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by jauntywundrkind 124 days ago
Section 230 is the only reason you can post here.

Without Section 230, if every place that hosts words is liable. No one is going to host user content.

I don't think anything you are saying is remotely correct. It's all a very specific weird narrow theory, picking very specific people you want to hurt & affect. But what you are asking for has such a broader zone of suffering & pain than Facebook.

Truly one of the greatest magnets for weird ass conspiracy theory horseshit. Fucking so awful, because it's that one tiny polar holding up the entire internet.

1 comments

LOL WUT? I run my own server in your basement. That's what I do.

And, no, it doesn't mean no one is going to host user content. It means every user content will have an editor over them, like the "Letters to the Editor" that newspapers had.

If you want unedited and unliable speech, you can always run your own servers.

>If you want unedited and unliable speech, you can always run your own servers.

Without Section 230, you personally are just as liable for the content on your basement server as big corporations are on their platforms, but those big platforms have the budget for a legal team and a staff of moderators and editors, and you probably don't.

And do you know WHY you wouldn't get sued under section 230 when publishing content on a major corporate website?

Because lawsuits aren't free.

> And do you know WHY you wouldn't get sued under section 230 when publishing content on a major corporate website?

> Because lawsuits aren't free.

Before Section 230, suing someone who posted defamation about you (which you can still do, because Section 230 has never restricted you from doing so) was not free either.

OK?

Lawsuits aren't free but the US is a very litigious society and people do get sued over the content they post online.

Zero people would have read your shit though. So no, you would not be here. There would be no here. No comment threads, no discussion.

I can't begin to state what an absolute moronic plan this sounds like. Trying to make the whole world spin up their own servers in their basement... Because even a VPS is protected & can run only because of 230. Too stupid even to be a joke.

And then how do we have threads & comments? Sure you can post your words, but sites like this patently couldnt exist.

It's just the most brain rotted dumbest shit. The anti 230 people dont attempt even the smallest faintest attempt at making sense. Durbin has been confronted by a number of people, and it's always this fantasy world delusion, hiding behind the castle walls of the mind pretending like he's right, utterly unable to hear a single sound from outside. It's a Pam Bondi performance, a commitment to disregard any reality that doesn't meet what you want.

I have yet to meet a single anti-230 person who can even begin to be reasonable & measured in how they talk about this. There are just endless massive holes you could send a whole aircraft carrier battle group through. None of it is serious. It's probably half Russian agitprop, disinformation, begging America to stop having a freedom to share our words.

See also the recent techdirt which once again just shows how incredibly wrong anti-230 people so often are. It was designed to protect site's right to have editorializing. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46998247 https://www.techdirt.com/2026/02/12/joseph-gordon-levitt-goe...

Found a corporatist. But I guess this plan sounds about as stupid as everyone having a phone in their pocket.

Oh well, some people prefer their bad habits instead.

The only thing Section 230 does is protect Google and Meta. It does not protect smaller sites, or independent media. It does not protect speech.

I've linked actual informative useful sources, that bring references.

If you have a case to make, by all means! Make it! I am happy to actually hear some anti-section 230 talk that makes any sense. But this is just cheap digs of no merit, adding no specific or clarity to the conversation.

It's also, from everything anyone of any note has said, totally miserably absurdly wrong.

You did not link to any actual, informative sources. You linked to typical debunked garbage.

Section 230 is old. You aren't providing any new information I haven't seen over the last 30 years. And, like we predicted, it has destroyed independent media in favor of large corporations, enforcing their corporatist speech.

None of your predictions are true. All of our predictions have come true.

The only thing Section 230 does is enforce corporatist speech by removing liability for large corporations hosting content. It did not stop those same corporations from maintaining editorial controls over speech, thus allowing them to control your speech. Is Facebook/YouTube an internet service like a public utility? Or is it speech content itself with their own editorial controls?

You can't have it both ways.

YouTube just banned Guy Christensen from their platform. Now what?

> YouTube just banned Guy Christensen from their platform. Now what?

YouTube has both a First Amendment right and a Section 230 immunity to ban Guy Christensen (to the extent that a government actor/agency does not coerce YouTube into doing so). Now Guy Christensen finds another platform or self-publishes his own speech.

Otherwise, your comment is similar to the one you wrote at [1], and I address it at [2].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47016230

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47026006