[irl_chad]

A publishing house publishes a book that an author writes.

Digital platforms want to have it both ways - they want to (in some cases manually!!!) curate and censor recommendations, search results, and plain uploads, while also retaining their platform protections.

The libertarian stance on this issue is completely untenable. I know an Olympic gymnast who can’t perform gymnastics that well.

[TameAntelope]

This isn't really about section 230, this is about the first amendment. You cannot, and will not, ever successfully pass an enforced law that requires private companies to maintain content they themselves did not produce on their website against their will.

You can repeal section 230, and the first amendment will still protect every company in the US from doing what you want them to do. There is no version of this where you win, and anti-vax or overtly hateful/conservative content sticks around on YouTube.

[matthewmarkus]

The point of repealing section 230 is to end YouTube as we know it. Basically, YouTube becomes the Washington Post and can carry fully moderated content that it selects and publishes. YouTube's current business model only exists by legislative fiat. It's time to give power back to the courts and reinstate the precedent of Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....

[TameAntelope]

Literally impossible as long as the First Amendment exists. You cannot compel speech with legislation the way you apparently want to. Section 230 is just a way to shortcut litigation, the First Amendment is ultimately the protector of YouTube, and will remain so as long as the United States remains a country.

Repealing 230 would just trigger a new set of lawsuits, one of which would end up in front of the Supreme Court, who would then rule it as unconstitutional to force YouTube to publish content it doesn't want to, and we'll be right back where we started, just now with precedent in a Supreme Court case.

https://harvardlawreview.org/2018/05/section-230-as-first-am...

https://www.lawfareblog.com/wall-street-journal-misreads-sec...

https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndlr_online/vol95/iss1/3/

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/section-230-critics-are-...

You are tilting at a windmill, friend.

[matthewmarkus]

I don't want to compel speech. I want to reattach a cost or liability to YouTube that was removed via state power.

Remember, Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. "held that Prodigy was liable as the publisher of the content created by its users because it exercised editorial control over the messages on their bulletin boards in three ways: 1) by posting Content Guidelines for users, 2) by enforcing those guidelines with 'Board Leaders', and 3) by utilizing screening software designed to remove offensive language."

The State removed the above liability via Section 230, which paved the way for YouTube to become the monolith it is today. Reattaching liability to YouTube would force it to choose between an editorial model (Prodigy) or a platform model (CompuServe). It would not get the luxury of the editorial model without paying the corresponding costs of that model. In other words, it would put YouTube on the same playing field as the Washington Post and other traditional news sources.

[TameAntelope]

That doesn't matter, because The First Amendment still prevents the US government from stopping YouTube from existing as a platform for content it does not produce. It's a simple concept of "who did this?" and if it's not YouTube, then it's not liable.

I notice you ignored completely the articles I linked, and didn't even bother to address the myriad arguments put forward by legal experts on this issue. I assume that's because you have no legal standing whatsoever, and would prefer to just say, "This is what I want and I don't care if the country has to cease to exist first."

Additionally, I find it highly hypocritical that you post such an opinion on a platform that would be shut down, were you to magically get your way. When you have to express your opinion in a way that wouldn't be allowed if your opinion were shared, you might want to rethink your position. It makes your position look wholly unconsidered, which it apparently is.

[matthewmarkus]

I can address your articles, but they're at odds with one another. More specifically, the Harvard one claims CDA 230 is superfluous, while the Notre Dame one argues it is essential (to the internet as currently structured). I would say the Notre Dame one is correct.

The big flaw is revealed in the Lawfare blog:

"[CDA 230] merely ensures that courts will quickly dismiss lawsuits that would have been dismissed anyway on First Amendment grounds—but with far less hassle, stress and expense. At the scale of the billions of pieces of content posted by users every day, that liability shield is essential to ensure that website owners aren’t forced to abandon their right to moderate content by a tsunami of meritless but costly litigation."

The principle here isn't whether all the cases have merit or not; it is that every individual gets their day in court. That is, it is up to the courts to decide the merit of a case based on fact, which, of course, is case-dependent [1].

Denying individuals access to the courts makes them bear a cost. That cost should, in truth, be borne by Big Tech and subtracted from its profits.

As for Hacker News, it might not survive in its present form should CDA 230 be repealed. That's OK, though. Perhaps it would become PG's blog, and I would have to start my own blog to comment on matters of the day. That's entirely acceptable, and I don't find it hypocritical.

[1] https://www.rcfp.org/supreme-court-will-not-hear-letter-edit...

[MisterBastahrd]

So effectively you just want people with money to have the ability to disseminate their speech, since they're the only ones who would be able to share their content via any of these platforms if Section 230 were repealed.

[matthewmarkus]

No.

There is a valley of nuance between Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc. [1] and Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. [2]. All of this nuance was being worked out in the courts via common law principles before Congress short-circuited the process with CDA 230, which turned out to be one of the things that helped facilitate the rise of the Big Tech oligopoly that Congress now decries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc%...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratton_Oakmont,_Inc._v._Prod....

[irl_chad]

The idea isn’t repealing 230 - it’s to recognise any platform that’s manually curating content as a publisher. Then if that publisher hosts illegal content, they’re liable, because if they can curate some of the content, they should be responsible for all of it.

Also political feasibility in the USA isn’t the end-all be-all. YouTube certainly wants to do business in other countries/regions - such as the EU. Google is a public company, and as such it’s executives have a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. Right now, since other megacorps want Google to censor content so their ads don’t run alongside XYZ content that you don’t like, Google is following their fiduciary duties. But if a regulator steps in, it becomes a matter if “oh shit doing business in the EU is more important than doing business with cocacola”

[TameAntelope]

Curation is not, has not, and will never be, the bar for determining what is and isn't a platform or a publisher. Curation is an expression of free speech, which is different from the role a publisher plays in works it publishes.

Your entire argument hinges on people not realizing there's a specific legal definition of the word "publisher", which means that no matter what politicians you convince to do what you want, it will never function as expected in the judiciary.

[matthewmarkus]

The libertarian stance would be to repeal CDA 230. I don't know any libertarians that prefer statutory law to common law.

"Libertarians share a skepticism of authority and state power, but some libertarians diverge on the scope of their opposition to existing economic and political systems."