I think that censorship should be expressly limited based on size and usage of 230 protections. ex: if you have 10+ million users and you want to cite section 230 protections, you may not censor protected speech, but maybe allow users to opt-in to a "censored" feed, or otherwise limited such as for minors.
I'm mixed, but I don't think companies should have 230 protection AND be able to make express publisher decisions on editorializing content.
I'm not sure that would work. How about spam or adverts? That's protected speech. And downranking based on viewpoint is not any different from censoring.
Yeah you can say X but no one will see it.
I can see potentially requiring platforms to moderate in a "viewpoint neutral" way, though, which only applies if you have ~5% of potential customer base as users.
It would at least create a diseconomy of scale and discourage centralization.
Sounds like you’re talking about the presumed free speech rights of corporations, which is part of this debate. I think corporations should have much more limited speech than an actual person and the concept of corporate personhood in general needs to be walked back significantly.
Yes it’s important for news organization and such to have unrestricted speech, but that seems solvable by keeping them in a separate category and excluding corps that engage in other lines of business. I don’t want say Google to be have full censorship and editorial privileges just because one of their many products surfaces news.
I think this is one of those things that only ever makes sense in the abstract. How would this rule apply to Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy? Would it make sense to tell Prodigy that they'll be immune from defamation suits if only they agree to make their offensive language monitoring opt-in and publish a new code of conduct permitting racial slurs?
I'm honestly not sure... it could also backfire with intentional social groups... such as someone created a social network expressly for progressives or conservatives, where repeated contrarian rhetoric is simply disallowed (for good or bad), for people who want to live in their bubbles, like MSNow.
(last comment regarding MS Now is meant for humor)
(Reminder that TechDirt is also a lobbyist Copia Insitute who takes money from big tech clients.)
Section 230 is a terrible law because it exempts one class of business from any responsibility for their actions.
A global company which faces no penalties for allowing malicious and fraudulent content has no incentive to police itself, and its clients live outside the reach of the law. Ergo, they make money on crime and have no responsibility for it.
If we want to fix the Internet, step one is deleting 230 in its entirety, and step two is ensuring a tech platform cannot profit from illegal activity. That means if they sell a malicious ad, they at bare minimum, have to give up that revenue, and ideally, face a penalty for it if they aren't taking adequate measures to prevent abuse.
A true financial risk to tech platforms is the only way to incentivize good behavior.
I think that censorship should be expressly limited based on size and usage of 230 protections. ex: if you have 10+ million users and you want to cite section 230 protections, you may not censor protected speech, but maybe allow users to opt-in to a "censored" feed, or otherwise limited such as for minors.
I'm mixed, but I don't think companies should have 230 protection AND be able to make express publisher decisions on editorializing content.
I'm not sure that would work. How about spam or adverts? That's protected speech. And downranking based on viewpoint is not any different from censoring.
Yeah you can say X but no one will see it.
I can see potentially requiring platforms to moderate in a "viewpoint neutral" way, though, which only applies if you have ~5% of potential customer base as users.
It would at least create a diseconomy of scale and discourage centralization.
Sounds like you’re talking about the presumed free speech rights of corporations, which is part of this debate. I think corporations should have much more limited speech than an actual person and the concept of corporate personhood in general needs to be walked back significantly.
Yes it’s important for news organization and such to have unrestricted speech, but that seems solvable by keeping them in a separate category and excluding corps that engage in other lines of business. I don’t want say Google to be have full censorship and editorial privileges just because one of their many products surfaces news.
I think this is one of those things that only ever makes sense in the abstract. How would this rule apply to Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy? Would it make sense to tell Prodigy that they'll be immune from defamation suits if only they agree to make their offensive language monitoring opt-in and publish a new code of conduct permitting racial slurs?
I'm honestly not sure... it could also backfire with intentional social groups... such as someone created a social network expressly for progressives or conservatives, where repeated contrarian rhetoric is simply disallowed (for good or bad), for people who want to live in their bubbles, like MSNow.
(last comment regarding MS Now is meant for humor)
(Reminder that TechDirt is also a lobbyist Copia Insitute who takes money from big tech clients.)
Section 230 is a terrible law because it exempts one class of business from any responsibility for their actions.
A global company which faces no penalties for allowing malicious and fraudulent content has no incentive to police itself, and its clients live outside the reach of the law. Ergo, they make money on crime and have no responsibility for it.
If we want to fix the Internet, step one is deleting 230 in its entirety, and step two is ensuring a tech platform cannot profit from illegal activity. That means if they sell a malicious ad, they at bare minimum, have to give up that revenue, and ideally, face a penalty for it if they aren't taking adequate measures to prevent abuse.
A true financial risk to tech platforms is the only way to incentivize good behavior.