[ensignavenger]

The whole point of Section 230 is to allow digital communications services to moderate their platforms without incurring liability for the things their users say. If you want to stop the moderation, all you would need to do is completely repeal Section 230- as it no longer serves any purpose under such a system.

[zucker42]

Without Section 230, if I host a unmoderated social network, could I face liability if one person libeled another using my website? My understanding was yes, but your comment suggests otherwise.

[geofft]

If you don't know about it, then no, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc. (This is one of the cases that spurred Section 230; the analysis is, I believe, still valid today for sites that don't moderate things, because the point of Section 230 was to provide equivalent protection for sites that do moderate things. But it's definitely valid if Section 230 goes away.)

[joshuaheard]

I think it's the opposite. If you don't moderate you are not responsible. If you moderate, you undertake liability.

[paul_f]

This is not really true, in fact, in my opinion, it is the opposite of this. Services are given immunity if they don't moderate their content. Once they moderate it, they lose the protections. Facebook want to moderate content and receive immunity, and that is the crux of the problem.

[ryukafalz]

You're mixing up section 230 with the situation prior to section 230. There were two important cases prior to its passage:

- Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., in which Prodigy was found to be liable due to their content moderation, and

- Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc., in which CompuServe was held not liable for content, as they were unaware of it

Section 230 was in fact created to change this - to allow companies to moderate without making them liable for all of the actions of their users.