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Comment by the_pwner224 | Hacker News Reader

This does not work.

Example: I want to set up a forum where people can discuss a specific topic. Such as the Arch Linux forum, or ones for vehicles (https://www.ninja400riders.com/, https://www.civicx.com/forum/). I am clearly not a publisher; I do produce content and do not want to produce content. So I am a platform.

Am I no longer allowed to decide what is acceptable on my platform? Even if I am running a forum about the Ninja 400 motorcycle, I now have to allow people to post about their Toyota Corolla or about how vaccines cause autism or the earth is flat? What about if I want to moderate the forum to keep discussion on topic and I need to delete trolling or spam, or lock/delete threads that devolve into political fighting among forum members?

You can't have platforms without moderation.

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It sounds like what you want is to publish an anthology of submitted content, all about Ninja 400s. The behavior you describe is simply automating an existing business practice: acting as an editor when deciding what’s included in an anthology.

That’s fine — but it makes you a publisher, not a platform.

> The behavior you describe is simply automating an existing business practice: acting as an editor when deciding what’s included in an anthology.

Forums are typically about back and forth communication among community members that does not match the business practice of publishing an anthology or how anthologies typical work.

Metrics might matter. Exceptions for non profit (no ads) or orgs under undetermined amount of monthly active users?

That still doesn't answer the question — as soon as my forum gets popular, I can't moderate anymore? Do I limit the number of users so that I never hit these metrics?

If I'd have to be non-profit (which doesn't mean no ads, by the way), then this kills a lot of business models.

> Do I limit the number of users so that I never hit these metrics?

A darkly amusing solution to Eternal September.

Right. After certain revenue or certain viewership or commercialization you have new responsibilities.

>> You can't have platforms without moderation

The cell phone network is a platform and it has no moderation.

If you want to decide what is acceptable content, you're not a platform, you're a publisher. A stated rationale for protecting internet platform providers was to provide true diversity of political discourse. It wasn't to make it easy to run a forum for Ninja 400 motorcycle fans.

You want to moderate content, fine, you're a publisher and you should be liable for the content you publish. The same way you would be if you published that content as a newspaper or magazine instead of over the internet.

> A stated rationale for protecting internet platform providers was to provide true diversity of political discourse.

Citation needed.

The most prominent case that led to the passage of section 230 was the decision in Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. which had nothing to do with politics.

The "Findings" passage of section 230 itself called out the internet as "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse".

I think you both have a different idea of what a platform is. Given your idea of a platform, I think web forums are neither platform nor publishers, so where does that leave them?

To be clear, it's not fair to classify them as publishers. Newspapers and magazines are not mediums of discussions like forums are, they're compilers of articles that people spend days to write and submit for approval.

To use an offline metaphor, forums are like clubs where people meetup in a room and have informal discussions about the topic of the club. Such clubs often have someone acting as a moderator, since if discussions derail from the club topic then the host of the club will become disinterested, as well as potential newcomers who have an interest in the club topic.

In my opinion, if a club must be classified as either a "platform" or a "publisher", I think the word "platform" fits better. However, you consider platforms as being limited to communication mediums like postal mail and phone networks. If that's the case, then I think clubs classify as neither.

When they want the protections of section 230, they claim to be platforms, when they want to block content on a political basis, they act as publishers.

I think they should have to decide on which they one want to be, and I think platforms should have greater protection against liability than publishers.

Destroying the concept of moderation does not make the world better. The liability shield is the whole reason Section 230 exists: to make it possible to have enjoyable communities online, without incurring so much liability that you have to shut them all down for fear of getting prosecuted.

If you want unmoderated communities, they exist. Go use them. Stop trying to destroy the concept of moderated communities. (Removing the liability shield would be tantamount to destroying such communities.)

Some people want the audience of moderated communities, but they don't want the standards of those communities. There's a reason unmoderated communities have fewer (and different) users.

> when they want to block content on a political basis

And what about when the want to block content because they believe in an objective reality?

> When they want the protections of section 230, they claim to be platforms

No they don't, because section 230 does not require them to. It does not even contain the word "platform".

> when they want to block content on a political basis, they act as publishers.

You keep saying that as though it's a fact or a law when it's only an opinion. You should stop doing that.

Publisher, distributor, and platform are legal definitions that have been worked out through case law over a long period of time. Blocking content on a political basis as a non-internet content provider would be more than enough to get you treated as a publisher.

In pre-section 230 law, even blocking content for vulgarity was enough to get you treated as a publisher, that decision was Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.

Eugene Volokh has a good summary of this at https://reason.com/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-%C2%A7-230-and-the-pu.... You might want to read it so you don't make completely uninformed statements on the internet. You should stop doing that.

> Blocking content on a political basis as a non-internet content provider would be more than enough to get you treated as a publisher.

The key point here is "in pre-section 230 law". Prodigy Services was one the cases that prompted Congress to pass Section 230. Why cite outdated cases to try to prove your point? What's next, Dred Scott v. Sandford?

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