[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!".