Re:Social Media First Amendment Cases
by kmeisthax on Tuesday February 27, 2024 @02:44PM
(#39528748)
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.
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.