[ocdtrekkie]

This is also why everyone is on about "protecting Section 230" today as well. The primary benefactors are large tech companies, but it's reframed and marketed as being key to the internet by a ton of well-funded lobbyists.

[ryukafalz]

No, this seems misguided. Section 230 protects the small Mastodon instance I'm on in the same way it protects Twitter. My instance is pretty well-moderated, but if you know the background of section 230... if you're an operator of a mid-sized Mastodon instance, how certain are you that nobody's posted anything that a modern-day Stratton Oakmont might come after you for absent section 230? I'd hazard a guess and say not very certain at all.

[metalspot]

No, it doesn't.

Because the small mastodon instance does not have any assets behind it or make any profits that make it worth filing a law suit, and because there are many small mastodon instances, any legal campaign would have to go against many small operators with no assets or profits to seize, and thus nothing to gain.

Decades of legal battles between the MPAA/RIAA and unlicensed content distributors demonstrate this very well. The media monopolies never won anything against small operators and gave up (except for public relations stunts) and were only ever able to force large companies into paying them royalties.

Section 230 only protects large companies, not small operators. Small operators can be taken out by a SLAPP lawsuit irregardless of the law if it is really in someone's interest to do so.

[stale2002]

> No, this seems misguided. Section 230 protects the small Mastodon instance I'm on in the same way it protects Twitter.

If you are willing to be even slightly clever you will figure out that this is an easily solvable problem.

Just do what the EU did, or Texas did, and remove/modify section 230 protections only for very large social media companies, defined as have literally 10s of millions of users.

That way, the small platforms are protected, and the large ones that are the problem actors, have to change.

Problem solved.

No need to worry about this straw man position of "look how bad things would be if we do the dumb thing and didn't implement the easy to figure solution that solves most of the complaints!".

[judge2020]

It would've also protected Prodigy Services if it existed at the time of this lawsuit[0]. Congress created 230 because they don't want service hosts being sued for millions for cultivating UGC on the internet (which, in turn, enabled the US to head up the boom of the internet economy), it's just that over time consumers chose big social media instead of random forums (and Reddit became the place to go for interest-base discussion).

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

[ocdtrekkie]

I'm indeed well aware the only case defense that 230 stans have is a 28 year old case that predates most people understanding the basic concepts of the Internet. :)

The fact there's only a single badly litigated case that is obsolete as heck to justify a law that got Trump elected and has a death toll in the hundreds is a great example of how little real justification 230 has.

[judge2020]

The point of the law is primarily to allow websites to remove porn and profanity.

If it was repealed tomorrow and Facebook had to choose between these two paths, which would they choose?

A: keep moderation; anytime someone posts something libelous, they're responsible for damages

B: no moderation; they let anything and everything go so that they become a service provider and thus aren't considered to be editorializing or approving the content people post

It's safe to say that 230 being gone would require every single website with UGC to choose between the two options. If you think it could be revised instead, feel free to suggest such.

[supriyo-biswas]

While it is correct that large tech companies are benefited by Section 230, there can be things that mutually benefit both users and companies; and making companies liable for UGC would only have the effect of making it another form of cable TV where a select handful of people get to make content for the rest of us to consume. It is definitely a far cry from the democratization of content generation that we have today, where a nobody could make content and have a realistic chance of becoming recognized widely.

The articles posted on HN discussing this very topic bring this up, so reading them is worthwhile instead of simply dismissing the entire thing as “big tech bad.”

[ocdtrekkie]

I am actually incredibly widely versed in the Section 230 discourse. Literally all of the sources trace back to Google-funded "authorities", which can't back their argument with any meaningful legal concepts.

The entire pitch for 230 is a wild astroturf project. And as a recent non-American pointed out, it's paper thin when you realize no other country has an equivalent immunity law, and all of them allow user generated content.

A comedic example is the claim I've seen that Mastodon servers can't survive without Section 230, but the largest one is in Germany, where no such blanket immunity exists.

[ryukafalz]

I mean, having intermediary liability (as you would absent section 230) doesn't mean you're immediately forced to shut down. Prodigy had been around for just over 10 years before the Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. ruling, after all.

It does however mean that if you do get sued over third party content on your site, you will probably lose, which is an expensive possibility for any small site operator.

[ocdtrekkie]

That's a huge assumption based on a single extremely ancient case, that completely flies in the face of any reasonable application of the law.

[nonethewiser]

They're already acting as publishers though. Might as well strip the immunity based on them not being publishers.

[tzs]

Whether or not an entity is a publisher is irrelevant to section 230.

[nonethewiser]

Trump opposed 230. Therefor Section 230 good.