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You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

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Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#101

Post by michaelmrose »

chrisco255 wrote: post #8

> If you said "Section 230 is a massive gift to big tech!" > Once again, I must inform you that you are very, very wrong. If section 230 is no big deal, let's just repeal it. What's the hoopla about it, then? Why are companies so adamant to protect it? The section itself is very broad, but the impetus for the passing of Section 230 was to protect free speech by removing liability concerns for what others say online.…

You don't have a right to an audience anywhere in the world and you will never have one here.

People are finally being deplatformed because they are using someone else's megaphone to spread bigotry hate lies and violence. I have a hard time seeing the problem.

The approximate 1 million military casualties ever died for many causes. So far as I'm aware enabling the spiritual successors of the confederate traitors and nazis to have a voice in someone else's house.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#102

Post by entwife »

Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #26

Before today I was a strong defender of section 230. After today, I say burn it all down.

I checked, and even after the Twitter ban, President Trump can still post on the White House web site and on his own Trump brand web sites. He just can't use Twitter, Facebook, etc. right now.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#103

Post by michaelmrose »

lovecg wrote: post #72
rubatuga wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is probably not the response you wanted, but I think it's an argument for decentralized and federated services, along with self-hosting.

I admittedly don’t know much about this space, but there must be a reason these solutions didn’t take off (I don’t know whether it’s fundamental scaling issues, lack of a centralized group driving product design, or just lack of user interest as existing solutions are “good enough” + network effects). But if the market is failing to select for these approaches it seems that the only way forward is to shape the market…

Decentralized solutions are hard, harder to monetize, complicated for users to deploy.

Historically users who don't care about their privacy much, are incapable of hosting themselves because their isp sucks and they are technically illiterate, and have little chance of being banned.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#104

Post by virgilp »

EE84M3i wrote: post #80
TameAntelope wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, "Defund the police" does literally mean "reduce funding to what we currently refer to as the police force" whereas "repeal section 230" couldn't (in your interpretation) literally mean "strike section 230 from the US code". The reality is what this article outlines towards the end; this is already covered by the 1st Amendment in large part, Section 230 does the bulk of its work in simplifying cou…

>For what it's worth, "Defund the police" does literally mean "reduce funding to what we currently refer to as the police force" I think the relevant part is that one definition of "defund" is (from Google answer box/featured snippet, only provided definition): >prevent from continuing to receive funds. So some people upon first hearing the phrase "defund the police" understand it to mean "prevent the police from con…

"Defund the police" is such a bad catchphrase, it does all sorts of disservices to the actual proposed measures. It sounds vengeful and petty, not thoughtful. It's also misleading - the purpose is not (or should not) be primarily to make sure police has less funds; it's to make sure social services and other programs have funds. Why not call it "fund social services" instead of "defund the police", instead? ("fund social services" is a bad name, but the spirit is right - focus on the positive outcome, not on how you'll "hurt" the police. If you want to focus on police, focus on how you'll improve their mission and help them do a better job at reducing violence in communities)

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#105

Post by post_below »

jojobas wrote: post #83
post_below wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons are obvious but the outcome is the important thing. Largely the sentiments behind wanting to repeal section 230 seem to be about the big platforms. The point that often gets missed is that without 230 ONLY the big platforms could afford to exist (and probably not even them in their current form). So while the goal to limit the power of the tech giants may be good, the proposed method will likely accomplis…

The outcome of the current situation is clear: people's minds are influenced by unchecked, politically slanted, big corporate entities under a guise of social interaction. I struggle to see how additional measures aimed at said entities (which is the kind of amendment typically sought) would remove competition.

Yes, aim measures at said entities, I support that idea.

Repealing section 230 is not that.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#106

Post by jmull »

chrisco255 wrote: post #8

> If you said "Section 230 is a massive gift to big tech!" > Once again, I must inform you that you are very, very wrong. If section 230 is no big deal, let's just repeal it. What's the hoopla about it, then? Why are companies so adamant to protect it? The section itself is very broad, but the impetus for the passing of Section 230 was to protect free speech by removing liability concerns for what others say online.…

The argument in that section is that section 230 is a big gift to everyone on the internet, not just big tech.

The article does not argue that 230 is “no big deal” as you suggest. (Just the opposite, in fact.)

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#107

Post by inglor_cz »

notahacker wrote: post #98
meekrohprocess wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't believe so. Any individual can easily create a website and publish whatever they like. It costs maybe $100/year and takes a couple of hours for an inexperienced user to set up a Wordpress blog with manually-moderated comments. Nobody's speech would be censored if Section 230 were repealed. Instead, platforms would be treated as though they had consciously decided to publish every publically-available comm…

If Section 230 were repealed the business model of selling ads around user generated content would still exist, but it would cost enough in lawyers to kill off the smaller forums that actually wanted to moderate properly, and you could be sued over the manually moderated comments in your WordPress blog.

I have a WordPress blog and a separate forum for comments.

If I were responsible for comments, I would do either of two things:

a) just shut down the forum, b] use a paid commenting service that would come with moderation. This means that people who would want to comment would probably pay some fee for that privilege.

Accidentally, b) is unusual for us, but a quite sustainable model. Surely more sustainable than current "show ads for free stuff", which seems to be hitting its limits.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#108

Post by michaelmrose »

NE2z2T9qi wrote: post #64
zerocrates wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The snark isn't directed so much at people who want repeal (though techdirt pretty clearly would disagree with them on that point also) but rather at the very large contingent of people who express with total conviction that the law right now draws lines between neutral "platforms" who are protected and biased "publishers" who are not, when the law in fact does the exact opposite.

> when the law in fact does the exact opposite Yes. That’s exactly the problem people who want it repealed are pointing out: the current law offers broad blanket protection to social media companies to moderate content however they want, even if their moderation practices are highly editorial and partisan, akin to traditional publishers. Techdirt seems to think people don’t understand that the law doesn’t distinguish…

I don't want offensive or hateful people to have free reign on Twitter and Facebook indeed most don't.

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#109

Post by marcus_holmes »

conistonwater wrote: post #31
npunt wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a way though so is life.

If you extrapolate backwards, imagine how good life must have been in the 80's.

we were too busy imagining how good life was in the 60's to enjoy the 80's properly

Re: You've Been Referred Here Because You're Wrong About Section 230 of the CDA

#110

Post by glasss »

colllectorof wrote: post #85

Dismissive article that misrepresents both why "normal" people out there are unhappy about section 230 and what the higher levels of conversation about changing it really look like right now[1]. Articles like this are read meat for Hacker News. You endlessly reassert your political bias while pretending you are "informing" some imaginary group of stupid people (who in reality isn't even here to be "informed"). [1] He…

>Today its primary effect is to give an impenetrable legal shield to giant tech corporations that engage in deliberate society-wide manipulation of information.

I think this would be better phrased as "... legal shield to websites that only want to show certain content to its users."

"[S]ociety-wide manipulation of information" would imply that everyone gets their news and information from Facebook, Twitter, etc which gets linked directly into their brain regardless if they want it. These giant tech corporations aren't holding a gun to anyone's head - they all started with zero users and they will end when they have zero users.

If this is what "most people" are unhappy about, just wait until they read the TOS and realize what else they agreed to.

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