. @markweinstein, founder of @mewe in @WSJ: Small Sites Need Section 230 to Compete - Facebook and Twitter can afford armies of lawyers to defend against liability. https://www.wsj.com/articles/small-sites-need-section-230-to-compete-11611602173 THANK YOU

"Revoking Section 230 would exacerbate censorship and reduce the competition that is the real solution."

230 "makes it possible for modestly funded or self-funded startups to enter the market and compete with bigger companies."

"Those who want to get rid of Section 230 say this would stop social networks and websites from unfairly censoring their users’ political comments. In reality, it would give them an incentive to censor far more aggressively..."

"To protect themselves from being sued over content, they would remove anything remotely controversial. Users would be spied on constantly."

The alternative is no moderation and unusable and unsafe platforms. because any moderation = liability w/o 230

"Ironically, this would help FB, Twitter, Google and other social-media giants while hurting smaller companies and new startups. The big boys have deep pockets. They can easily hire the massive moderation and legal teams that would be necessary to defend themselves. I can’t."

"Revoking Section 230 would put hundreds of startups and other smaller companies out of business."

And without moderation, sites would be "quickly overrun with spam, hate speech, pornography, bullying, doxing and people inciting violence...

... Not only would this be dangerous, it would make these sites unusable for most people. This has already happened on “anything goes” sites like 8Chan and Secret, whose founder shut the site down disgusted by its content and refunded its investors."

"In the past several weeks MeWe has gained millions of new members by offering data privacy, freedom from targeted ads, and no political censorship, while safeguarding members with common-sense rules of decency. These are significant competitive differentiations."

"Section 230 is essential to protect fair competition and free expression on the web. To the Biden administration, members of Congress and all supporters of true capitalism, please let the free market, liberated by Section 230, get the job done."

BUT I will say - 99% of this article is dead-on and rules and I appreciate his voice!! But 1 error - there is no classification with or w/o 230 as "platform" or "publisher." The issue is that prior to 230, courts thought any moderation meant sites must know/be accountable for all