What I find funny about this "repeal Section 230" political movement is that those most (seemingly) in support of it benefit the most from it. Some thoughts:
1. "Free speech" is an ambiguous term. If it refers to First Amendment protections then it immediately doesn't apply to Twitter, FB, etc. The first five words are quite literally "Congress shall pass no law". Later Supreme Court rulings extended this to state and local governments. So FB, Twitter, etc can't "Censor" or violate the First Amendment of anyone, by definition.
2. So if it's not a legal definition, it's a principle. Literally nobody is a free speech absolutist. Even 4chan has Terms of Service;
3. Section 230 was originally created to give a "safe harbor" to ISPs so they wouldn't be held liable or responsible for content they transmitted. This was and is very similar to telcos not being responsible for illegal activity occurring on phone calls.
4. The point of a safe harbor is that the provider becomes essentially neutral to the content. But this, like anything, has limits. Telcos cut off or block people for spamming, for example;
5. The voices calling to repeal Section 230, as in this article, are upset about isolated cases of, say, Twitter "censoring" the Hunter Biden laptop story. But if Twitter no longer has that safe harbor, there are only really two alternatives: more moderation or no platform at all.
Repealing Section 230 won't be friendly to the likes of Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro or Kanye West.
1. "Free speech" is an ambiguous term. If it refers to First Amendment protections then it immediately doesn't apply to Twitter, FB, etc. The first five words are quite literally "Congress shall pass no law". Later Supreme Court rulings extended this to state and local governments. So FB, Twitter, etc can't "Censor" or violate the First Amendment of anyone, by definition.
2. So if it's not a legal definition, it's a principle. Literally nobody is a free speech absolutist. Even 4chan has Terms of Service;
3. Section 230 was originally created to give a "safe harbor" to ISPs so they wouldn't be held liable or responsible for content they transmitted. This was and is very similar to telcos not being responsible for illegal activity occurring on phone calls.
4. The point of a safe harbor is that the provider becomes essentially neutral to the content. But this, like anything, has limits. Telcos cut off or block people for spamming, for example;
5. The voices calling to repeal Section 230, as in this article, are upset about isolated cases of, say, Twitter "censoring" the Hunter Biden laptop story. But if Twitter no longer has that safe harbor, there are only really two alternatives: more moderation or no platform at all.
Repealing Section 230 won't be friendly to the likes of Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro or Kanye West.