> We really need age limits. And lower term limits. We cannot have people stuck in an era 3 decades old deciding the fate of our country as it goes into the future. They are simply not equipped to deal with today's problems, let alone tomorrow's.
I’m not sure I agree. I think millennials’ commitment to freedom of speech and information is lower than that of the older generation. (“Speech as violence” and whatnot. Young people today adopt a lot of the same modes of reasoning we ridiculed Tipper Gore for 25 years ago. It’s just directed to different perceived evils.)
I’m also not sure that “people just don’t understand how the Internet works” is actually anybody’s problem. It should be remembered that Section 230 actually originated in the Communications Decency Act in 1996, a sweeping attempt to regulate the Internet. A panel of three federal judges, who were then in their 50s and 60s, in Philadelphia struck down almost the entire law, leaving only the Section 230 safe harbor. Two points are illuminating.
One, the decision was widely praised for its cogent articulation of how the Internet works. It was impressive in its technical detail. For example, it describes routing packets: https://cyber.harvard.edu/stjohns/aclu-findings.html
> Messages between computers on the Internet do not necessarily travel entirely along the same path. The Internet uses "packet switching" communication protocols that allow individual messages to be subdivided into smaller "packets" that are then sent independently to the destination, and are then automatically reassembled by the receiving computer. While all packets of a given message often travel along the same path to the destination, if computers along the route become overloaded, then packets can be re-routed to less loaded computers
It also described how USENET works:
> For unmoderated newsgroups, when an individual user with access to a USENET server posts a message to a newsgroup, the message is automatically forwarded to all adjacent USENET servers that furnish access to the newsgroup, and it is then propagated to the servers adjacent to those servers, etc. The messages are temporarily stored on each receiving server, where they are available for review and response by individual users. The messages are automatically and periodically purged from each system after a time to make room for new messages. Responses to messages, like the original messages, are automatically distributed to all other computers receiving the newsgroup or forwarded to a moderator in the case of a moderated newsgroup. The dissemination of messages to USENET servers around the world is an automated process that does not require direct human intervention or review.
The other point is that it was a radically pro-First Amendment decision: https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/we...
> We were surprised at how sweeping the ruling was," said Cathleen A. Cleaver, director of legal studies for the Family Research Council of Washington, a supporter of the law.
> "They went far beyond where they needed to go," she said. "Not only did the court strike down the law against the display of pornography, but also the parts that made it illegal to transmit pornography directly to specific children. It's very radical."
Finally, as a nit picky aside: of course the median age of the senate is higher than the median age of the whole population. The median age of the population includes children. Senators are, however, required by the Constitution to be at least 30. So the relevant point of comparison is the median age of people who are over 30.