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There is a lot of confusion about what Section 230 is and what it does. This thread will give you a very high level summary so you all can understand why no one serious, not even the critics, want an outright repeal of Section 230. /1 https://twitter.com/senatorshoshana/status/1333968910845169667
In the early days of the internet, courts applied traditional intermediary liability analysis to the Internet, meaning that that if a website that allowed user-generated content had any knowledge of a piece content, they were legally liable for any damages. /2
Unfortunately, if a service decided to moderate user generated content at all, the service was construed to have knowledge of everything on the website. If they didn't moderate, they were in the clear. This is what is known as the moderators dilemma. /3
Obviously, this is a bad outcome. One one hand, a platform would choose to over-moderate content, ensuring nothing that could even remotely get them sued would stay up. This means that legitimate, but potentially inflammatory, speech would be removed. /4
On the other hand, they could choose to do nothing, allowing all kinds of harmful content (even content not illegal but objectionable like pornography) would be available on the service so long as a user posted it. /5
Section 230 works to resolve this dilemma. The main provision simply states: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. /6
By protecting services who choose to moderate content, Congress ensured that services would have the flexibility to set the standards for their own websites, ultimately finding the appropriate balance between speech and moderation. /7
Now to be clear, this isn't a special handout or something unique to "big tech." These protections allow all kinds of services to flourish. Wikipedia, for example, would likely never have been successful without protections as users post information to the website. /8
So why does the President want to revoke Section 230? He doesn't like that platforms keep removing/limiting the availbility of his content and thinks that going after 230 would force them to host it. This is not how 230 works, as moderation is protected by the first amendment. /9
Instead, removing Section 230 protections would simply make services liable for what they decide to leave up, meaning even more "conservative" content would be removed. However, the effects would be far more reaching than that, as vulnerable groups would get forced offline. /10
So let's be clear about what removing Section 230 protections would and would not do before we force a revocation through the NDAA. I feel like I am taking crazy pills but here we are. Now if you excuse me I am going back to re-reading Rhythm of War. /end
