The fallacy is in expecting corporations to play the role of the government.
Suppose someone posts a YouTube video that you claim is defamatory. How is Google supposed to know if it is or not? It could be entirely factual information that you're claiming is false because you don't want to be embarrassed by the truth. Google is not a reasonable forum for third parties to adjudicate legal disputes because they have no capacity to ascertain who is lying.
What the government is supposed to be doing in these cases is investigating crimes and bringing charges against the perpetrators. Only then they have to incur the costs of investigating the things they want to pass laws against, and take the blame for charges brought against people who turn out to be innocent etc.
So instead the politicians want to pass the buck and pretend that it's an outrage when corporations with neither the obligation nor the capacity to be the police predictably fail in the role that was never theirs.
We don’t punish telecoms, ISPs or the mail company for “facilitating terrorism”. Where do you draw the line?
These rules have serious consequences for privacy, potential for abuse, and also raise the barriers immensely for new companies to start up.
The problem is quite obvious when you consider that Trump supporters label anything they dislike as fake news, even when the facts are known and available to everyone. These rules would allow any opposition to be easily silenced. Restricting the measures to terrorism, illegal pornography, and other serious crimes would be more acceptable.
Your question is like asking “why don’t we have metal detectors and body scanners on every school and public building”. Just because you can, and it would absolutely increase safety, does not mean it’s a good idea.
IMO legislation should focus on how individuals can be made responsible, and prosecuted when they break the law – not mandating tech companies to become arms of a nanny state.
> We don’t punish telecoms, ISPs or the mail company for “facilitating terrorism”. Where do you draw the line?
None of those attempt to curate, moderate, or pass judgment on the content they carry. They are essentially pipes that pass content through.
Social Media (and forums like HN) act more as publishers: they decide what is and is not allowed, and through that moderation, they are more responsible for what user content they choose to make available.
I’m not in favor of this law, but we should not pretend that Social Media is blameless when naughty people use it to publish their stuff.
