This is why we can't have nice things. The social media platforms took things too far. Most republicans would be in favor of the platforms not being liable for content if they don't censor. Most and both political sides would probably also agree that they should be taking steps to protect minors from child predators etc., and that was the intent behind 230 protections. The social media platforms took 230 beyond what is was initially intended for as a premise to weaponize it against people who's politics they don't agree with. Obviously with that kinds of a loophole 230 was not well thought out from that regard and would need a re-write.

> The social media platforms took 230 beyond what is was initially intended for as a premise to weaponize it against people who's politics they don't agree with.

So what? You're taking it as a given that "if a website moderates content in a way I don't like, the government must step in and force them to do moderation in a different way I do like"; I don't accept that premise at all, it's quite totalitarian in both concept and real-world execution.

>The social media platforms took 230 beyond what is was initially intended for as a premise to weaponize it against people who's politics they don't agree with.

So what? And I mean that quite seriously.

To clarify, I despise the big social media platforms and refuse to use them even if that inconveniences me (and occasionally it does). At the same time, those platforms have the same free speech rights that I do, and curtailment of their free speech (and property) rights (in this case, the right not to publish/amplify the speech of others) also curtails my free speech (and property) rights.

And since I want to protect my own rights, I support the right of those rapacious scumbags to moderate/censor on their own private property.

You're right, these companies do have the right to censor speech that they disagree with. However, if they do that, then they are responsible for any speech that they do not censor. So for instance, if someone posts a libelous statement on Reddit, and Reddit doesn't remove that statement, then victim of libel should be allowed to sue Reddit directly, instead of just suing whoever made that post.

I think I'd agree if the circumstances are the same, and on request a libel was not taken down for you when it was for other people. The same circumstances including being on the same subreddit, being caught by the same auto-filter, being notified in the same way, at least.

So, for example if libel against you wasn't caught by a particular filter then that's not bias against you, and so they are not party to the libel (unless you can show the filter was specifically designed to fail to catch libels against you).

If platforms are going to be editors then they don't need section 230 protection.

So it turns out, inconveniently, "Children need protection from predators" and "People need protection from bigots" are two sides of the same coin.

It's all politics and it always was. Claiming one is "common sense" and one is "political" misses what "political" means.

I think S230 set a pretty good tone in biasing in favor of the right of the service owner to set the tone over-and-above within the constraints of the law (for a simple practical reason: if you don't give them that right, they'll just stop providing the service). But that does mean that when your provider decides that, say, debating the humanity of trans folks is no longer acceptable, we toe the line there or we start our own service.

Thanks for your input on this, especially for S230. I never understood the concept that a private business has to entertain or host content that they do not want on their site.

If a friend invited me to their house I can start calling their wife a fat cow and tell them how ugly I think their children are. It doesn't mean they have to put up with it or accept that sort of speech on their private property. That doesn't mean he censored me or inhibited my freedom of speech.

Well, did your friend invite you there saying his house was a place for you to share your mind?

For me, it's an issue of scale. Your friend is a single person (or family). Twitter is a gigantic, faceless corporation (okay, Elon Musk makes it less faceless, but you know what I mean) that tries to cater to everyone—in effect, it tries to be a commons. Can we consider it one? Should we? Should we make a law that says once a social media company gets to a certain size, it can't censor anything anymore if that content is legal?

I'm generally against additional regulation. I don't think, for instance, a small pro-life forum should be forced to allow pro-choice people to spew vitriol, nor vice versa. I'm hesitant to say the same for a giant company like Twitter or Facebook. There, I think it might be more appropriate to have comprehensive filtering and self-moderation tools vs. shutting people out completely (assuming their behavior is legal).

A lot of these issues stem from the fact that, until recently, society has never had to grasp these issues. Our laws are not equipped to handle these sorts of questions. Especially when that question ultimately is "When does a private company become a public service and, therefore, must abide by the laws and regulations applicable to all public services?"

My statements, while I myself do not necessarily agree with them, are what I view as possible when operating within the current legal framework our government has built for these private companies.

To me, if the government wants to hold a private company to the standard of a public service, then that private company must fully, legally, and entirely become (somewhat) a public service. I view that as becoming a service similar to the United States Post Office.

It's allowed to continue to operate as a company but has to comply with government regulations (whatever those may be). That also means that its goal is not profit generation. It can still charge users for certain services if it wishes but is no longer able to sell user data, and it must remain revenue-neutral.

This is a fair analogy but I think it could go further: your friend shouldn't be required to take what you say, print it out, and hand copies to everyone else that comes in to their house. They can say no, you can't do this here and I won't repeat it.

And I think this is perfectly acceptable when the service in question is one out of many. The reason why it is so contentious today is that a few megacorps have effectively come to define what "the Internet" is for the majority of people, though, and their ability to exclude content translates to extreme amount of political power in practice - so much so that it should not be tolerated in a free society.

But the solution to this problem is not to force those private service providers to be hands-off, but to make sure that none of them are big enough that it matters. Which the political forces that are pushing for these laws won't do, because their political economy boils down to "capitalism good, anti-monopoly bad", and that inevitably leads to the present state of affairs in practice.

Most Republicans want to censor just different things, just look at all the book bannings across the country. There are tons of things that lefty people complain about being censored on social media but we don't here about it because left-wing media is nowhere near as powerful as right-wing media. (The main lie in a lot of these discussions is that corporate media is lefty.)

Speaking as another leftie, corporate media is very much culturally left. But there is a big disconnect between cultural left and economic left now, to the point where the rhetoric of the former is used to distract from the latter.

Id like an example because i don't buy it. Unless you count something like reporting that scientists say climate change is real.

I mean, pick pretty much any cultural issue on which there is a clear left/right political split. Abortion, LGBT rights etc.

CDA 230 exists because the Wolf of Wall Street was trying to censor evidence of his crimes. He got one ruling against Prodigy saying moderation makes you liable for defamation; and another from Compuserve saying no moderation means no liability.

Let me be very clear about how the law would work sans CDA 230: any time someone does not like what you are saying, they can sue the platform you host it on to get you censored. The only platforms resistant to this would be ones full to bursting with spam. This is already really bad. If you want a partial repeal, i.e. one where platforms are still allowed to "protect minors from child predators", I'm not sure that'll pass muster at SCOTUS. Selectively removing speech protections based on content is a no-go.

Furthermore, platforms being able to take down political speech they disagree with is not a "loophole". That's just what moderation is. The whole point of a moderator is to silence the loudest voices, so that others may speak.

Section 230 was written without limitation on the kind of censorship allowed because it was an end-run around Constitutional prohibition of government content favoritism that had destroyed previous censorship laws and waa (correctly) suspected would endanger much of the rest of the law it was incorporated into.

If you want to allow the kind of private censorship S230 was intended to protect, and stay within the First Amendment, S230 is what you get.

230 isn't a loophole, it's a requirement for any business on the web. You cannot even have product reviews without something like 230.

>to make social media itself inhospitable

I see nothing wrong with that. Social media has done nothing but harm its users, and people that know its users (or: everybody)

Thanks for your comment here on the social media site, Hacker News!

I think we have to reorient ourselves on what counts as social media. It's not just Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It's forums like Hacker News, it's comment sections on your favorite blogs you frequent. It's the products available on Etsy or a small creator's personal Shopify store.

Free speech isn't just about photos and text, it covers all forms of expression.

We used to just call these forums. Social media is a subset of forum where the posts are presented in a personally curated timeline of some kind.

I would argue forums are just a subset of social media. "Social media" being the high level umbrella for platforms where users interact. Differentiated from platforms which are "read-only".

I knew I would get the replies that I got. It reminds me of this meme: https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/036/647/Scr...

And yet you are still here, posting memes. Are we just stuck in a loop forever?

> Social media has done nothing but harm its users

Nothing? I don't think it's that cut and dry. While there has been harm, no doubt, there has been a lot of positives too (maintaining connections, thoughtful conversations, etc).

Then why did you write this comment on HN (an example of social media)?

Then why are you writing here on this social media and harming people?

Social media is such a big part of modern communications, that arguing against it is like arguing against telephone lines or the printing press. There's a lot to criticise the owner companies for, including how social media can harm people and infamously promote and accelerate genocide, such as Facebook is accused of having done in Myanmar. But the same accusations can be levied against any means of communication and publishing technology.

Why single out Republicans?

The Democrats hate Section 230 as much as the republicans.

The Florida and Texas laws were both passed by Republican legislatures. And Biden and Obama have not yet been banned by Twitter.

And yet GP is broadly correct:

“The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms. It should be revoked because it is not merely an internet company. It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false.” - Joe Biden

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/08/white-house-renews-...

https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/section-230-reform-legi...

what?

Do we need to protect the social media platforms? Do they even add value to society?

> Do they even add value to society?

Your presence here is your answer. Why are you here if social media doesn't provide any value?

You'd have to be braindead to not understand the immense value social media has added to society. But like all things, social media has it's negative aspects. But just because social media isn't perfect, doesn't mean it has no value. As I said, your presence here is proof of that.

I guess I'm braindead.

Their presence here does not indicate they value their time here in a net-positive way. It offers no proof whatsoever.

They could be addicted. FOMO could drive them to compulsively check the site. It might be their only social interaction at all during the workday. This might be the only group of people on the internet with similar interests.

None of those things would necessarily make it a net-good thing, if it also has negative repercussions that outweight the benefits. Many drugs, legal and illegal, are fairly harmful. Sometimes the benefits are worth the negatives. Sometimes they are very firmly not. Much of the anti-social-media position is about social media being addicting and net-harmful.

I personally don't see the immense value that you see. I've seen some value for some specific sites for some short, specific times. My grandma could interact with some of her grandkids for a short while on Facebook, for instance. Of course, she (or we) used to just pick up the phone, which is what happens now too. I've seen some cool projects on HN I'd otherwise likely never have seen. Otherwise I'm drawing a blank.

> I guess I'm braindead.

Lets see shall we.

> None of those things would necessarily make it a net-good thing

Who is talking 'net' here? The commenter simply questioned whether social media added any value to society. To deny social media has provided any value to society is as braindead as denying that fossil fuels added value to society. Now whether the negatives outweight the positives ( aka net value ) is an entirely different question.

> My grandma could interact with some of her grandkids for a short while on Facebook, for instance. Of course, she (or we) used to just pick up the phone, which is what happens now too. I've seen some cool projects on HN I'd otherwise likely never have seen.

Oh so it does provide value. So you are agreeing with me then?

> Otherwise I'm drawing a blank.

You aren't braindead. You are disingenuous. So you never asked for or search for information on reddit, hn, stackoverflow, etc. You never found solutions to problems on tiktok, youtube, etc? You don't know anyone who found a job via hn, linkedin, etc? Bought or sold stuff on facebook, etc?

If you believe that the negatives of social media outweigh the positives of social media, then fine. That's your opinion. But to cavalierly dismiss or deny that social media provides value to society is being disingenuous at best or braindead at worst. Or more likely agenda driven nonsense.

Your comment reminds me of this excellent monty python clip: What have the romans done for us?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qc7HmhrgTuQ

Do you think this would stop at the big boys like Facebook and Twitter?

What about Reddit? If I post a story in r/AITAH that the other person discovers, this opens Reddit up to a possible libel lawsuit if the other person thinks I'm not being truthful. Do you think that's a risk that Reddit's legal department will let them take? I highly doubt it. Do you think unpaid volunteer mods want to be legally liable if they remove a post for violating guidelines?

Let's go another level deeper, your neighborhood's Nextdoor forum. If Susan from down the road starts saying I slept with her husband to bad mouth me on the app, I could not just sue Susan for libel, but I can also include Nextdoor in the lawsuit. Do you think Nextdoor's legal team will allow that? Again, nope. But Nextdoor wouldn't be able to remove Susan's post because it would be "silencing her freedom of speech". So instead, Nextdoor takes the logical legal decision to completely remove any user-generated posts, effectively killing their product.

And another level deeper, some random classic car forum with maybe 100 users per month. What do they do? I think you get the hint.

This isn't just going to affect social media platforms. This will affect all platforms that allow users to post in any capacity, text, photos, videos, links, etc.

I'm sure the spooks agree that information was a lot easier to control when it was just ABC, NBC, and CBS

i share your tinfoilery: the goal is to erode public discourse on the internet, censorship (self or otherwise), and so on.

> My concern, ultimately, is what's going to happen when these laws are introduced and a republican congress continues to pursue a rejection of Section 230?

It's not a mystery. Look what happened when sesta/fosta became law. Craigslist had to dump their entire personal section for fear they miss a single ill intentioned post.

The consequence of 230 removal is only to destroy the ability for people to interact with one another publicly online unless one of them (or the platform) is willing to take on liability for the interaction.

that's bullshit, we don't need platforms to interact online, we were doing that fine before myspace and facebook and perhaps you're too young to remember that but it worked pretty well and we were all on the hook for what we hosted on our sites.

We were, but not our hosting providers. Because they were protected by the law.

If what GP describes comes true, they won't be anymore.

My point is that it wouldn't even be safe to run a comments section on a personal blog, as any comments would count as being published by the blog owner.

Private, p2p communication would be fine, but anything publicly consumable would present a liability risk for libel, slander, etc.

Where am I miscalculating?

It's a valid concern.

In Australia, our high court ruled that companies are liable for comments posted on their social media pages[0].

It's had massive chilling effects on the ability to engage in discourse. Comments sections are almost always disabled on content produced by Australian media corporations.

[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/08/high-court-rul...

Fine by me. These site can all die in a ball of fire. We were fine before them when we all had our own sites and all too responsibility for what we said and hosted. Returning to that is not a problem for some of us who were around before Facebook and YouTube.

I 100% agree with you that we should self-host more (and the surge in technologies like ActivityPub make me excited to think of what a future of self-hosted socials may bring). But that brings up another question:

If I self-host my own site and my estranged conspiracy theorist uncle posts something I don't agree with on my site and I remove it, will these laws make me liable for infringing on his freedom of speech? To my knowledge, there is no definition of what social media is or what companies/people/sites/technologies do these laws apply to.