[TechBro8615]

It’s not about hosting. It’s about distribution and eyeball minutes. As long as social media sites deliver content through an algorithmic feed, there are a limited number of slots available for the “next page.” The user will stop scrolling eventually. Their limited attention is valuable real estate. It’s also why social media has an incentive to maximize the time on feed.

The best regulatory approach to social media is simple: any algorithmic newsfeed must be opt-in. It must default to a chronological option. The default preference must also be applied retroactively for all existing users.

[slg]

How would you feel if we swapped out "social media sites" and "algorithmic" for "newspapers" and "editorial" in that first paragraph? There are a limited number of slots in the newspaper. Should the government step in a guarantee that the New York Times needs to publish any crackpot theory I come up with?

[caddemon]

NYT can also be held liable for things like slander though, right? If social media sites try to claim they are not responsible for any content posted, that does feel a bit like trying to have their cake and eat it too.

[slg]

I'm not sure the goal here. Do you want increased or decreased moderation? Repealing 230 and making social media companies liable will lead to more moderation and bans not less.

[lmm]

The goal is clear lines of responsibility. If Facebook is responsible for every post, that's ok. If every individual is responsible for their posts, that's also ok. It's when it's blurry that there's a problem.

[caddemon]

I'm not the one that was originally asking for regulation on the social media companies, I just think there are too many fundamental differences between current social media sites and newspaper editorials for that analogy to work.

Personally I feel social media sites have taken some of the moderation too far. I don't have a problem (in a legal sense) with the algorithmic feed downweighting various topics or adding links to countering sources or whatever, but I think if these sites don't want to be held liable for content they should error way on the side of allowing individual user pages to be uncensored.

What was even crazier to me was when Twitter blocked DMs containing that Hunter Biden story. The story was suspect obviously, but to moderate private messages like that is a huge overreach IMO.

[ed25519FUUU]

The Hunter Biden story deserves so much more investigation. It’s a huge story that nobody wanted to touch because it might mean Trump wins again. They went as far as banning even discussion of it. A massive editorial failure that’s going to hurt media’s credibility for a long time.

[pavlov]

Would TikTok be illegal under this law? They mostly show content chosen by an algorithm from people you don’t follow.