Section 230 is critical for tech businesses and platforms that facilitate free distribution of speech. Without this, we can be confident that "user generated content" would look very different, and moderation efforts would be much more censorious. As the EFF said in the article...

> The law is not a shield for Big Tech. Critically, the law benefits the millions of users who don’t have the resources to build and host their own blogs, email services, or social media sites, and instead rely on services to host that speech.

Even if you support a re-write of 230, you should oppose the proposed law to remove it because the timing of the proposed law. The proposal would expire 230 during an election cycle, and that would be horrific for online discourse about the election. The liability of hosting political discourse, and the potential to be sued for libel would make user content about politics toxic. It's undoubtable that at least one side of the political spectrum would use it to remove opposition and opposing opinions. The current administration has proven they're absolutely willing to take punitive measures against companies and people based on their speech, even when legally protected and large companies have shown a willingness to comply, even preemptively, to avoid a fight that can disrupt their revenue.

> It's undoubtable that one side of the political spectrum would use it to remove opposition and opposing opinions.

Ideologues at several big tech firms have already used Section 230 as their liability shield for some very biased moderation of content in 2016 and 2020, including removing lots of content from their opposition.

Wow, brazen confirmation that the EFF is firmly in the pocket of big tech.

What started as a limited protection for blog moderators has become the sword and shield that Facebook et al wield against anyone they don't like. Time for at least a reform of the law.

Section 230 protects big tech by removing liability from what they publish, giving a competitive advantage of big tech over local newspaper and other media. Because local newspapers are responsible for what they publish, they don’t get the viewership that unfiltered social media can get. This is why local news does, because of section 230.

Newspapers didn’t rely on 230 much at all with centuries of precedent protecting them. What killed then was losing the ad revenue they used to get from local businesses, property sales, dating, etc. Even modest sized towns could afford good local coverage before that money was siphoned off to San Francisco.

Local newspaper died at the hands of national newspapers because what's happening in your town is just not as interesting as what's happening across the whole country. Similarly, national newspapers died at the hands of the internet because they're just not as interesting as the whole globe. Because of this limit, they're not as profitable at selling and targeting ads.

230 also doesn't provide an endless liability protection over "traditional" media, but it is generally more forgiving. Personally, I don't know why we'd expect tweets to have the same relationship to twitter that a news story has to a newspaper. One is written by a user vs an employee.

EFF is supported by Big Tech and Section 230 definitely does protect Big Tech and makes their entire business model possible.

What do you think their blind spot is here? Do you have a preferred approach to intermediary liability?

(former EFFer)

I've heard a modification to Section 230 that I personally am a fan of. If you claim Section 230 protection then you must also guarantee a completely uncensored space other than removing illegal content (CSAM, violent calls to action, and maybe a few others I forget). It would put us back in the early 2000s internet, in that relatively relaxed environment, that many grew up with and loved, where we didn't have to constantly walk on eggshells and be paranoid about who's going to try to get who de-platformed for what they said.

And then we can also have sites that choose to refuse Section 230 protection, which allows them to censor people as they choose but they also become liable for anything their users publish. These would be places that have locked down membership or places that are private to other people.

That would destroy the ability to run any sort of forum that isn’t essentially 4chan. Actually, even 4chan has moderation beyond what’s legally required, to define the topic of each of its subforums.

It isn’t possible for any volunteer-based forum to survive the sort of liability this would add, so they’d have to shut down.

Are you sure that’s what you want?

The internet was essentially 4chan back then, and a much kinder place because of it. People treated people a lot more like they treated each other in real life.

The EFF is funded by Big Tech to lobby against pretty much any and all internet regulation. This is transparently nonsense, but I'll take my -4 karma for calling out absolute garbage when I see it.

As a reminder: Blanket immunity for Internet companies exists nowhere but the United States, despite user generated content existing globally. And everyone promoting Section 230 as good for small operators is mysteriously funded by tech monopolies and nobody asks why that is.