been saying for years now. I for one would be perfectly happy attaching a simple requirement that they not engage in viewpoint discrimination ('editorializing'), but merely remove posts that are off-topic, uncivil, or otherwise of low-quality according to clear, specific, and objectively verifiable standards. Is there some reason we shouldn't want that?
- triceratops 4y ago
  > You're either some specie of Common Carrier...or you're a Publisher Section 230 calls them "information service providers", which makes them neither. You're saying stuff that you wish was in the law. Information service providers are not held liable for their users' content because it would be infeasible to police it properly in real-time. This is common sense. It's emphatically not because they're "claiming common carrier status to avoid liability". By allowing them to moderate and curate content on the platform the law outright says they aren't common carriers, because common carriers have to..."carry". Your phone company can't randomly bleep out your swear words in your conversations. Internet Service Providers aren't even treated as common carriers. Why the heck should apps that work on top of them be treated as such? Is every 1-800 number a common carrier? > according to clear, specific, and objectively verifiable standards Every social platform has a terms of service and usually, community guidelines. Beyond that who defines and decides this? You want the government getting involved in this? How is that better for "free speech"? I'd prefer to let the free market decide, personally. It's weird to see conservatives argue against that.