>Section 230 of the CDA is the government getting in the way of business; granting these businesses privileged immunity such that they can have all the advantages of operating as a common carrier, while actually operating as a publisher.
Section 230 doesn't "grant these businesses privileged immunity." Section 230 applies to all persons and all devices connected to the Internet in the United States.
It provides that you cannot be sued for something another person says. That's it.
And it applies to you and me and Hacker News and fuckfacebook.pro and Twitter and your github repo, your favorite twitch channel and any other internet user or resource when more than one person can share bits.
If there was no section 230, it would destroy free speech on the Internet.
Let's take HackerNews as an example. Without Section 230, if the owners of HackerNews continued to allow up/downvotes/flags, they would be liable to be sued for any content they did not delete that anyone chose to sue over.
Given that they almost certainly can't afford that sort of liability, they would have three choices:
1. Do not allow any third-party content (user submissions, user comments), which would pretty much defeat the whole purpose of the site except as a place to drop PR pieces for YC companies;
2. Do not perform any moderation at all. Which would include spam, porn and all other manner of ridiculous, offensive and/or irrelevant material, or;
3. Shut down the site.
And that would be true for all sites (including github repos, mailing lists, mastodon instances, most web sites, etc., etc., etc) except those with deep enough pockets to be able to fight the innumerable lawsuits.
Who would that be? Facebook, Twitter and Google. The very people you decry would be the only ones who could afford the liability in a world without Section 230.
> Section 230 doesn't "grant these businesses privileged immunity." Section 230 applies to all persons and all devices connected to the Internet in the United States.
This is specious; said blanket immunity is a privilege, and we do not demand any concessions in return. We allow platforms (happier?) to profit from the benefits of operating as a public square and an editorial publisher, simultaneously.
> If there was no section 230, it would destroy free speech on the Internet.
Prior to the CDA’s passage in 1996, the internet provided almost unlimited, unhindered free speech. What we have now pales in comparison.
If you think existing protections for common carriers and “mechanical distributors” are not strong enough, then we can surely update them for the internet.
However, that does not even remotely begin to justify the give-away that 230 represents. If we’re going to grant the privilege of immunity to platforms such that they can safely privatize the public square, we ought to demand they actually make some concessions to operate like actual public squares.
