Right or left, you should be worried about big tech censorship

Yes they do. They would not be able to be sued, if they were a common carrier, and in return, they would be unable to engage in many forms of censorship.

If they did not have section 230 protections, then them existing in their current form, would be almost impossible, and therefore, they would have to make the choice to receive the alternative protections, which are common carrier protections.

Common carrier protections are different from section 230 protections. If they are put in a position, where their only real option is to go under common carrier laws, then that would be the point.

> the average lawmaker want the companies to be able to do some forms of moderation

Common carriers are already allowed to do some forms of moderation/censorship. It is simply much much more limited.

And additional forms of moderation, could simply be handled over to the user, to choose what they want.

For example, it would be completely allowed for a customer, to have some automated calling blocklist, where they choose to block all adult content phonelines, that call them.

> Which brings us back to the original question

No it does not bring us back to that. Because common carriers are already allowed to do very limited forms of moderation, and that is what it would be a good thing to incentive facebook into having to follow.

We don't have to have lawmakers do anything except for get us into a position where facebook is strongly incentivized to choose to be under common carrier protections, where they will then be extremely limited in the types of censorship that common carriers are allowed limited to.

It means that they can't be sued for content on their platform. If they do not have section 230 protections, every piece of content on the platform, they would be responsible for.

And if they then choose to be a common carrier, they also get that immunity from being sued. There are 2 different ways of recieving this immunity to lawsuits. And if you take away way 1, which is section 230, then their only option is to take way 2, which is by being a common carrier.

> but if they choose not to moderate, they aren't liable.

The point would be to strongly incentivize them to respect the user's choice of moderation, common carrier laws, are the way that people often talk about, but sure maybe there is a 3rd way that you have found to do this.

> Such as?

Such as moderation that is done at the request of the user, for that specific user only. The phone company, can blocks calls if that user wants it, and common carrier laws dont stop that.

If Facebook was only allowed to do moderation, at the request of that specific, individual user (or, of course, things that are already illegal.), then that solves most of these problems, where users want moderation for themselves.

If we want to get more detailed here, we could imagine allowing categories of moderation, that facebook can engage in, if and only if the user opts into it. Then we don't have to define moderation, and can simply have it be whatever that specific user wants.

> the average citizen want more moderation

That can be done through incentivizing facebook to allow user choice, of their own moderation. Problem solved. Then they can get that moderation, and we don't have facebook forcing this moderation on others.

> What you appear to want is a form of no-moderation absolutism

Nope. I want the moderation to be left in the hands of the specific user. Therefore, everyone gets what they wants, except facebook I guess.

> most users of those systems

And yet, the phone system works perfectly fine. I don't particularly care if the phone companies are mad about being forced to follow certain laws. We wouldn't have to make laws, if they wanted to follow them.

The law should be applied to relevant details of a situation, not something arbitrary like incorporation unless the issue is specific to the details of incorporation.

That actually was my point: the governments do write the censorship rules already and define punishment that you get for violating them.

Child porn is censored, for example. Here in Germany there is censorship laws against promoting national socialism or antisemitism.

Our democracies are structured in a way that legally prevents the legislatures to write censorship rules as they please and without good reasoning, and that is usually achieved by constitutional law guaranteeing freedom of speech to the widest extent possible, of the press, of assembly and of religion, and a division of powers and the mandate for those divisions to check each other. The courts but also multi party democratic systems, the press, voters and activists and protestors play a significant role in this.

While this system is not perfect, and there were and will be mistakes and abuses along the way that need to be corrected - which usually takes a lot more time than anybody likes - it is still the best we ever had and will ever get I think. The only real "alternative" we tried, that of a "strong" leader or oligarchic group of "strong" leaders was and is always a lot worse.

But now we moved a very significant part, if not a major part, of public discussion forums onto the platforms of private companies, and are now surprised that the "strong" leaders on top of these companies do not necessarily share our values or even the minimal set of values our societies as a whole agreed on, and make up and change rules as they please, without any real repercussions so far.

And not just that, they sometimes actively try to use their immense powers of content distribution and "moderation" to nudge discussion into one way or another. We already see these companies getting bolder in restricting certain topics all by themselves, be it around certain Corona related topics, be it to "fight white supremacy" ideology or other "extremism". And of course the companies started by censoring topics where reasonable people would most likely say "oh, those are dangerous or vile ideas by dangerous or vile people" [and then somebody brings up the Paradox of Tolerance to justify letting the companies reign free in those areas]. I am pretty much convinced that a lot of these are test balloons by the companies to see how far they can push the envelope right now before the momentary backslash becomes too much. And if we let them, then over time they will slowly push the envelope further and further for more and more control.

We and our politicians even help those companies to gain more power and control, by writing laws delegating policing responsibilities to the companies and by demanding the companies start policing more against misinformation, extremism, racism or and other of those -isms more and more. Not only is that a transfer of power, it's at the same time regulatory capture making sure any future competitors to these companies have it almost impossible to enter the market at all.

The first step on your route to doom is signing a petition requiring people to "provide id before making a social media account" (as is happening right now e.g. in the UK because some racists said some vile things about English football players), and then before you know it you end up with a "social score" system like in China, except it's the big companies maintaining it and regulating it and not even the (repressive) government.

Good intentions and all that...

[/rant over]

No, that's partnerships or unincorporated associations (well, “people”, not necessarily “citizens”). Corporations are distinct legal entities created by the power of the state and im ued with state-issued charters whose investors are granted the immense legal privilege of limited liability.

> That shouldn't result in them losing rights simply because they are incorporated.

The exercise of state power involved in incorporation and the privileges at public expense it grants should absolutely be tied to restrictions and conditions that ensure that a sufficient public benefit to warrant the cost is served and that the exercise of state power involved in the creation, existence, and operation of the corporation is consistent with the restrictions otherwise applicable to state power.