4 ms·

The common sense approach to intermediary liability is what was already in place before the CDA turned everything upside-down. If you're an intermediary, there'

The common sense approach to intermediary liability is what was already in place before the CDA turned everything upside-down. If you're an intermediary, there's a trade-off to be made. Either exercise creative license in your mediation of user communications, and be legally liable for that, or don't, and stay free of liability. I think that makes a lot of sense, and would have been totally fine on the internet, and was totally fine until 1996. It allows for all the same business models that were growing and thriving until 1996. It didn't impede the economies of scale that were unfolding and continued to unfold. Then, in 1996, the internet began the process of de-linking, de-indexing, de-listing, shadow-banning, click-baiting, and pay-walling. And "communications decency" was definitely not achieved, either.

dragonwriter 2y ago
> It allows for all the same business models that were growing and thriving until 1996. No, it doesn't, because those models were—as money was getting into them and both criminal proesecutors and potential civil litigants gained awareness of them—being squeezed between threats of criminal prosecution for relaying things where the existing criminal law does not provide the outs for hands-off distribution that civil publisher vs. distributor liability does (creating pressure for moderation) and civil liability for the kinds of things where publisher vs. distributor liability did apply before 230 (creating pressure either to be completely hands off or to only accept UGC of resources existed for comprehensive, total moderation.) The space of commercially viable UGC without Section 230 looks like hardcopy newspapers letters to the editor sections, both in style and in volume relative to first-party content.