“ No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider”
It also provides protection for all good faith moderation even if constitutionally protected speech.
However, when Facebook “fact checks” a post, they become a publisher.
And the moderation exemption is very specific to types of content. It doesn’t, for example, allow blanket moderation for political reasons. It specifically mentions lewd/excessively violent content. It isn’t a blanket “moderation” exemption.
Also, “good faith” is explicit. Moderating one political viewpoint while allowing another isn’t good faith. Stop the Steal is censored. Many ANTIFA groups aren’t.
From the law:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
> However, when Facebook “fact checks” a post, they become a publisher.
Says who? I hear this over and over, but there's no legal basis for any of this. It's horse-dung.
> It doesn’t, for example, allow blanket moderation for political reasons
Who decides what's political?
> Moderating one political viewpoint while allowing another isn’t good faith.
Define "good faith". Also, you missed the "otherwise objectionable" part of that law. What's "objectionable" to one platform may not be to another. If I run a message board for adherents of a religion that say, opposes gay marriage, should I not have the option to censor posts that support gay marriage? If I run a message board for environmentalists, do I have to let climate change deniers write whatever they like?
Which is fair enough. If they write a fact check that turns out to be libelous or illegal in some way, they are liable for that specific piece of content. I think the law is clear about that.
GP was saying something else entirely. They were contending that if FB moderates or fact-checks even a single user post, they are now the publisher of everything that users post on their platform. Which is not at all how the law works.
Platforms are still liable for content that they author and post themselves. They just aren't liable for what their users post, even if they perform moderation or "censorship" on those users' content.
The phrase “otherwise objectionable” is so vague that courts have basically interpreted it to mean violations of community standards, or basically whatever. I’m no fan of any kind of political censorship, but they do own the servers. They’re under no obligation to host any content, and we’re all free to go elsewhere.
That said, I think most of their moderation is awful and their fact checking is ridiculous at best.