| 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 As for Hacker News, it might not survive in its present form should CDA 230 be repealed.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... |
There would be one case, it would go to the Supreme Court, and would reinforce the key components of Section 230. YouTube, as a concept, will never go away, no matter what you want, because the 1st Amendment exists. Every individual would not get their day in court, as a precedent would be set and future lawsuits would be thrown out quickly, just as they are today.
Honestly, this smacks of bitter childishness; you want to hurt Google and you think this is the best way to do it. It is not, because it would not. It hurts no one, and would be re-resolved within the very next Supreme Court session, so no more than ~6 months. This childishness is reinforced by your acceptance that the platform you're writing on would not exist. You may not see that as hypocritical, but I and nearly everyone else who reads this does. It, alone, weakens your argument substantially.