long story short, social media companies enjoy liability protections because they are a public square. They aren't held to editorial standards that could expose them to libel/slander/content suits because they can't control what users post therefore it is seen as a public good basically. Now that they are censoring and editing content, specifically conservatives, and most specifically the president, the protection should be lifted. This opens the door for libel, slander, child porn, and many other lawsuits due to the revocation of their protection which basically renders it a useless entity.
Yes we would have 3-6 months of shutdowns on website due to the fear of liability, including this very site.
But Congress would step up quickly to write new legislation that would make it crystal clear as to how you gain liability protection.
It can be done but right now social media giants get the best of both worlds, the edit and censor like publishers while getting the protection of a platform.
One tweak they would need to add is fan based or lets saw a site focused on hunting. The Hunting website could censor/delete posts regarding PETA and not be forced to become publishers.
What can't happen is a site claiming to be a public forum like twtter and allow them to ban conservatives. If twitter declared they were a SJW site then by all means they can ban who they want but even then they started as an open forum so they might be stuck as being open (they abused being 'open' to gain massive followings, had they been declared SJW from day one it would have never grown).
Twitter has declared themselves an SJW site. Read their terms of use.
If Twitter branded themselves as "only for communists" tomorrow do you think there would be a mass exodus? Nope, people are addicted to followers.
I think you're right about the "they'd be forced to make a new law" thing, but the plan could backfire. It could just force the US out as a place for innovation in the networking space. We could wind up having to use foreign sites just to publish our thoughts, subject to their laws. I don't know about you but I'd rather be able to talk about the Holocaust or criticize Islam and maybe have to go to a smaller website, I'd rather be subject to the rules of websites which I can switch between than the laws of foreign governments.
Or the government could decide to write some fucked up law that regulates what we say online, not just protecting us from censorship. Or the government could write a law firmly entrenching the big tech sites as institutions online even more. Or the government could write a law that opens you or I up to lawsuits if we decide to make a website and try to keep it topic specific. What happens with a "free speech" law online if we try to deport commies on this website?
I just don't see a real solution to this other than "if you make the website you decide what people can say on it" which is what we have now. And I'd definitely rather have to pick a different website to have conversations on than be able to say whatever on twitter but not be able to run my own website and risk lawsuits. I think the solution to this big tech censorship stuff is to just not use big tech, which is what I personally do.
Yes . But along with them every other site that allows user content. Including THIS. But what is even more likely to happen is the big sites will employ much stricter filters and A WHOLE LOT OF MODERATORS . and the smaller sites will be completely dead . Because who the fuck would want to start a site with such liabilities hanging over your head.
you say this as if there is anything to lose. let me remind you the president of the US and leader of the free world is being censored on every post and conservatives are banned and censored from all forms of social media every single day.. at least there would be legal recourse for their blatant partisanship
I'm saying whatever I want online right now. We have this site and others like it to lose. If the president made an account on this site right now he would never be censored on the internet again.
If section 230 gets repealed some commie is going to come on this site and spam it with CP or links to download the black panther movie and then the next day this site will be gone. Where will we have left? Why, the only websites with the money for legal teams, lobbyists and moderation capacity, twitter and Facebook.
Repeal of section 230 is a trojan horse. The solution is to not use websites that don't let you say what you want.
Social media wasnt a thing in the 90s. its a 2000s phenomenon.
We need to fix 230. How to fix? simple? Freedom of speech aside from blatantly illegal materials (Child pornography, Doxing offenders etc) and minor discretionary restrictions (Gore, porn, Doxes, etc) Its a platform. If you start trying to editorialize the words of elected officials? You are now a Publisher.
I personally think there should be a new category called "Private Bulletin Board (PBB - pronounced "pub")" which gives some protections for immediate infringements (like with the platform) but has more stringent specifications like a publisher. Basically an inbetween. Also make copyright takedowns harder on full Platforms and easier on PBBs and Publishers. There legal liabilities protected. you chose your class of service.
Thats the most fair to most companies I think.
-Also internet bill of rights NOW.
So then what happens when I click that deport button when some commie shill comes on this website and says bullshit? We have to give them free speech here? How does that work?
If you think about this topic for 5 minutes a little bit you'll see that you simply cannot tell websites what sort of content they have to host. There is no legal solution to this problem. The solution is social in nature, a personal choice: don't use censorious platforms or big tech. The solution to the problem on a larger scope is based in a free market: people will move to places where they can have real conversations. Big tech will die due to this censorship on their own. There is no need for a law, only for another account on another website.
Did you even read what I wrote or nahh? You just went off?
Under what I wrote TDW is a PBB (pub). A private user forum with strict rules.. In fact most highly specialized forums are PBBs.
But besides the point, nothing here is about "legality" it's about status as a publisher or a platform. Ok a website doesnt want to hose certain content? thats their prerogative, just don't go expecting specialized protections for it
Yeah but it opens us up to the same lawsuits. It opens every single interactive website anyone has made or anyone is thinking of making to potential lawsuits.
The bill protects everyone, even us, from stuff posted to your site's servers.
Before 230: random dude posts cp on your site, YOU are in trouble.
After 230: random dude posts cp on your site, you're protected.
So the idea was to protect you and giving you the chance to delete illegal things from your site without getting in trouble at all, but they wrote it in such a way that allowed them to also delete "otherwise questionable content", which they've taken it upon themselves to mean "we'll remove anything we don't like, even presidential tweets".
Eliminating it entirely will destroy all social media, but at this point, it's for the better because it will destroy big tech in the process (this move would be the equivalent of going full scorched earth against them).
(pd: that said, I'm not sure if text-only speech is allowed without 230. if it was, we wouldn't have to take this site down)
(pd2: the better move would be to reform it, but traitors in congress are completely bought by big tech, or to have the FCC clarify it, but Ajit Pai is pozzed too, he pulled an AG BARR on us saying he'll do it and then didn't do jack shit)
it's for the better because it will destroy big tech in the process (this move would be the equivalent of going full scorched earth against them).
Want to bet this won't affect them one bit ? They already have the best tools in the world at their disposal . They will not let anything questionable on their sites.
The only ones who will be affected by the complete removal will be the smaller sites. Who don't have either the money or the legal teams to fight any of this.
The solution isn't complete removal. Just modify it so that if they censor legal content ... they loose their protection.
Basically, the argument is this: section 230 carved out special protections for these internet platforms. Mainly that they would be immune from liability if someone on their platform commits defamation, for instance. This is different than, say, The NY Times where if they print slanderous material they can be sued for it. This was all premised on a “good faith” clause in their ability to, basically, rid their cites of the worst kinds of shit. Like child porn, for instance.
It’s obvious, in the 90’s, no one could have predicted what these websites have become.
But now, the argument is, these companies are no longer acting like a platform (like a phone company) but a publisher (like NYT). That they are censoring content specific material and basically becoming like a publisher, and therefore shouldn’t be given special protections. I happen to agree, I think we must stop what is in front of us.
The problem is, as written, most of these websites won’t allow comments at all on their websites. It’s a different problem for congress to handle.
The intention of 230 is actually valuable. It's effectively the same protection that a shopping mall has for the speech of people walking around in it. You can't sue the mall for another customer slandering you while you're walking around. Shopping malls act as public spaces. They kind of have to be, to fulfill their function as a place of free congregation, plus the malls have neither the interest nor capacity to monitor and control the speech of all people in the mall. A Town Square can still be a Town Square even if it's privately owned.
Once upon a time, it made sense to offer this protection as a platform to websites, because they were platforms. But two things have happened since then.
First, they have become more essential to public discourse. They have become public services. The law can compel you to grant access to someone to use a private road, if it is the only reasonable way for them to access their property. Certainly Twitter and Facebook have become places for public discourse that everyone with first amendment rights has the right to speak in. Twitter is the printing press of today.
Secondly, these companies have begun to exert editorial control over users' content. They have rules about what can and can't be said, and how things must be said, and assert full, sole, unaccountable authority to censor, suppress, and manipulate any user content they wish. And they have the technology to do so at a mass scale.
So on two fronts, the justification for Section 230 as it applies to social media has been completely undermined. But the principle is still important. Imagine an internet where a leftist could come on .win, anonymously post some libel or something, then sue the website and have the whole site taken down. For that matter, imagine a world where a restaurant can get sued by a customer that overhears another customer saying something offensive.
As for the vagueness of 230, it's partially by design. Obviously websites need some right to moderate content on their site. A) for spam, B) for illegal material, and C) because they get to determine what their platform is about. But C goes out the window once the platform positions itself as an integral layer of social, marketing, informational, and political infrastructure of the whole world. Twitter is not the equivalent of a knitting forum that doesn't want to let people talk about about scuba diving. By becoming more important and more public, they've lost their "private space" status, and they've lost their "acting in good faith" presumption by acting in bad faith.
So what to do about 230? You could argue it's an enforcement issue, and that on its face, editorializing user content makes you a publisher not a platform, therefore liable under current law. But we really need some rewording, clarification, or rewriting of the law itself, to make it explicit what differentiates platform and publisher, and what protections and privileges come with each of those statuses. Strict removal of the section would open the gates for a ton of litigation. (And that's not a bad way for this kind of statue to form, by the way. What would happen is a bunch of suits are filed, cases work their way to higher courts, and important courts, probably SCOTUS eventually, would decide what statutes work for properly separating platform and publisher. A lot of lawyers would get rich along the way, however).
It's wise of Trump to demand complete removal up front, though. It's a classic Trump tactic to ask for more than you want. Then people will freak out and say "Whoa whoa! Let's not be hasty. How about we just modify it so everyone's happy without getting a million lawyers involved?" rather than them just saying "Meh, no."
Getting rid of 230 entrenches their monopoly. Every single website on the internet that allows comments is protected by 230. That includes this site. Without 230, some brigade decides to post Micky mouse fanfic on our website and the next thing we are getting sued by Disney into the ground. The only companies that can survive that environment are the ones with big legal teams. Do I need to name those sites for you?
Great and Terrible at the same time in what sense? Ive been trying to undersrand 230 since trump mentioned it back in the day...
Eli5... No... 6. Eli6. If you dont mind!
long story short, social media companies enjoy liability protections because they are a public square. They aren't held to editorial standards that could expose them to libel/slander/content suits because they can't control what users post therefore it is seen as a public good basically. Now that they are censoring and editing content, specifically conservatives, and most specifically the president, the protection should be lifted. This opens the door for libel, slander, child porn, and many other lawsuits due to the revocation of their protection which basically renders it a useless entity.
They would get sued into bankruptcy overnight and would become a footnote in history books.
Yes we would have 3-6 months of shutdowns on website due to the fear of liability, including this very site.
But Congress would step up quickly to write new legislation that would make it crystal clear as to how you gain liability protection.
It can be done but right now social media giants get the best of both worlds, the edit and censor like publishers while getting the protection of a platform.
One tweak they would need to add is fan based or lets saw a site focused on hunting. The Hunting website could censor/delete posts regarding PETA and not be forced to become publishers.
What can't happen is a site claiming to be a public forum like twtter and allow them to ban conservatives. If twitter declared they were a SJW site then by all means they can ban who they want but even then they started as an open forum so they might be stuck as being open (they abused being 'open' to gain massive followings, had they been declared SJW from day one it would have never grown).
Twitter has declared themselves an SJW site. Read their terms of use.
If Twitter branded themselves as "only for communists" tomorrow do you think there would be a mass exodus? Nope, people are addicted to followers.
I think you're right about the "they'd be forced to make a new law" thing, but the plan could backfire. It could just force the US out as a place for innovation in the networking space. We could wind up having to use foreign sites just to publish our thoughts, subject to their laws. I don't know about you but I'd rather be able to talk about the Holocaust or criticize Islam and maybe have to go to a smaller website, I'd rather be subject to the rules of websites which I can switch between than the laws of foreign governments.
Or the government could decide to write some fucked up law that regulates what we say online, not just protecting us from censorship. Or the government could write a law firmly entrenching the big tech sites as institutions online even more. Or the government could write a law that opens you or I up to lawsuits if we decide to make a website and try to keep it topic specific. What happens with a "free speech" law online if we try to deport commies on this website?
I just don't see a real solution to this other than "if you make the website you decide what people can say on it" which is what we have now. And I'd definitely rather have to pick a different website to have conversations on than be able to say whatever on twitter but not be able to run my own website and risk lawsuits. I think the solution to this big tech censorship stuff is to just not use big tech, which is what I personally do.
Yes . But along with them every other site that allows user content. Including THIS. But what is even more likely to happen is the big sites will employ much stricter filters and A WHOLE LOT OF MODERATORS . and the smaller sites will be completely dead . Because who the fuck would want to start a site with such liabilities hanging over your head.
So, won’t this in theory just mean they would increase censorship across the board now? Since they would be liable for everything posted?
you say this as if there is anything to lose. let me remind you the president of the US and leader of the free world is being censored on every post and conservatives are banned and censored from all forms of social media every single day.. at least there would be legal recourse for their blatant partisanship
I'm saying whatever I want online right now. We have this site and others like it to lose. If the president made an account on this site right now he would never be censored on the internet again.
If section 230 gets repealed some commie is going to come on this site and spam it with CP or links to download the black panther movie and then the next day this site will be gone. Where will we have left? Why, the only websites with the money for legal teams, lobbyists and moderation capacity, twitter and Facebook.
Repeal of section 230 is a trojan horse. The solution is to not use websites that don't let you say what you want.
I dont like this explanation.
Social media wasnt a thing in the 90s. its a 2000s phenomenon.
We need to fix 230. How to fix? simple? Freedom of speech aside from blatantly illegal materials (Child pornography, Doxing offenders etc) and minor discretionary restrictions (Gore, porn, Doxes, etc) Its a platform. If you start trying to editorialize the words of elected officials? You are now a Publisher.
I personally think there should be a new category called "Private Bulletin Board (PBB - pronounced "pub")" which gives some protections for immediate infringements (like with the platform) but has more stringent specifications like a publisher. Basically an inbetween. Also make copyright takedowns harder on full Platforms and easier on PBBs and Publishers. There legal liabilities protected. you chose your class of service.
Thats the most fair to most companies I think.
-Also internet bill of rights NOW.
Make Usenet Great Again
So then what happens when I click that deport button when some commie shill comes on this website and says bullshit? We have to give them free speech here? How does that work?
If you think about this topic for 5 minutes a little bit you'll see that you simply cannot tell websites what sort of content they have to host. There is no legal solution to this problem. The solution is social in nature, a personal choice: don't use censorious platforms or big tech. The solution to the problem on a larger scope is based in a free market: people will move to places where they can have real conversations. Big tech will die due to this censorship on their own. There is no need for a law, only for another account on another website.
Did you even read what I wrote or nahh? You just went off?
Under what I wrote TDW is a PBB (pub). A private user forum with strict rules.. In fact most highly specialized forums are PBBs.
But besides the point, nothing here is about "legality" it's about status as a publisher or a platform. Ok a website doesnt want to hose certain content? thats their prerogative, just don't go expecting specialized protections for it
Yeah but it opens us up to the same lawsuits. It opens every single interactive website anyone has made or anyone is thinking of making to potential lawsuits.
Thank you! Trying to research it back in the day had be confused. You summed it up!
The bill protects everyone, even us, from stuff posted to your site's servers.
So the idea was to protect you and giving you the chance to delete illegal things from your site without getting in trouble at all, but they wrote it in such a way that allowed them to also delete "otherwise questionable content", which they've taken it upon themselves to mean "we'll remove anything we don't like, even presidential tweets".
Eliminating it entirely will destroy all social media, but at this point, it's for the better because it will destroy big tech in the process (this move would be the equivalent of going full scorched earth against them).
(pd: that said, I'm not sure if text-only speech is allowed without 230. if it was, we wouldn't have to take this site down)
(pd2: the better move would be to reform it, but traitors in congress are completely bought by big tech, or to have the FCC clarify it, but Ajit Pai is pozzed too, he pulled an AG BARR on us saying he'll do it and then didn't do jack shit)
Are we putting warnings on posts? Do we have clear rules and expectations and hold all people who join to the same rules?
If so, it wouldn't apply to us.
Draw me a picture of how that works exactly.
Want to bet this won't affect them one bit ? They already have the best tools in the world at their disposal . They will not let anything questionable on their sites.
The only ones who will be affected by the complete removal will be the smaller sites. Who don't have either the money or the legal teams to fight any of this.
The solution isn't complete removal. Just modify it so that if they censor legal content ... they loose their protection.
Usenet existed before 230
Basically, the argument is this: section 230 carved out special protections for these internet platforms. Mainly that they would be immune from liability if someone on their platform commits defamation, for instance. This is different than, say, The NY Times where if they print slanderous material they can be sued for it. This was all premised on a “good faith” clause in their ability to, basically, rid their cites of the worst kinds of shit. Like child porn, for instance.
It’s obvious, in the 90’s, no one could have predicted what these websites have become.
But now, the argument is, these companies are no longer acting like a platform (like a phone company) but a publisher (like NYT). That they are censoring content specific material and basically becoming like a publisher, and therefore shouldn’t be given special protections. I happen to agree, I think we must stop what is in front of us.
The problem is, as written, most of these websites won’t allow comments at all on their websites. It’s a different problem for congress to handle.
The intention of 230 is actually valuable. It's effectively the same protection that a shopping mall has for the speech of people walking around in it. You can't sue the mall for another customer slandering you while you're walking around. Shopping malls act as public spaces. They kind of have to be, to fulfill their function as a place of free congregation, plus the malls have neither the interest nor capacity to monitor and control the speech of all people in the mall. A Town Square can still be a Town Square even if it's privately owned.
Once upon a time, it made sense to offer this protection as a platform to websites, because they were platforms. But two things have happened since then.
First, they have become more essential to public discourse. They have become public services. The law can compel you to grant access to someone to use a private road, if it is the only reasonable way for them to access their property. Certainly Twitter and Facebook have become places for public discourse that everyone with first amendment rights has the right to speak in. Twitter is the printing press of today.
Secondly, these companies have begun to exert editorial control over users' content. They have rules about what can and can't be said, and how things must be said, and assert full, sole, unaccountable authority to censor, suppress, and manipulate any user content they wish. And they have the technology to do so at a mass scale.
So on two fronts, the justification for Section 230 as it applies to social media has been completely undermined. But the principle is still important. Imagine an internet where a leftist could come on .win, anonymously post some libel or something, then sue the website and have the whole site taken down. For that matter, imagine a world where a restaurant can get sued by a customer that overhears another customer saying something offensive.
As for the vagueness of 230, it's partially by design. Obviously websites need some right to moderate content on their site. A) for spam, B) for illegal material, and C) because they get to determine what their platform is about. But C goes out the window once the platform positions itself as an integral layer of social, marketing, informational, and political infrastructure of the whole world. Twitter is not the equivalent of a knitting forum that doesn't want to let people talk about about scuba diving. By becoming more important and more public, they've lost their "private space" status, and they've lost their "acting in good faith" presumption by acting in bad faith.
So what to do about 230? You could argue it's an enforcement issue, and that on its face, editorializing user content makes you a publisher not a platform, therefore liable under current law. But we really need some rewording, clarification, or rewriting of the law itself, to make it explicit what differentiates platform and publisher, and what protections and privileges come with each of those statuses. Strict removal of the section would open the gates for a ton of litigation. (And that's not a bad way for this kind of statue to form, by the way. What would happen is a bunch of suits are filed, cases work their way to higher courts, and important courts, probably SCOTUS eventually, would decide what statutes work for properly separating platform and publisher. A lot of lawyers would get rich along the way, however).
It's wise of Trump to demand complete removal up front, though. It's a classic Trump tactic to ask for more than you want. Then people will freak out and say "Whoa whoa! Let's not be hasty. How about we just modify it so everyone's happy without getting a million lawyers involved?" rather than them just saying "Meh, no."
im guessing: monopolies are great when you're in them.
getting rid of 230 will probably destroy their monopoly, is my guess
Getting rid of 230 entrenches their monopoly. Every single website on the internet that allows comments is protected by 230. That includes this site. Without 230, some brigade decides to post Micky mouse fanfic on our website and the next thing we are getting sued by Disney into the ground. The only companies that can survive that environment are the ones with big legal teams. Do I need to name those sites for you?