[juniper_strong]

When they want the protections of section 230, they claim to be platforms, when they want to block content on a political basis, they act as publishers.

I think they should have to decide on which they one want to be, and I think platforms should have greater protection against liability than publishers.

[JoshTriplett]

Destroying the concept of moderation does not make the world better. The liability shield is the whole reason Section 230 exists: to make it possible to have enjoyable communities online, without incurring so much liability that you have to shut them all down for fear of getting prosecuted.

If you want unmoderated communities, they exist. Go use them. Stop trying to destroy the concept of moderated communities. (Removing the liability shield would be tantamount to destroying such communities.)

Some people want the audience of moderated communities, but they don't want the standards of those communities. There's a reason unmoderated communities have fewer (and different) users.

[teraflop]

> When they want the protections of section 230, they claim to be platforms

No they don't, because section 230 does not require them to. It does not even contain the word "platform".

[triceratops]

> when they want to block content on a political basis, they act as publishers.

You keep saying that as though it's a fact or a law when it's only an opinion. You should stop doing that.

[juniper_strong]

Publisher, distributor, and platform are legal definitions that have been worked out through case law over a long period of time. Blocking content on a political basis as a non-internet content provider would be more than enough to get you treated as a publisher.

In pre-section 230 law, even blocking content for vulgarity was enough to get you treated as a publisher, that decision was Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.

Eugene Volokh has a good summary of this at https://reason.com/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-%C2%A7-230-and-the-pu.... You might want to read it so you don't make completely uninformed statements on the internet. You should stop doing that.

[triceratops]

> Blocking content on a political basis as a non-internet content provider would be more than enough to get you treated as a publisher.

The key point here is "in pre-section 230 law". Prodigy Services was one the cases that prompted Congress to pass Section 230. Why cite outdated cases to try to prove your point? What's next, Dred Scott v. Sandford?

[mcphage]

> when they want to block content on a political basis

And what about when the want to block content because they believe in an objective reality?