Twitter will be liable for content posted, therefor won't they start censoring things so they can't be sued? This would make them also liable for Trump's tweets if those tweets aren't removed...
First option, what you described. If they want to make comments about the content of their platform (i.e. fact check something) then they have to 'go all the way' and 'editorialize' everything. (No more Section 230 protection)
Second option, which I think still exists (I think?), don't make any comments about the content, and behave strictly as a platform. In that case, all legal protection under Section 230 still applies.
Idk if this is a decent analogy, but it seems comparable to the classic anonymous swiss bank account. Either the bank completely protects all personal information for everyone, or it has to move out of switzerland and give up all its anonymity. (I know the analogy isn't accurate, but it seems like a decent mental model.)
I don't think the stuff on Twitter has often been held up as an example of healthy dialog. Other than that, I agree.
The scope of publisher liability makes that impractical for a user-submitted content site.
> Second option, which I think still exists (I think?), don't make any comments about the content, and behave strictly as a platform. In that case, all legal protection under Section 230 still applies.
Not only don't make comments, but don't control content at all (at least, except (and making errors of interpretation may be dangerous here) removing actually illegal content; this has (among other things) significantly adverse commercial consequences.
Honestly, it might be nice to end up with a greater divide between the commercial and non-commercial parts of the internet. I agree, it will be very hard to control all the content on e.g. Twitter; the degree of cleanup required to pull it off might limit the users to a small fraction of the current number. We might end up with commercial sites that are much more tightly controlled.
However, what about sites like HN? I think there'd be more of those. Dang does great work, but I think (?) most of the content control is done by users. It might be really nice to regain an internet that isn't dominated by profit-seeking.
HN has nowhere near enough active management to safe from liability without Section 230, but enough to be at risk of losing Section 230 protection especially for a government effort overtly motivated by perceived anti-Republican bias (which HN is regularly accused of exhibiting and reinforcing via it's moderation policies.)
I'm pretty sure YC wouldn't risk running it if Section 230 protection with active moderation wasn't available; user-submitted content sites that are side project for a business are even more at risk than ones that are core business; no one is going to absorb substantial liabit risk for a peripheral effort.