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by BlueTemplar 1987 days ago
Section 230 was created when Twitter (and the likes) were much less important for public discourse.

I'm willing to bet that it's going to be amended, just like the EU version of it was.

Consider this precedent :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

> The Court rejected that contention, noting that ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.

In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted that the rights of citizens under the Bill of Rights occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.

2 comments

That’s a really interesting case and surprisingly relevant to today’s situation. I’ve never seen a good argument for being able to counter a companies ability to decide who to service under today’s laws before. People usually concentrate on the idea that new regulation is required.
This case is completely different and not relevant.

Twitter has terms of service - that in and of itself is not equivalent to a sidewalk opened for all to use.

You can look at phone companies then, for a similar example.

It is illegal, due to common carrier laws, for a phone companies to engage in certain actions. They are actually forced to accept certain customers.

These existing laws that apply to phone companies could be expanded to apply to other forms of communication networks.

It's a bad example - phone conversations are relatively private and not meant for public consumption.

If this was P2P messaging I'd agree. But that's not the case here.