[triceratops]

> Taking a government grant of liability protection should come with obligations to the public.

Why? That's a serious question.

The reason liability protections exist for information services is because information services can't exist without them. It's not possible for an information service provider to be strictly liable for what their users post while having anything like a reasonable quality of service or cost. Think 10 hour moderation queues to post on Instagram, which costs $15/month, and requires using your driver's license or other photo ID to sign up so they can forward libel suits to you.

Requiring strict liability on the part of information service providers will likely drastically reduce the amount of free speech. Because they're going to aggressively take down/reject anything that has the slightest possibility of them getting sued. They won't suddenly morph into the town square because an unmoderated Internet town square is a filthy, ugly place that repels users and advertisers and hurts the bottom line.

[someguydave]

"Requiring strict liability..." which is why I did not write that.

I would propose that moderation decisions be logged and reviewable on demand (at the plantiff's cost) in front of a reputable arbitrator of the platform's choice.

[triceratops]

I have no idea if this is a good idea or not. If it makes some plaintiffs feel better that they're being heard, great. But I don't believe it would substantially alter the status quo. Anyway, you do you my friend.

[milesdyson_phd]

Is that even possible at any sort of scale?

[someguydave]

if the plantiffs pay, I think so. All the platforms would need to do is log the moderation decisions they already make.