[webstrand]

Not only that, I think they're forfeit their Section 230 protections since they're exercising editorial control by excluding males from the platform. So they'd be directly liable for any defamation they publish on their platform.

[pridzone]

It would be in Apple and Google’s best interest to pull these apps immediately. Multiple Supreme Court justices have indicated an interest in narrowing the breadth of section 230 immunity. This app, structured entirely around effecting the reputation of private individuals, provides a relatively clean case to do so. It’s not a stretch that the app could be considered a ‘developer in part’ of the content it hosts, and thus lose section 230 protection.

A narrowing of section 230 would not be good for Apple or Google, though they wouldn’t face any liability for the Tea apps conduct.

[mikeyouse]

That's not how 230 works - why do people keep parroting this misinformation?

https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...

[schoen]

It continues to confuse me that the publisher/distributor distinction that section 230 was meant to remove (created by prior Federal court decisions) gets so frequently interpreted as if section 230 had been intended to establish it.

To me this feels as if people widely thought that the Apollo Program was intended to prevent people from traveling to the moon, or Magna Carta was meant to prevent barons from limiting the king's power, or Impressionism was all about using technical artistic skills to depict scenes in a realistically detailed way.

[derbOac]

Thanks for posting the link. I had read that before and forgot.

I think sometimes confusion about Section 230 maybe points to some legal soft spots.

I think there's a trend — good or bad — for courts to see websites as accountable for users' activities on the site when those activities are systematic and collectively illegal or jeopardized, when the website is seen as encouraging the activity.

It's not hard for me to imagine a court deciding that the intrinsic nature of the website encourages systematic libel, and is therefore is somehow involved in the creation of post content.

Even more specifically, I'm not sure the "good faith" clause of Section 230 even applies to something like Tea in the case of libel, should libel be there.

Now, actually showing libel is another thing, but that's also easier for me to imagine today than even a year ago, especially in the presence of a data breach where posters are exposed.

I guess I don't see Tea as being held legally responsible for anything about the content of user posts, in the US at least, for the reasons outlined in that article. But I also wouldn't be surprised if it did happen.

[webstrand]

Because it's really good misinformation, thanks for the link. I had no idea that it was effectively unconditional protection.

[magicalist]

> I had no idea that it was effectively unconditional protection.

Defamation is still not protected, it's just the person who posted it who is liable. Meanwhile the site's "editorial control" is protected by the first amendment, not section 230.

[JoshTriplett]

Huge credit for actually updating in response to evidence.

[Nasrudith]

Because they seem to want it to work that way and seem to think that by spreading the misinformation that it will somehow change the way the law is interpreted.