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To look for an upside to the worst case scenario, the biggest win from a deep challenge to Section 230 protections would be a return to a smaller and more mindf

To look for an upside to the worst case scenario, the biggest win from a deep challenge to Section 230 protections would be a return to a smaller and more mindfully curated web. Many of the problems from social media are rooted in the idea of having such enormous hoards of content that the only way to trawl through it is with automated algorithms. This was great when it worked, but the content pool seems to grow faster than algorithm design can accomodate and will only get worse as AI content generators mature. It suggests that there are possibly as few as two futures: 1. The internet is a wasteland of content pollution and the automated tools for sorting and sifting through it are overwhelmed with toxic waste. 2. The internet returns to a network of trust where people are individually, but only marginally, accountable for what they share with others and this accountability engenders thoughtful curation at a manageable scale. It might be that modern equivalents of web rings, curated directories, group chats, and member forums supplant "Internet Scale" search engines and social media networks. It would be an adjustment, but it wouldn't be the end of the world.

kmeisthax 4y ago
In scenario #2 the toxic waste still exists. Unmoderated forums are protected against liability even if CDA 230 is repealed. So 4chan will still be around. Furthermore, distributing liability among your users is not a great idea. What will happen is that extortion enterprises will be created to sue people on our hypothetical old-web-of-trust. We know this because BitTorrent allowed Prenda Law to make porn, share it themselves to dox users[0], and then sue the people who downloaded or watched it. This scheme worked because copyright lawsuits are expensive to defend against, and defamation is no different. So everyone just quickly settled, which is why it took years for judges to catch onto this particular fraudster. The only thing that keeps you from being sued for watching an infringing YouTube video is DMCA 512, which works almost[1] identically to CDA 230. Because it's a large centralized service, it's a juicier target, and people with legitimate copyright grievances can get things taken down from them. So nobody bothers to try and sue individual viewers. Your #2 scenario only works if the Supreme Court is merciful and only kills recommendation systems. If CDA 230 is struck down entirely, you won't get to run a network-of-trust version of the web, because just hosting a public web server will require signing an indemnification agreement and posting a very large bond. In this scenario the Internet becomes more like cable, or perhaps a games console. [0] Normally an IP address is not dox; but a lawyer and an out-of-order DMCA subpoena can turn it into dox. [1] 512 adds a notice-and-takedown regime because Hollywood wanted censorship powers over the Internet.
pixl97 4y ago
What about #3 that no one talks about? 3. Some other country tells the US to fuck off and foots a lot of the lost advertizing bill in order to collect a shit ton of user data like the big US sites do now? It's a world wide web, if the US screws off too much there is no golden rule that says it has to be the monetary king of the internet.

kmeisthax 4y ago

In scenario #2 the toxic waste still exists. Unmoderated forums are protected against liability even if CDA 230 is repealed. So 4chan will still be around. Furthermore, distributing liability among your users is not a great idea. What will happen is that extortion enterprises will be created to sue people on our hypothetical old-web-of-trust. We know this because BitTorrent allowed Prenda Law to make porn, share it themselves to dox users[0], and then sue the people who downloaded or watched it. This scheme worked because copyright lawsuits are expensive to defend against, and defamation is no different. So everyone just quickly settled, which is why it took years for judges to catch onto this particular fraudster. The only thing that keeps you from being sued for watching an infringing YouTube video is DMCA 512, which works almost[1] identically to CDA 230. Because it's a large centralized service, it's a juicier target, and people with legitimate copyright grievances can get things taken down from them. So nobody bothers to try and sue individual viewers. Your #2 scenario only works if the Supreme Court is merciful and only kills recommendation systems. If CDA 230 is struck down entirely, you won't get to run a network-of-trust version of the web, because just hosting a public web server will require signing an indemnification agreement and posting a very large bond. In this scenario the Internet becomes more like cable, or perhaps a games console. [0] Normally an IP address is not dox; but a lawyer and an out-of-order DMCA subpoena can turn it into dox. [1] 512 adds a notice-and-takedown regime because Hollywood wanted censorship powers over the Internet.

pixl97 4y ago

What about #3 that no one talks about? 3. Some other country tells the US to fuck off and foots a lot of the lost advertizing bill in order to collect a shit ton of user data like the big US sites do now? It's a world wide web, if the US screws off too much there is no golden rule that says it has to be the monetary king of the internet.