[unimpressive]

"Let’s go all the way back to 1996 and talk about Section 230. I think historians are completely in agreement that this is the law that made the internet what it is today.

----

We thought it was going to be helpful. We never realized it was going to be the linchpin to generating investment in social media. We envisioned that the law would be both a sword and a shield. A shield so that you could have this opportunity, for particularly small and enterprising operations to secure capital, and then a sword [by allowing them to moderate without facing liability over the practice], which said you’ve got to police your platforms. And what was clear during the 2016 election and the succeeding events surrounding Facebook, is that technology companies used one part of what we envisioned, the shield, but really sat on their hands with respect to the sword, and wouldn’t police their platforms."

- Ron Wyden on Section 230

https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/24/17606974/oregon-senator-r...

I see a lot of people in this thread expressing the view that by moderating their content Facebook is becoming responsible for it. To the extent that's true under the law, it's not necessarily a great idea. Certainly the intent from a lawmaking perspective when some of the underlying framework was written is that this wouldn't be the case. You could moderate and remove bad actors from your platform without fearing legal persecution for it.