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> Every claim about a person in every video posted to youtube would need to be fact checked prior to being visible on youtube. No it doesn't. Defamation requir
by jcranmer 3y ago
> Every claim about a person in every video posted to youtube would need to be fact checked prior to being visible on youtube.
No it doesn't. Defamation requires some form of mens rea of the statement being made (negligence or actual malice depending on who it's about), so liability for defamation in a no-§230 world largely means "will take it down after someone complains" as there's a pretty solid defense that not verifying the statements before uploading doesn't constitute even negligence, much less actual malice.
The liability rules in a no-§230 world aren't entirely clear since we're basing everything on just two court cases that existed pre-§230, but the social media companies are going to be extremely willing to throw down millions of dollars in legal fees to persuade judges to evolve liability rules that make their moderation policies feasible.
And this comes back to the main point again: no moderation just doesn't scale, not even in channels of merely a hundred people, let alone hundreds of millions. It is naïve to think that companies are going to suddenly decide that "no moderation" is less risk than "tailor both our moderation policies and the law to find some middle ground that is actually feasible."