[zer8k]

> So the unintended consequence I expect will be that censoring people for their political views will be the only strongly protected moderation actions.

That's entirely intended. Look at what happened during COVID, the race riots post George Floyd, the election in 2020 and 2024, etc. Social media platforms are defacto content curation websites and not "free speech zones" in the sense of a soapbox in a public park. It was especially egregious during COVID and the race riots because the platforms made certain that you could not so much as criticize the political zeitgeist even when it was deserved.

The law really should make it clear that, illegal activity excluded, if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections. Places like twitter are left-wing content curation websites. It's no problem to have these - except for the fact they are still given section 230 protections. Under no circumstance should social media, engaging in one-sided censorship, be given any protection under the law for their content they curate. This would go for a similarly censored right-wing content curation website. It just so happens those are extremely small in reach by comparison, and thus significantly less important.

As always, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. The chronically offended, terminally online losers tend to get what they want.

[hellojesus]

> The law really should make it clear that, illegal activity excluded, if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections.

Say I run a forum for pet fish discussion. Would my removal of content derailing the discussion into a flatearther one constitute my loss of 230? What if only logged in members can see the content?

It seems odd that we don't let private property operate as it wants.

[hackinthebochs]

Have a scale or a topic carveout. Your pet fish message board doesn't have the same social relevance as the twitters and facebooks of the world that are intended to be generic communications platforms. Despite what people like to claim, these sites are de facto public squares and should be treated as such. It's clear people resist this idea because they like the fact that these companies censor speech in the direction they prefer.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Have a scale or a topic carveout

This (topic) is a sign your framework is flawed. Unless there is a fabulous reason to believe this is the sole legitimate carve-out.

[hackinthebochs]

You know, you could just offer additions to the list of carveouts, or give your alternative take, instead of whatever this comment is.

[JumpCrisscross]

> you could just offer additions to the list of carveouts, or give your alternative take

I don't see one. It's DOA. The point is starting with a list of carve-outs to any framework is an early sign it's fucked.

I do believe we have a problem with free speech in modern America. But we also have an unprecedentedly broad amount of it. Given the elementary issue of spam, it's unclear we have any consensus around what censorship means on social media.

[hackinthebochs]

> The point is starting with a list of carve-outs to any framework is an early sign it's fucked.

While I think this is a fair point in general, in specific cases it can be legitimate. We should not be powerless to legislate unless we're able to articulate some ideal discriminator that picks out only the intended target and nothing else. The world is almost never that tidy. We can probably agree in broad strokes what spam is, even if we can't articulate a sufficient decision criteria to identify it with 100% accuracy. We can also agree that one man's passion project shouldn't be powerless to ensure his forum remains on-topic. We can also agree that mega communications platforms have become so engrained into modern society that being censored or removed from them can have outsized effects on one's ability to effectively engage with society (e.g. losing access to your email, kicked off payment platforms).

There are a lot of grey areas in between, and identifying carveouts are one way to handle the messiness while still working towards the overarching goals. It's not perfect, but doing nothing in this case is worse in the sense of how far we are from our ideals.

[squigz]

> public squares and should be treated as such.

What does this mean?

[hackinthebochs]

It means the principles that constrain how governments engage with society (e.g. free speech in the public square) should also constrain how these new government-sized institutions engage with society. We've got to the point where so much of governance is pushed off to the private sector that these entities should be bound by the same rules. E.g. private companies shouldn't be able to do widespread content scanning of private data that would be illegal for the government to do.

[hellojesus]

> It means the principles that constrain how governments engage with society (e.g. free speech in the public square) should also constrain how these new government-sized institutions engage with society

I think you're missing the distinction between public and private entities.

We constrain governments because they have a defacto monoploy by law and by definition. This means there are no alternatives. Additionally, our government is granted power through its citizens, not vise versa. Rights are negative meaning the government doesn't let us say what we want, the government isn't allowed to prevent us from saying what we want.

The fact that a company is large in employees or has many users shouldn't impact its ability to moderate. Forcing private companies to not moderate in the name of the public good would be a 5A violation: seizure of private property for public use. It is different if you uniformly rescind 230, but then you kill all third party commentary on the web in general. Look at Craigslist's response to fosta/sosta, for example.

> e.g. private companies shouldn't be able to do widespread content scanning of private data that would be illegal for the government to

The government isn't allowed to do this because the Constitution forbids it. Private companies can only get your data if you transact with them.

That transact line is usually blured on the web, but there are defensive measures one can take to help evade them. The simplest of them is to choose not to use a business or service.

I don't have a meta account. I don't have a tiktok or X. In fact, I have a HN, lobsters, and Blur Dwarf account. That's it. So easy to opt out of what concerns you. Additionally, I run both clearnet domains and hidden services. While what I say on the clearnet may get me kicked off a domain registrar, that can't happen on the government-invented-and-implemented tor.

[hackinthebochs]

These are all choices we make. We can simply make different choices. Nothing you've said argues against making choices that are more in line with our ideals given the reality of the size and power that modern corporations have over our social lives.

[WarOnPrivacy]

> if you engage in any form of censorship you are not given section 230 protections.

I disagree that governments should punish people who fail to amplify the messages of powerful political parties.

[hackinthebochs]

Selective amplification is editorialization when the decisions are content sensitive. It being algorithmic doesn't change the substance of this.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Selective amplification is editorialization

Editorialisation as in the press?

[hackinthebochs]

As in the status that renders a service not subject to section 230 protections.

[tengbretson]

Exactly like the press. The press that is held liable for what they publish.

[amanaplanacanal]

The entire purpose of section 230 was to protect platforms from being sued for censorship. You are talking about repealing it, not changing it.