One of the big complaints towards these platforms is that content is already too clustered (the filter bubble effect). Clustering people makes things worse.

I struggle to see how clustering trolls so they're just trolling each-other is a problem?

K-means clustering can quite easily distinguish between "echo chambers" -- where people just want to hear others who parrot their opinions and downvote any other voice, from "reasoned debate" -- where people downvote others who spout un-reasoned opinion, but upvote people they don't agree with, but who bring reasoned, respectful debate.

This is a solved problem. Its just that platform owners don't like the financial (and other) results of the solution.

Echo chambers cause an overall increase in extremism. After reddit banned /r/fatpeoplehate, reddit as a whole became less mean.

When you give extremism room to congregate, extremists feel more empowered. (This is generally true, but relevant only to extremism at the moment).

Unless you simultaneously cut them off from the rest of the site, which in the context of reddit, twitter, and Facebook doesn't make sense, you just make things worse.

> Liberty means liberty for all, especially those whom you intensely disagree with.

Correct, and said people have the liberty to create their own websites.

Freedom of speech also means freedom from compelled speech. Removing section 230 means all sites have to be like 4chan - devoid of moderation and hosting the content of genuine Nazis and the like.

While it's fair to point out that moderation may be biased, forcing sites to remove moderation for fear of being held liable for content users post is not a positive change.

Note that the groups pushing the removal of section 230 are some of social media's biggest competitors (namely traditional media). This is a calculated move. Remove section 230 and social media becomes a cesspool. This pushes users out of social media and back in front of cable news and newspapers.

Or, remove sec. 230 protections and social media becomes Disneyland and the cesspool recedes to the "darknet".

(Whether that's a good thing or not I dunno.)

This will not be the result. The scale of content posted on social media makes it impossible to remove content that could result in lawsuits or charges down the road. The only way for social media companies to avoid liability would be to eliminate moderation. Either that or remove comments and user uploaded content outside of a much smaller pool of vetted people - and at that point it's not longer really social media is it?

This thread is being throttled, reply in edit:

Understand that removing section 230 means that companies are treated as though they are the ones making the statements.that users post. One user recruits terrorists, or participates in sex trafficking and the whole site is responsible for recruiting terrorists and engaging in sex trafficking in the eyes of the law. With stakes this high delegating moderation to users doesn't cut it.

If companies like Facebook or Google don't have the resources to comply then there's zero chance that a smaller company with less resources can do so. There's a reason why removal of section 230 is being pushed by cable and traditional news. It's a death sentence for some of their biggest competitors.

> The scale of content posted on social media makes it impossible to remove content that could result in lawsuits or charges down the road.

Impossible or just expensive?

Reddit amortizes moderation over it's user-base, couldn't they share liability too? FB and Twitter could do likewise.

On the other hand, if it really is too expensive to moderate at scale maybe these companies should be broken up?

The cesspool's already on the clearnet, we have examples of what it looks like: 4Chan, Gab, Voat - are all platforms that pride themselves on minimal moderation.

If we want the entire internet to either look like that, or force platforms to review every post for potential illegality (an impossible task), then yeah removing S230 is the way to go. If we think that sounds silly, then preserving S230 is essential.

Image boards are not devoid of moderation. They just don't go out of their way to censor political extremists they don't agree with.

freedom of speech is a bit of a red herring here. liability (and even criminal penalties) for certain speech is not generally considered incompatible with the first amendment. keep in mind that section 230 exempts the platform from the usual liability and penalties that an individual or company would normally face.

>keep in mind that section 230 exempts the platform from the usual liability and penalties that an individual or company would normally face.

As it should. If you insult Elon Musk on here, you should sued for it. Why do you think HN should be liable? Section 230 doesnt say you wouldn't be liable.

I think the current state of things is just fine for a niche forum like HN, but not so much for a huge platform like facebook. see my other comments on this article if you're curious about my position.

also, elon would probably be considered a "public figure". it would be pretty hard for him to win any sort of libel suit over a random internet post.

It only "is not a positive change", suddenly, now that websites friendly to the accepted dogma du jour are at risk of being exposed to it!

So let me get this straight: the total removal of moderation, and the subsequent inclusion of content which espouses ideas of racial superiority and extermination of peoples is a positive change?

Calling for violence against groups of people is not illegal. Only specific, actionable incitement of violence [1]. I don't think you really understand what total absence of moderation really means.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_v._Ohio

I'm wondering how you jumped from "K-means Clustering", which implements much stronger and more fairly applied moderation than any current scheme, to "total removal of moderation".

K-means clustering is insufficient to guarantee that no content that results in lawsuits or charges gets uploaded. These are sites with a billions of users. A failure rate of even 0.001% still means a lot of content that can result in charges or lawsuits gets through.

Removal of section 230 means companies can even be criminally liable for things their users post. It's not a question of fairness at that point.

Of course not - since that is an impossible task. We can’t even build LEGO sites that make it impossible for kids to build and upload genitalia. Nor should we - if you don’t want your kids seeing LEGO dicks, help them downvote a bunch of users that upload those, and voila, they don’t see any posts by any users in that cluster. Conversely, your “beevis and butthead” kid sees nothing but dicks. Fill your boots...

The only requirement is long-lives identities. Create a new identity anytime you want; it’s just that no veteran users will see anything you post until you establish a long track record of reasoned debate, and work yourself through clusters with logarithmic aging baskets, until you finally “graduate” to being seen by people of substance in your target audience. And, you can easily move yourself out again, by a few hot-headed off-the-cuff remarks. Welcome to the real world! Actions have consequences.

The thing about being an unbiased conduit vs. a editorializing publisher is significant; if your clustering algorithms are standardized and published, and aren’t subject to editorial interference — you’re safe from lawsuits, just like the phone companies.

It is unlikely that you will be able to escape from the requirement to give up metadata on users to the FBI — just like the phone company.

Removal of section 230 for companies that have proven themselves unworthy by clearly political editing of users posting feeds deserve what they’re going to get, when they lose these protections, in my opinion.

If they want to run an opinionated newspaper, then they’ve chosen the heavy lifting required to ensure no rando publishes an illegal article. Tough beans.

> The only requirement is long-lives identities. Create a new identity anytime you want; it’s just that no veteran users will see anything you post until you establish a long track record of reasoned debate, and work yourself through clusters with logarithmic aging baskets, until you finally “graduate” to being seen by people of substance in your target audience. And, you can easily move yourself out again, by a few hot-headed off-the-cuff remarks. Welcome to the real world! Actions have consequences.

And? None of this changes the fact that without Section 230 protections, companies are dead. There's simply no way to reliably prevent any and all illegal content from being posted. Sites like HN could not exist. There's no way Paul Graham, or whoever actually owns HN, is going to risk criminal charges to keep the forum running.

> It is unlikely that you will be able to escape from the requirement to give up metadata on users to the FBI — just like the phone company.

Giving metadata to law enforcement never had anything to do with Section 230. All section 230 says is, people hosting content are not liable for content created by other people.

> Removal of section 230 for companies that have proven themselves unworthy by clearly political editing of users posting feeds deserve what they’re going to get, when they lose these protections, in my opinion.

> If they want to run an opinionated newspaper, then they’ve chosen the heavy lifting required to ensure no rando publishes an illegal article. Tough beans.

So it's not a blanket removal. It's a targeted removal of section 230 protections from sites that are perceived to have biased moderation.

This is even worse. Now politicians can go to Facebook or YouTube and say, "hey, you better promote positive content about me and negative content about my opponents or I'm going to strip your Section 230 protections." Such a change to Section 230 likely won't lead to less biased sites, it'll lead to even more biased sites as they lick the boots of politicians to keep their protections. There's nothing stopping a government from claiming that k-clusters are biased. This mechanism of some sites getting liability protections and others not getting them is rife for abuse.

This isn't about removing section 230. The DOJ proposal has essentially 4 goals:

- requiring platforms to be more proactive about removing illegal content.

- helping law enforcement to punish illegal content

- enabling antitrust action against monopoly platforms

- requiring platforms to be more transparent regarding their moderation policy

The first two I'm conflicted about, but the latter two I think would be a big win.