Section 230(c):
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Furthermore section 230 (c)(2) states:
> any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected
So to be clear, it's not that the law is unclear on this, it's very clear on this: The publisher has no responsibilty to consider whether speech is constitutionally protected at all. Not only is there no qualification that these platforms need to meet in terms of moderation, but the law actively states that the platform can moderate speech.
Yes this is the current state, but the question is whether it's morally right and should we update it to reflect the current situation of the social media behemoths, this law was designed for small bulletin boards at the time.
Twitter and Facebook are publishers. Publishers still get protections afforded to them under 230(c).
It's a discussion we should all want to have to preserve our freedom of speech from being infringed on by these (very very few) social media companies.
I don't think anyone is arguing they don't currently have these powers, it's whether they should and whether they've been abusing them.
Why? Twitter is not infringing on people's freedom of speech. Trump's comments are proof of that because he's continued to have a platform on the site. People keep saying that their being oppressed by the site they're using to say they're oppressed. No one is being oppressed by Twitter.
You take away 230(c) from Twitter and one of two things will happen:
- they'll cease to exist becase they will become legally liable for all content their users post - they'll automate moderation much more aggressively and "censor" 10x times more than they do currently.
Also, it'll make it harder for competition to exist because the government will increase the burden on creating a site that hosts user generated content. It will be a contraction of speech online.
Really, if you're not happy with the moves these companeis are making, you should be advocating for more competition so you can switch to an alternative.
Facebook has for the most part stayed out of it and they are being attacked for not providing a Ministry of Truth like Twitter does.
So the little bit of competition that Twitter has is being coerced to do the same.
If Twitter continues down the route it's going and continues to publish it's thoughts and link them to other's thoughts then I think they should have their 230 protections revoked and that will probably shutter them. Good.
Hacker News should be all about breaking up monopolies and regulating companies, what gives? Ah yeah, the elections.
Similar alternatives for those interested:
> Ah yeah, the elections.
I'm not american, so i have no horse in the elections, apart from wanting twitter to continue to exist.
Twitter is a private company, it should be able to moderate its platform as it sees fit. If it see's content that it feels is dangerous, they should be completely within their right to remove it from their site. Preventing them from being able to do that is the government restricting twitters speech.
If you don't like how twitter moderates it's platform, you should have alternatives to go to that moderate differently. That's basically the whole premise of subreddits and, well, a "free and open market", rather than the government forcing companies to publish content it doesnt want on it's site.
This is a popular belief among people who feel some viewpoints are being "censored" but it has no basis in law or reality. My cynical perspective is that if enough people spread this lie, it will become true in the court of public opinion, which is what the people being "censored" are hoping for. (the scare quotes are because "censorship" is a scary word used in place of "moderation" or "community management" or "spam removal")
Platforms are 100% allowed to take down material that they find objectionable for whatever reason.
The other reply to your comment has posted a link to the actual law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23408218. I'd encourage you to take a look.
Please do not conflate civil torts with criminal hate speech