We accept that a person can’t cry out “fire” in a theatre to induce a panic. Why can’t we accept that coordinating messages for propaganda/special interests through misleading ads or fake accounts to also be damaging?

Why can a country like Saudi Arabia or Israel both whitewash its crimes on Twitter/Facebook and suppress its enemies? Why can corporations and rich political campaigns specialize ads to prey on fears in an individualized manner to advance its agenda?

Such opinions will trigger endless debates when the damage on the ground is real and ongoing. Post-reality is truly the terrible state of this world.

do we actually? Wasn't that overuled, or thrown out, or otherwise dismissed?

230 has nothing to do with censorship/moderation. If anything, it permits more types of content by absolving platforms from the responsibility.

Should 230 remove the right for companies/individuals/platforms to have a say in the content they publish? Should platforms not be able to make decisions about how they moderate their own platforms?

> Should 230 remove the right for companies/individuals/platforms to have a say in the content they publish?

If they wish to be afforded the legal protections offered by 230, yes. It is a choice - not an obligation. A trade-off.

> Should platforms not be able to make decisions about how they moderate their own platforms?

They should be able to, but, again, accepting the responsibility of being a platform rather than a publisher means that there should be limits to what can be considered inappropriate. There is certainly no easy answer for where that line is drawn, but it does need to be drawn. A heavy-handed moderation policy can effectively become publishing requirements.

1: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

Section 230 protects companies from liability in the case they censor and fail to censor unprotected speech.

Without that, they are not immune from liability for what someone else wrote. That means, they would censor more, because they would be liable full stop.

Private companies are allowed to censor on their servers by default, section 230 does not allow them to censor more then before.

> Private companies are allowed to censor on their servers by default, section 230 does not allow them to censor more then before.

In the absence of 230, platforms would either vigorously censor everything, or would moderate nothing except for outright illegal content (e.g. child pornography). §230 gave more flexibility to allow some "community standards" without subjecting the platform to liability as a publisher.