Earlier quoted context omitted.
> affirmed that private websites are not public spaces and social media companies don't have First Amendment obligations FWIW this is only thematically related, the order concerns the distinction between immune or non-immune activities under Section 230. If you publish something defamatory on your blog, and you operate it, you may be liable. Section 230 is there to say that if a website merely retransmits your public…
It's kind of a ridiculous idea. Before S230 that was the case: Executing any editorial control risked you being concluded to be the publisher. Online providers said this is bullshit, we want be able to remove garbage -- lies, obscene material, defamation, etc. If moderating makes us publishers over everything on our site and legally liable, we can't do that. Make us immune so we can clean up the worst of things, and…
Let's put in another way: publishers used to produce content (as in select, solicit, remunerate) to further their interests (financial, but sometimes also political, or cultural). Now the big social networks don't need to produce the content, but they can tap into such an enormous amount of it that they can limit themselves to shaping it. Promote certain posts, reduce the visibility of others. The overall effect is the same. You could probably make Facebook or Twitter in a great cultural publications just by tweaking the algorithm that determines the visibility of the posts.