Section 230 Opinion, Theory Crafting and Practical Reality

Abhishekm

Well-known member
Hi First thread, not too serious and will probably fall by the wayside but couldn't decide where to post this. So thoughts I guess.

I've heard a lot in the politics threads that whole big tech will want section 230 changes when they have ai developed enough or what have you. But if it comes to having it considered for repeal again whats to say they won't be declared platforms say what they will?

I mean if they make a stink about getting to choose why would other platforms not be able to choose one or the other as a matter of their creation? That would be a simpler solution to the legal grey zone that is section 230 right?

You can't be both so pick one. Instead of them all being set as one by what group lobbies more.

I mean the entire point of it in the first place was to not get in the way of the new thing right? The problem now is a mix of establishment sentiment, public discontent on both sides for different things and general corporate overreach or underneath based on who you ask. That's my opinion anyway.

So what do you guys think about it and whats your opinion on the law and the internet in the past, as it is now and going into the future.
 

bullethead

Part-time fanfic writer
Super Moderator
Staff Member
Here's a few ideas for reforming Section 230:
-To maintain protections, all moderation policies must be publicly posted and conform to existing 1st Amendment protections.
-All moderation decisions must list the specifics of any and all rule violations, including time codes (if available).
-Attaching assessments on the factual nature of user generated content removes the platform protections from a website.
-Websites and services contacting each with regards to moderation decisions will lose platform protections.
-Shadowbanning and using algorithms to affect the visibility of politically related speech removes platform protections from a website.
-Define "good faith" as "empirically and politically neutral assessment of content against the publicly posted rules."

Not sure if this would fit specifically in Section 230 or more general DMCA reform:
-Platforms must allow channels/users to label themselves as dealers in either original, transformative, or combined content, and flag content belonging to the appropriate category. DMCA takedowns against transformative/combined channels/content must include information on how that specific piece of content harms their copyright and ability to profit off of their intellectual property. Failure to provide this information or targeting fair use content, including reviews and commentary, will lead to fines, with harsher punishments for repeated DMCA abuse.
 

lordmcdeath

Well-known member
Ultimately any changes to 230 is going to have to maintain the viability of at least the basic business model that is ad supported content generation. Even if you could count on a subscription model once you build a fanbase, it won't support the whole ecosystem.

And unfortunately along with ad revenue is the veto they offer as the primary funding method. Not many people are going to advertise on 4chan after all.
 

Abhishekm

Well-known member
Ultimately any changes to 230 is going to have to maintain the viability of at least the basic business model that is ad supported content generation. Even if you could count on a subscription model once you build a fanbase, it won't support the whole ecosystem.

And unfortunately along with ad revenue is the veto they offer as the primary funding method. Not many people are going to advertise on 4chan after all.
Why would it? I mean sure the current big names would prefer it but I don't see why it would dictate public access to social messaging platforms. It really would be a question of whether social profile and messaging sites are a public means of communication or a media franchise and honestly current company not withstanding does the average person use Facebook more for communicating with friends and family or looking up the latest political commentary?

Because either has a strong case for the medium being considered a platform more than it does a publisher and the first is an even stronger argument.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
So there are some definite First Amendment limits on what the US can do. For example, it probably can't demand balance or neutrality, as a similar law mandating that for TV was overturned. Also, if it does demand a politically neutral rule for something, it has the deep problem of not allowing kicking of actual, literal Nazis and Klukkers when they say clearly reprehensible things, which is very unprofitable for a company to do, as they are trying to sell advertisements.

Third, things are now better for conservatives now than before in the media landscape, because of the internet (and section 230 helped that a lot). Previously, News was all liberal (though it hid it better). Now many things contributed to blowing this up, but the biggest was the democratization of news news sources by providing many different outlooks. This leads to more openly biased coverage. But that's a good thing. People are starting to not trust the news as a source of truth, but as a source of a viewpoint. This is a huge step forward for forcing Americans to think.

So honestly, I'm not worried about most of section 230. On the balance, it's a good thing.
 

Abhishekm

Well-known member
So there are some definite First Amendment limits on what the US can do. For example, it probably can't demand balance or neutrality, as a similar law mandating that for TV was overturned.
Here is the thing though, its not tv. In that twitter is not a channel. Its a telecom service. Its a mode of communication. Sure you can say there are technically other similar ones but thats like saying at&t can screen its users calls because there is always t-mobile. And saying it would be unfair to enforce that law because at&t has investor or advertiser money dependent on that practice is kinda disingenuous.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
Here is the thing though, its not tv. In that twitter is not a channel. Its a telecom service. Its a mode of communication. Sure you can say there are technically other similar ones but thats like saying at&t can screen its users calls because there is always t-mobile. And saying it would be unfair to enforce that law because at&t has investor or advertiser money dependent on that practice is kinda disingenuous.
First, it doesn't matter if it's TV or internet, just if the government regulation/law/subsidy/etc. discriminates based on content. And forcing balance does this.

Second, with the AT&T, that's different than a forced balance regulation. Instead, AT&T is a common carrier that does allow Nazis (real ones, not liberal feverdream ones) and Klukkers to use it without any discrimination. AT&T is fine with this, as phone calls aren't usually up on the internet for every to see, and when they are, it isn't associated with the phone company. In contrast, racist tweets are public, and associated with twitter. So twitter really, really doesn't want these tweets on its platform, and it doesn't care about you, as you aren't the customer, the companies advertising on it are the customer. You are the product. And racist tweets is a product few people want to buy. Twitter wouldn't survive without content based bans (It barely survives with them). Neither would many other social media networks.

And also, beware the biggest hater of Section 230 is... the mainstream media, as they know the internet is eroding its control (and more importantly market share) of the US public.
 

bullethead

Part-time fanfic writer
Super Moderator
Staff Member
The main problem with Section 230 is that it was created before the network effects of being first to market with a superior platform creating a natural monopoly were known.

As over a decade of failed YouTube alternative sites prove, having an alternative site to post things to doesn't mean shit. If you're not on the platforms people actually use, your content might as well not exist. That's why conservatives are super pissed about Youtube/Facebook/Twitter censorship - anyone who dissents from the leftist view is essentially tossed down a deep, dark hole, never to be seen again.
 

Ixian

Well-known member
I don't understand why everyone on the right is sitting around waiting for a government response to these big tech and social media companies and their blatant censorship and violations of Section 230. It's obviously not happening. Which means the people should be making their own efforts.

Why hasn't someone organized a protest to surround Twitter's or Reddit's corporate offices for a few days? For all guys like Tim Pool or Steve Crowder rail against the social media companies and their thinly veiled biases, none of them have really bothered to use their Influence to try and get something off the ground.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
I don't understand why everyone on the right is sitting around waiting for a government response to these big tech and social media companies and their blatant censorship and violations of Section 230. It's obviously not happening. Which means the people should be making their own efforts.

Why hasn't someone organized a protest to surround Twitter's or Reddit's corporate offices for a few days? For all guys like Tim Pool or Steve Crowder rail against the social media companies and their thinly veiled biases, none of them have really bothered to use their Influence to try and get something off the ground.

Yes they have. Crowder has repeatedly gotten into legal action against Youtube, Tim Pool hosts on Bitchute as well as doing podcasts.

Youtube is still the definitive platform, but content creators making a point of at least dual-hosting has helped places like Bitchute build up to have a noticeable amount of traffic and users. They're still not going to become serious competitors unless the laws start actually being enforced, but there's only so much that can be done.

I'm curious what you think a protest around Twitter or Reddit's offices would actually accomplish?
 

Ixian

Well-known member
Yes they have. Crowder has repeatedly gotten into legal action against Youtube, Tim Pool hosts on Bitchute as well as doing podcasts.

Youtube is still the definitive platform, but content creators making a point of at least dual-hosting has helped places like Bitchute build up to have a noticeable amount of traffic and users. They're still not going to become serious competitors unless the laws start actually being enforced, but there's only so much that can be done.

I'm curious what you think a protest around Twitter or Reddit's offices would actually accomplish?

Fair enough, I wasn't thinking of lawsuits and such.

The protests done by BLM and Antifa seemd to get them what they wanted in Portland and Seattle and other places. Sure any protest against the social media corporations would be far smaller, but at least people would be doing something beyond trying to take on multibillion dollar corps with their family lawyer, which very rarely seems to work out for the little guy.
 

bullethead

Part-time fanfic writer
Super Moderator
Staff Member
Protests aren't a viable way to get tech companies to change policies. You don't have enough YouTubers or fans actually in the area to effectively inconvenience the company, and most YouTubers can't take the financial hit to go to San Fran and do a sit-in for a few days.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
Fair enough, I wasn't thinking of lawsuits and such.

The protests done by BLM and Antifa seemd to get them what they wanted in Portland and Seattle and other places. Sure any protest against the social media corporations would be far smaller, but at least people would be doing something beyond trying to take on multibillion dollar corps with their family lawyer, which very rarely seems to work out for the little guy.

When leftist protestors push leftist government officials to do things they already wanted to do anyways, it's hardly surprising they get results.

When conservative protestors push left wing anything to do something not leftist, at best you'll get nothing. More likely you'll get Sarkeesian-style hysteria about threats, intimidation, blah blah blah.

You'd have to get some truly enormous protests to actually get a point across.
 

Doomsought

Well-known member
The problem with most section 230 reforms is that you end up creating a new framework that the court system doesn't know how to handle, and judges will end up making stupid decisions, because judges are failed lawyers.

My proposal is to instead extend an existing legal framework that was created for the same purpose and applied to two different mediums: Common Carrier doctrine.

All you need to do is state that :
1) A Platform is a Common Carrier
2) The Online service must declare whether they are a platform or a publisher in their terms of service.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
The problem with most section 230 reforms is that you end up creating a new framework that the court system doesn't know how to handle, and judges will end up making stupid decisions, because judges are failed lawyers.

My proposal is to instead extend an existing legal framework that was created for the same purpose and applied to two different mediums: Common Carrier doctrine.

All you need to do is state that :
1) A Platform is a Common Carrier
2) The Online service must declare whether they are a platform or a publisher in their terms of service.

That second one in particular is key. Almost the entirety of the trouble we're having right now, comes from the tech giants determinedly trying to play at being both, whichever is the most advantageous in the moment.
 

lordmcdeath

Well-known member
Unfortunately, if you give Terms of Service the force of contract law, it will be binding on both. No Contract is only binding on one party, and there are certain civil legal principles that can't be put aside without massively rewritting the underlying legislature and binning about a hundred years of case law.

Also, you need to figure out how to fund any platform under the changes, especially now that we've gotten used to getting these for free. As treating themselves as a publisher will basically be to disappear under the wave of lawsuits the second you have any user content mechanism.
 

Terthna

Professional Lurker
Unfortunately, if you give Terms of Service the force of contract law, it will be binding on both. No Contract is only binding on one party, and there are certain civil legal principles that can't be put aside without massively rewritting the underlying legislature and binning about a hundred years of case law.

Also, you need to figure out how to fund any platform under the changes, especially now that we've gotten used to getting these for free. As treating themselves as a publisher will basically be to disappear under the wave of lawsuits the second you have any user content mechanism.
News organizations are publishers; nobody seems to be suing them (for the most part) when they get things wrong, or blatantly lie to push an agenda, and many online publications present what are essentially blog posts from random yahoos who are otherwise unaffiliated with them as legitimate news.
 

lordmcdeath

Well-known member
News organizations are publishers; nobody seems to be suing them (for the most part) when they get things wrong, or blatantly lie to push an agenda, and many online publications present what are essentially blog posts from random yahoos who are otherwise unaffiliated with them as legitimate news.

1) Due to existing case law, it is remarkably hard to sue journalists and win at least for slander or defamation. But those protections are almost entirely predicated on it being news or a claim of journalism, and even there if you step outside those protections you can end up in it deep.

2) The methods being used for most of the existing publisher doesn't scale worth a damn, and each editor/filter adds additional costs to something where we still haven't figured out how to pay for.

3) They've gotten automated with these things. See DMCA bots, and similar.
 

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