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Comment by reggieband | Hacker News Reader

I'm having a moment here where I am considering this from another viewpoint. While I hate the idea of siding with Ted Cruz on literally anything I want to take a moment to really consider something.

Section 230 makes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Instagram and even Hacker News possible. Revoking Section 230 could expose those platforms to the possibility of liability for content posted on them. This might cause a re-shaping of the Internet in general.

Part of me seriously wonders - would that necessarily be a bad thing? I am not convinced, by any stretch of the imagination, that these social media opinion aggregation platforms are universally positive. Everyone keeps acting like the existence of Facebook somehow democratizes content publishing for the masses, even when we are faced with clear evidence that this isn't the case. The centralized nature of Facebook actually allows for larger scale manipulation of the narrative.

And how would this affect Uber, Airbnb, Amazon, Netflix and other sites? I suppose opening them up to liability for negative reviews could be a problem.

I'm thinking on the fly here, but if Facebook just disappeared off of the Internet tomorrow - I'm not really sure I would mourn that. And if new Internet companies were burdened with stricter moderation requirements (or the need to stand behind every piece of content posted onto their site), maybe that would actually be good? Maybe that would drive people to create their own websites once again.

I'm sure I haven't thought deeply enough on this but I definitely feel the tide here is a knee-jerk protection of Section 230. Yet the companies it protects the most are the ones I feel are the worst.

View on HN

Remember that Section 230 isn't just about the big, centralized services. It protects everybody who's ever run a phpBB forum for their little community, or allowed comments on their blog, or set up a Mastodon instance they share with others. If you host content written by someone else, Section 230 is what allows you to moderate it, and what prevents you from being legally liable for it. Proposals requiring "political neutrality" even add new burdens to be compliant with; your friend on your Mastodon ranting about "that politician" probably isn't "neutral" publishing.

Facebook et al. could be big enough to wrangle the regulatory burden of existing without these protections. But many proposed 230 "reforms" could scare off anyone smaller, creating a regulatory moat that keeps Facebook at the top in perpetuity.

Yes, believe it or not I am questioning whether or not I should be free from liability if I host a public forum. And my conclusion is: perhaps I should be liable if I stand up a public forum.

You may suggest that would prevent me from creating a user-generated-content application of massive scale without the resources to sufficiently moderate it. And again, yes - maybe that should be a requirement of me doing such a thing.

It isn't like the only kind of business a person could create on the internet is one that surrounds the aggregation of user generated content. If it killed that entire class of business ... I am not sure we would lose very much of value that couldn't be replaced by individuals hosting their own content.

> of massive scale

Of even tiny, microscopic scale. Even your personal blog's comments, or the forum for your local club.

And it _still_ won't stop Facebook. It'll only stop _you_. That outcome doesn't sound like the outcome you're saying you may be comfortable with. It sounds like the opposite.

> That outcome doesn't sound like the outcome you're saying you may be comfortable with.

Oh no, I'm considering exactly that. I am saying: if my tiny personal blog has a comment section I would be liable for comments posted there. If that is a burden I can't handle then I should turn off comments. At least in my experience those comment sections are a complete waste of space anyway and the trend I've noticed from the large blogs that are still around (e.g. daringfireball, kottke) is that their comment sections are long gone anyway.

What I am pondering is: would this ruin the Internet? If I couldn't host a public forum if it got beyond my limited means to moderate? If I couldn't have a public comment section? It doesn't seem clear to me the Internet breaks if I am forced to own the responsibility for those things that I allow to be made public through sites I control.

> What I am pondering is: would this ruin the Internet? If I couldn't host a public forum if it got beyond my limited means to moderate?

Do you actually have the means to moderate your forum and fund the legal trouble you might face should you get it wrong? Are you ready for the bad actors who abuse this bottleneck to take down content they don't like? I don't think many people are positioned to handle these burdens, and I think the internet will be ruined as a result.

> What I am pondering is: would this ruin the Internet?

It would break most of how the internet works today. It would prevent most forms of real time, one to many, communication since a human would first have to moderate it.

Best example is public audio/video conferencing. I watched a conference presentation in real time today, which had real time comments in IRC and an audio/video conference question and answer. Neither of which would have been possible if real time moderation was required.

How would moderation even work for audio/video conferences? As far as I can tell it would not work since no moderation could happen in real time and allow for smooth audio/video conferencing. What if we act as a platform though and claim no responsibility for the content that happens? Then there is no ability to set topics or restrict offensive material etc so any random person(or bot since how would you tell the difference) could streaming in offensive videos or loud noise

Loosing most, one to many, real time communication would be throwing out a considerable amount of value.

Do you have solutions for issues like that?

edit clarifying that I am taling about one to many real time communication.

> How would moderation even work for audio/video conferences?

This is already an issue on platforms like Twitch. All Twitch streamers are required by the Twitch ToS to moderate their chats and the streamers face bans if they fail to do so.

Everyone keeps talking about "breaking" the Internet but let's consider what would actually change. Let's say that I am unable to moderate my chat because it is overrun with malicious actors. What are my options? I can completely turn off chat for one. I could restrict chat to a manageable vetted subset of chatters that I am comfortable allowing to post with minimal moderation.

In fact, as a streamer I cannot possibly read hundreds or thousands of messages per second. At that point the very idea there is "real time communication" going on is a myth anyway. Every streamer has a way of limiting this deluge of input and moderation is how they are handling it.

> Loosing most, one to many, real time communication would be throwing out a considerable amount of value.

This is where I feel everyone here is taking things too far. You don't lose communication - you become responsible for the communication you allow to be made pubic.

> This is already an issue on platforms like Twitch. All Twitch streamers are required by the Twitch ToS to moderate their chats and the streamers face bans if they fail to do so.

Currently twitch is not held legally responsible if the streamers fail to follow ToS due to Section 230. If Section 230 was dropped however asking the streamers to moderate would not protect them from legal consequences.

I do not see how twitch's current rules would provide them legal protection or provide a solution for moderation of one to many realtime communication if Section 230 was dropped.

Maybe you have some assumptions about how new laws would be put in place post Section 230 that make this work?

> This is where I feel everyone here is taking things too far. You don't lose communication - you become responsible for the communication you allow to be made pubic.

It increases the barrier to entry so many, if not most, forms of one to many real time communication would have to be discontinued due to lack of the ability to moderate in real time. Hence they would be lost along with the value they generate.

> Maybe you have some assumptions about how new laws would be put in place post Section 230 that make this work?

I don't have to have assumptions, I know of real life examples. Not long ago I worked for a company that had a 24 hour live news broadcast. How do you think they handle this?

One specific example I can recall is closed captioning. These are federally required on all TV broadcast channels, including live. The company had a contract for a third party to manually transcribe the broadcast in real time. One initiative we wanted to explore was automating this process using speech recognition software. This was difficult because it turns out that incorrectly transcribed closed captions can lead to lawsuits. So the company that was contracted to handle the closed captions also provided insurance/indemnification against their service causing any lawsuits. No AI speech recognition solutions that were available also included this insurance so it was deemed too risky to switch.

One of the underlying assumptions in all of this Section 230 talk is "it's too hard to moderate the deluge of user generated content" .... so why even bother trying I guess? Why is that the underlying assumption? Why isn't the assumption: You can publish as much user generated content as you are capable of adequately moderating? The idea that the current free-for-all is some inherent "right" is perplexing to me.

> so many, if not most, forms of one to many real time communication would have to be discontinued due to lack of the ability to moderate in real time. Hence they would be lost along with the value they generate.

Again, that doesn't seem like the necessary conclusion. It prevents centralized platforms from publishing massive deluges of unvetted content. They are not in a position to moderate the billions of videos, chat posts, images uploaded each day. So, maybe instead of leaving the free pass we've given them open we question: is it reasonable for single entities to be the sole publisher of billions of unmoderated pieces of content? That doesn't mean all content everywhere goes away. It creates limits on what sole entities can accomplish.

> I don't have to have assumptions, I know of real life examples. Not long ago I worked for a company that had a 24 hour live news broadcast. How do you think they handle this?

You example does not address my original question in: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24807064

"How would moderation even work for audio/video conferences?" "Do you have solutions for issues like that?" In your example there must be a delay in broadcasting, for the realtime captioning to happen in. That sort of delay precludes a real time back and forth conversation that is expected from audio/video conferencing.

Secondly I was also asking for a solution that would allow small time actors, like in my example of the conference I attended, to continue to be able to host such conferences with out undue liability or massive investment.

> One of the underlying assumptions in all of this Section 230 talk is "it's too hard to moderate the deluge of user generated content" .... so why even bother trying I guess?

I have not seen that be the main thrust of any argument. To my knowledge Section 230 was in part made to make it easier for more moderation to take place since before some had assumed any level of moderation would induce legal liability, both criminal and finical, for any content that made it past moderation.

> Again, that doesn't seem like the necessary conclusion. It prevents centralized platforms from publishing massive deluges of unvetted content.

As noted above your example above does not apply to my original question an example of a small time actor using audio/video conferencing so I remain unconvinced.

> You example does not address my original question in

We'll have to agree to disagree then. For example, I am taking an online course right now. There is a chat room where people post questions and there is a moderator that elects individuals to speak. There is a private forum where people can post questions. I absolutely expect them to moderate that content to avoid any slanderous statements.

What happens now if someone call into a radio station live call-in program and starts spouting nonsense? Same thing that would happen on the Internet. Let's sketch it out. I don't have money/time to do any moderation at all (or pre-vetting of on air guests) -- Well then I better not do it at all or I better be responsible for the consequences if a nut job gets on. I cut him off ASAP and do my best and what happens? Does a swat team descend and smash down my door? No, maybe I get a cease and desist and nothing more happens, maybe I get filed against in court, maybe I have to defend myself. Maybe I pay for liability insurance (as I mentioned happens in many other similar circumstances). Maybe I am legally compelled to remove from my servers any recorded content related to the incident. Maybe I have to pay damages for the time it was up.

This idea that private real-time conferences like online classes will be impossible in such a circumstance is the hyperbole I am starting to detest. Would there be changes: hopefully yes. And my belief is theses changes would positively effect all online discourse.

Neither example seem to fully apply to my example, for example you did not layout how the online class is viable post Section 230 and the second example does seems to apply to small time actors like the small, volunteer(clarification), conference in my example. If you want to focus on one and elaborate I am willing to follow up.

> This idea that private real-time conferences like online classes will be impossible in such a circumstance is the hyperbole

I have not used the word impossible or implied it. I have said the change would throw out "a considerable amount of value" and I have talked about value generating venues having to shut down.

I do not think you are understanding what I am saying pull 'impossible' from what I have said.

You said: "so many, if not most, forms of one to many real time communication would have to be discontinued"

I take your statement: "would have to be discontinued" as equivalent to impossible. If you'd like to walk back that statement we can continue to discuss.

I have given examples of: Small teams of individuals (e.g. one Twitch streamer + a mod team) broadcasting to tens of thousands of people in real-time including call-in type segments. This happens today and I considered how this would continue if we repeal section 230 (including comparisons to existing public real-time radio call-in segments). I have given examples of medium sized teams presenting classes of 150+ individuals, each of whom can "raise their hand" and be selected by a moderator to take control of the stream to provide their own insights to the group in real time. I considered how this would be possible without Section 230. If neither of those forms of "one to many real time communications" fit your imagination then please be more specific and we can continue.

However, in all of this I still have not heard to my own satisfaction a description of a realistic loss we would have if Section 230 were to be revoked.

>Section 230 makes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Youtube, Instagram and even Hacker News possible. Revoking Section 230 could expose those platforms to the possibility of liability for content posted on them. This might cause a re-shaping of the Internet in general.

>Part of me seriously wonders - would that necessarily be a bad thing? I am not convinced, by any stretch of the imagination, that these social media opinion aggregation platforms are universally positive.

Here's where you are wrong to think this. It doesn't protect social media giants, Hacker News and news websites. It protects literally everyone on the internet in the USA.

Thanks to this law you can't be held liable if you have a blog with a comment section. Anyone can post anything there and you could be at serious risk of legal trouble if someone posted something that breaks the law on your website. Any communal website would either a) move out of the US and b) probably require some very strict controls on who can post and what.

The law doesn't protect American giants, it protects everyone that uses the internet to discuss.

I suggest you read this blog post on the issue, especially this part:

""If you said "Section 230 is a massive gift to big tech!"

Once again, I must inform you that you are very, very wrong. There is nothing in Section 230 that applies solely to big tech. Indeed, it applies to every website on the internet and every user of those websites.""

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

> It protects literally everyone on the internet in the USA.

I think this is the kind of knee-jerk hyperbole I want people to really think deeply about.

> Thanks to this law you can't be held liable if you have a blog with a comment section.

Maybe that should not be protected. If I am unable/unwilling to moderate the comment section of a blog I host then maybe I should't have one. I do not believe a completely open free-speech comment section is a requirement of a good or successful blog. Also, there is a business opportunity for those who want comment sections to pay for moderation services.

> I must inform you that you are very, very wrong.

This kind of patronizing is neither useful nor conducive to mature discussion. Aggregate user-generated-content sites aren't some kind of holy thing, forums, comment sections or otherwise. I want people to consider the fact that we may all be fine without them at all. Nothing stops people from posting whatever content they want on their own site. It just discourages aggregation of other people's content.

> If I am unable/unwilling to moderate the comment section of a blog I host then maybe I should't have one.

I completely agree, it’s clear that a successful business model around content moderation cannot exist in the internet’s current form, and there are very few consequences for people who post malicious content.

>Maybe that should not be protected. If I am unable/unwilling to moderate the comment section of a blog I host then maybe I should't have one. I do not believe a completely open free-speech comment section is a requirement of a good or successful blog.

It's not about having to moderate a completely free speech comment section. It's about being able to even have one and to be able to host good people and good comments without having to be liable for the time when people act terribly.

Where I'm from I don't think a bar owner can be held liable if a patron starts a fight and wounds another patron. You don't open a bar with the explicit intent of it being an amateur boxing arena, but a nice place for people to enjoy drinks and conversation.

If a user online decides to breach trust and common courtesy by posting vile stuff on my site I shouldn't be held liable for their actions as I did not force or coerce them to do it.

>Nothing stops people from posting whatever content they want on their own site. It just discourages aggregation of other people's content.

Yes, nothing is stopping them. But 230 is allowing you to do more with the internet other than just post things on your own site. That blog even describes an instance where replying/forwarding an email - in which you are repeating what rule/law breaking thing another person said to be able to reply/comment on said thing - you are protected against liability.

If you dismiss these liability rules you are effectively removing everything from chatrooms to comment sections from the internet, effectively making the internet into a snailmail/bulletin board service.

> If you dismiss these liability rules you are effectively removing everything from chatrooms to comment sections from the internet, effectively making the internet into a snailmail/bulletin board service.

Yes, I am pondering exactly this. How much of the Internet do I consider valuable that would be lost? I mean, lost in the sense it would be completely irreplaceable without Section 230 protection. To be fair to my position, the vacuum of unmoderated spaces would be filled one way or another.

Maybe people are surprised by such a position, but I don't actually see enough inherent value in unmoderated comment sections on private blogs or even all of the 1990's era phpbb forums to worry about their loss. In fact, when I consider the negative effects of the massive companies hiding behind Section 230 they really seem to heavily outweigh whatever positive effect comments on my personal blog could ever bring.

It seems these things keep coming up: public comments on personal blogs and anonymous forums. I want people to deeply think about whether or not these things are really valuable and even more so whether or not the are irreplaceable without Section 230.

> Thanks to this law you can't be held liable if you have a blog with a comment section.

Even absent a comment section, most blogs are hosted by someone else (e.g. WordPress), who does not vet the content on that blog. That won't be possible anymore in a post-Section 230 world.

Right. So WordPress has no protections if you post bad content. So probably WordPress goes away.

No problem, you say, I'll self-host my content on AWS and use CloudFlare as a CDN. But AWS and CF also have no section 230 protections any more either and probably won't do business with you unless you indemnify under some kind of insurance policy (which you won't be able to afford as a small blog).

Even if you run your own server and install it at home, the lack of section 230 protections will probably make your ISP responsible for content you publish (remember: your ISP is not a common carrier - thanks FCC) so you're probably going to find that all consumer ISPs are going to have terms of service that prohibit publication, and technical implementations that enforce that.

I mean, in the non-Internet world, if I want to make a newsletter and mail it out to a subscriber list; I can at least do that. All I need is a laser printer, and a stack of stamped envelopes. The postal service is a common carrier, at least.

Today's internet is a composition of platforms, all of which are really only possible due to the existence of section 230. It blows my mind that people are so blasé about the idea of tossing it out or reworking it in a naive way.

Thank you for your final comment. As a lawyer, reading people's reactions to 230 repeal attempts (especially when it comes from educated engineers and technologists) is shocking. What is more astounding is that, for some reason, they seem convinced that this will take out FB/Google/Twitter, etc. where we have ample evidence that the opposite will occur, and they'll just become further entrenched platforms since they are the only ones that would have the financial capacity to continue running community based platforms effectively. I have yet to come across a strong argument for repeal that doesn't exacerbate the issues that repeal proponents purport to want to address.

Would the forums of yesteryear survive? The early 2000s saw a veritable utopia of information sharing, as people with special interests came online and formed groups to discuss and collaborate on those interests.

Would the open source software community survive? My world revolves around github more than any other site; would ticket discussions be forced back to mailing lists? Would mail readers pick that slack up, and re-implement social media over email?

> Would the forums of yesteryear survive?

I know this is questioning some fundamental assumptions of most of our moral principals, but I am literally questioning: should they survive? It seems everyone is assuming that they should. Some seem to suggest they should for abstract "free speech at all costs" philosophy. Others are assuming they have some kind of positive effect, either on personal growth or economic activity.

> Would the open source software community survive?

I'm not sure how Section 230 applies to code but I don't think public forums like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube are necessary for open source software to continue (any more than they were necessary for it to start, which happened long before they existed).

Besides, what I'm pondering is the centralized aggregation points. People could still host blogs, they are just directly liable for the content they post (as they likely are now).

You keep harping on Facebook et al but you're ignoring everyone pointing out that Section 230 protects everyone at all scales. Without Section 230 exceptions there's no protection for any type of user generated content.

That means no user reviews of anything. No user contributed information so no more Wikipedia or OpenStreetMaps. No Wikis of any kind in fact. No hosting of public data sets for ML research. Forums would be a liability nightmare so they would go away.

Not only would current/new instances of user generated content make sites liable but hosting any historical co rent as well. So to avoid liability the web would have to be scraped clean of user generated content.

Facebook and other large sites would be the only ones to survive because they could afford a moderator army. Your extremely short sighted position would basically leave only large content producers. The Internet would regress to the curated Online Service model but worse because user communication would need to be disallowed over heavily moderated.

You're advocating for the Internet to turn into broadcast television. It's sad that you either can't or won't accept that implication.

Why do you suppose the only way user content can possibly be shared on the Internet is through content aggregation sites? I am suggesting this is a blindspot we've all fallen into that may have created the monsters we are now fighting to protect.

> Your extremely short sighted position

I am getting this a lot in this comment section so far. I mean, hey we should all be thick-skinned, right? My disagreement with your conclusions or predictions of what would happen doesn't mean I suffer from myopia and it isn't very polite to suggest otherwise.

Central aggregation of user generated content isn't the only possible mechanism to do anything on the Internet. Removing the legal protections for aggregators may slow growth and make it significantly more difficult to centrally aggregate content, but that might actually be a good thing.

> Why do you suppose the only way user content can possibly be shared on the Internet is through content aggregation sites?

Do you have an alternative that could survive if user-generated content is made legally risky to host and is subject to the whims of moderators on the few sites/publishers that can afford to bear those risks?

I'm sorry but you are suffering from serious myopia by getting hung up on big sites like Facebook or YouTube. Removing protections for sites hosting content will have a deleterious effect on the entire Internet.

As I said and you conveniently ignore, user generated content would have to be scrubbed from the Internet except from the big players like Facebook that can afford an army of moderators. So first order problem is big sites like Facebook would be the only venues of user generated content.

It also creates a slippery slope for ISPs/hosting companies. It could easily be interpreted that an ISP or hosting company is hosting user generated content, they literally are, so they're liable for that content. They would not carry any content that might make them liable for anything so they'll either shut down or moderate their services such individuals have no means to post their own content. ISPs already restrict or block hosting content, they would only get more draconian if they faved legal liability for someone hosting a site.

You can't suggest a course of action that would consolidate power in big sites like Facebook and then opine about people posting content outside of those sites. There would no longer be an "outside" of Facebook because no small player could ever afford the moderation or insurance against liability.

You might dislike Facebook or YouTube and they might be filled with dreck. They might need their own types of regulation but dooming all user generated content because Facebook's management are assholes is not a fix.

Instead of getting offended when people point out your myopia maybe take a step back and apply some critical thought to your suggestions.

> As I said and you conveniently ignore, user generated content would have to be scrubbed from the Internet except from the big players like Facebook

I've repeated it ad nauseam but I'll repeat it again - this is just hyperbole.

In what capacity do the majority of Internet users aggregate the content of others? I'm thinking about my own use of the Internet. In what capacity do I own domains or applications where I personally publish the content generated by others?

Let's consider a few possible cases (which do not apply to me). I have a blog with a comment section. Someone posts some comment that leaves me open to legal liability. I have a few options including turning off comments on my blog, moderating all comments on my blog before they go live, paying a third party to handle moderation (and indemnify/insure me against legal liability).

Second, I am passionate about some hobby and wish to create a public forum on a domain I host that allows for the discussion. Malicious participants start to show up that start to post content on this unmoderated forum that open me up to legal liability. Again, I have to deal with this now in some capacity.

Third, I am an entrepreneur with my sights on a startup. This startup is like an Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, Tumbler/Blogger, Medium, Quora, Yahoo Answers, Stack Overflow etc. I am concerned that malicious actors will use my new venture to publish malicious content. Right now, I don't care I just build it without any worry. Without Section 230 I have to seriously think about how I ensure content is moderated.

I'm just not seeing the Internet break in any of these scenarios. I'm not seeing the Internet being scrubbed of content. In fact, as far as I can tell all of the above happens already to some degree. Do you expect defamatory content on stack overflow? Or do you expect it to be removed?

> paying a third party to handle moderation (and indemnify/insure me against legal liability).

For any criminal material that makes it through the 3rd party moderation the publisher will be criminal liable. The third party can pay for the publishers lawyer to defend the publisher in court, but if the publisher is found guilty they will be the one in jail not the third party moderation service.

Ensuring the above does not happen is in part why Section 230 was put in place, at least to my understanding.

Your argument here does not seem to consider criminal liability does that change your outlook or was it already incorporated in your viewpoint somehow?

You don't see the Internet breaking in your scenarios yet in all three the extra liability on the part of the host completely changes the calculus of even bothering with the endeavor. You may not want to start a Quora competitor but someone else likely does. The needless extra liability either breaks the business model entirely or makes it too expensive for a new player to break in. So the extra liability just locks in the big players.

You're also far too focused on sites you seem to dislike. Making hosts liable for user content will also affect every single industry forum, mailing list, or chat system. A flame war on a Linux distros mailing list could very easily get that distro sued out of existence just defending itself. Even an innocent error on a wiki could open up a bunch of volunteers to legal liability.

The core problem that you're ignoring or not seeing is user content doesn't need to be libelous or illegal to end up in court. There's legal trolls that sue people for stupid or frivolous shit all the time. Simply defending yourself costs money which is something a Linux distro or a fan maintained wiki don't tend to have in abundance. It's hard enough to sue some mailing list member or wiki contributor that it tends to only happen with legitimate issues. But if the bar is lowered that hosts become liable for user content the legal trolls will descend. It's not just the legal trolls with civil suits, there will be plenty of DAs and AGs looking for easy wins (to score political points) that will go after sites for stupid reasons.

Sites that can't afford some moderation service or liability insurance will just avoid user generated content. They'll also remove existing content, you know - scrub it from their site, because there's no way of knowing it won't attract a lawsuit. You assume defamatory content gets tagged by the poster as "#defamatory" and it's then immediately obvious.

Stack Overflow might take down an obvious troll post but what about a post pointing out a bug in a software product? If some developer became sufficiently upset they could sue SO because someone pointed out a major bug in their software. A completely above board discussion of a bug could easily be seen by the developer as defamatory. Just responding to a suit would cost SO money let alone actually defending themselves. There's a wide gulf between dealing with obviously offensive/malicious content and being under constant threat of legal action no matter how good your moderation.

If you don't publish anyone else's content you're fine. I don't give a shit about you. Maybe your personally published content is worthwhile, maybe it's complete shit. I don't know or care. But I do know there's some YouTube channels I really enjoy that wouldn't exist without YouTube as a platform. I have also benefited a great deal from Wikipedia among several other wikis that would not be able to operate if they were constantly threatened in court. I've definitely benefitted from product reviews, restaurant reviews, and OpenStreetMap contributions. All of that content I know has been worthwhile and I would much rather it exist and the platforms that enable it to exist.

I don't think we're going to find common understanding on this but I appreciate you taking the time to at least think about the actual consequences. I happen to disagree with your assessments.

> The needless extra liability either breaks the business model

We can agree, I hope, that if I had a shared image host then I should at least pay the cost to ensure no child pornography, snuff or whatever other common horrible images we can agree on are removed. I hope we can both agree that such expense might be impossible for some business models but that such expense isn't needless. We can probably also agree that Section 230 likely won't protect me from 3 letter government agencies insisting I remove classified content, even if my own morals would allow such content.

So yes, I'm asking for /extra/ liability but we can disagree on what is or is not needless.

> You're also far too focused on sites you seem to dislike

It may seem that way since I am arguing that Section 230 may be the seed from which they grew. I'm arguing that allowing single entities to re-publish volumes of content beyond their means to moderate may be bad at it's core. Perhaps we should limit everyones ability to post unlimited and unmoderated content. That includes me. So I can't just put a blank billboard in front of my house, allow anyone to write any slanderous thing on it and then shrug and say "Section 230" when the neighbors complain.

On the topic of Stack Overflow, I wonder if they have taken down clearly false and libelous claims. Same with Wikipedia. I doubt either have a clean record either way.

> But I do know there's some YouTube channels I really enjoy that wouldn't exist without YouTube as a platform.

I want to take the time to descend into my own hyperbole just for rhetorical effect. Lots of the world was made better in small ways by tremendously horrific practices. I love Youtube and I watch it every single day. Careers have been born on it and a small number of millionaires. Does that mean that a single company controlling something like 90% of the personally created videos on the Internet is a good thing? For every Youtuber you like, how many of sufficient value have been buried by Youtube's algorithm?

Have you ever read the "Wikipedia has cancer" post [1]? When you really look deeply at what we think we are protecting ... are you sure it is what you think it is?

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills as the nerds of the world seem to be cheering on the bullies as they steal, repackage and profit off of the user generated content of others. And when someone suggests that as a price they should at least be held responsible for the worst of the content they republish then everyone acts shocked, like how can these billionaires possibly manage all that.

What I'm saying is: if they can't manage it then they should stop. And if you can't figure out how to do it then you shouldn't even start.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...

> I am literally questioning: should they survive?

I say yes. Those forums of yesteryear were really good examples of where the internet can shine. The evolution of spammers made self-hosting prohibitively difficult, and the big fish grew fast and swallowed the market. It's a shame, and that's a reason that I'm generally in favor of breaking up the biggest players (though, I haven't seen a specific proposal that I'm in favor of)

> > Would the open source software community survive?

> I'm not sure how Section 230 applies to code but I don't think public forums like...

You seemed to miss the thrust of my comment about github. Github isn't just a repository of code, it's also a public forum! The ability to file and discuss bugs out in the open is a feature that would be sorely missed -- I've gotten two bug reports this week from previously-unknown users. That wasn't common back in the mailing list days, and I'm really happy that the bar to bug reporting is lower.

Well, to be fair you have an even stronger argument against me in that code is really just text. I mean, I can create `libellous_rant.txt` and push it into a public Github repo. Since any file on a pubic github repo is viewable (even without setting it up as a site or whatever feature they have) that feels like they could be viewed as publishing that content. So Github couldn't even really force moderation of issues, they would have to moderate every single file in every single repo.

But to address the specific concern you brought up, removing Section 230 wouldn't prevent someone submitting bugs/issues. It would just force the moderation of those posts before they were made publicly viewable. For small projects that receive 2 or 3 bug reports a week I doubt that would be the massive issue everyone here is wringing their hands over. It becomes a problem with scale - like 1000+ issues per day on a project ran by a single developer. But to be fair to my position - could such a developer even deal with that volume of issues even if the default behaviour was to make all posts public?

I grant that moderation slows discussion. For example, if you were asleep and someone posted an issue then before you even had a chance to moderate some other non-admin user might answer the question. Maybe we lose that. More likely we find a way to work around it.

Your position seems to fundamentally ignore abuse potential by malicious actors. You don't like a particular project? Start spamming child porn and other problematic posts until the moderators just decide they're spending too much time moderating that repo and need to shut it down, even if the developer has done nothing wrong.

I get your philosophical stance, and in some ways, I think it's healthy to question the fundamental assumptions about whether certain services should exist. But I also think you are willfully ignoring second and third order effects to continue this thought experiment where people are routinely showing that these secondary and* tertiary effects will be crippling to more than just social media companies. And again, social media companies will not go away with 230 repeal; they are some of the only entities with enough capital to handle increased litigation costs as a result of 230 repeal.

> Start spamming child porn and other problematic posts until the moderators just decide they're spending too much time moderating that repo and need to shut it down, even if the developer has done nothing wrong.

How is that different from right now? Changing the default visibility of posted content from public to private doesn't change the ability of anyone to spam anything. You either have to clear out your moderation queue OR clear out your publicly visible forum after the fact. And isn't that better? By forcing moderation you are preventing that horrific content from being visible while you were asleep overnight. Right now the forum owner can just shrug it off "oops, I was asleep, not my problem". Without Section 230 that might not be permissible.

> you are willfully ignoring second and third order effects to continue this thought experiment where people are routinely showing that these secondary and* tertiary effects will be crippling to more than just social media companies.

In what ways has anyone show any secondary or tertiary effect that would be crippling? I would avoid allowing public comments on my blog? I would avoid creating a public discussion forum? I fail to see this as crippling.

I think people are vastly overestimating the impact of re-publishing the content of others on their personal lives. Yes, it could cripple some potential businesses. But my point is: should those businesses exist? Let's really think about exactly what we are giving up, not this fear mongering "destroys the Internet". Let's be specific. What would we lose that cannot be replaced?

Sorry for the late reply. On how it is different - some of the 230 proposals want to change the good faith prong such that it would be much easier to allege that a Company was "informed" about certain activity and didn't take it down swiftly enough. Right now, even with recent changes, 230 gives some of these platforms reasonable leeway to avoid liability for this attack absent willfully ignoring notice.

As for second and third order effects, again, we have evidence from the past year of what will occur. The crackdown on personal ads, Tumblr, etc. all came as a result of changes to this law through FOSTA-SESTA. Those sites weren't all in violation of the law; they just made a determination that they cannot reasonably risk having to litigate what were previously not edge cases with the budgets they have.

The result? A lot of Tumblr and other traffic ended up on...Twitter. And why? Because Twitter, unlike other smaller entities, can weather litigation and regulatory costs much better relative to smaller competitors. Far from crippling the most egregious actors, it actually EMPOWERED them.

What you are talking about are just first order effects when you pontificate about people not just allowing things on a social media site. But as illustrated above, this will impact far more than just someone allowing comments or not. It can fundamentally reorient dynamics for all sites that allow for user content to be posted, and there are very strong likelihoods that it will lead to a greater concentration of power in incumbent social media companies, exacerbating the very issues you are most concerned about.

Okay, let's focus on the repo, then.

Section 230 prevents github from being sued over a user posting a malicious PR to my repo. Successful moderation, in that case, would require github to employ people who are familiar enough with my code to understand the impact of the PR. This is completely untenable.

I promise you that there are options between "do nothing" and "remove the legal foundation crucial to the development of the participatory internet."

> Yet the companies it protects the most are the ones I feel are the worst.

Assessing legal risk of user-generated content is a financial barrier that only the companies you feel are the worst will be able to overcome. We're discussing law in the comments here like we're all lawyers but let's face it--very few of us are up to the task of determining what is and is not illegal, and even fewer of us could actually survive if that assessment was challenged. User generated content ends up having a massive upfront legal cost, and I predict it will become extinct (both future and retroactive) for US-based sites if Section 230 is repealed...

> The centralized nature of Facebook actually allows for larger scale manipulation of the narrative.

...except on sites like Facebook, who make unimaginable amounts of money and can likely afford to fund private development of automoderation software and can weather the storm of lawsuits for content that manages to evade the filter. Facebook will only become more centralized as other online communication platforms are unable to bear the costs of publishing user generated content, and their control over the narrative will increase.

> Maybe that would drive people to create their own websites once again.

Sure, but how are people going to find these websites if I'm effectively reliant on the tech giants to tell people about it? Do you trust Facebook to not start censoring links to external websites? If there's no Section 230, then they could easily justify censoring off-site linking by saying they can't moderate the content of uncontrolled sites. How is Google going to exist if it's liable for what it links to? How are content aggregators going to exist? Forums? Chat rooms?

> Facebook just disappeared off of the Internet tomorrow - I'm not really sure I would mourn that

Same, but Facebook's not going anywhere. It'll just start charging its billions of users directly and continue telling me what I can and cannot read according to the whims of people I don't know and have no influence over. Meanwhile, all of my other options for discussion will slowly start disappearing as it becomes too costly to continue operating. There are better options than allowing that future to happen.

> We're discussing law in the comments here like we're all lawyers

Even worse, we are discussing the future social effects of changes to law as if we were psychics. Not even lawyers or the best judges could claim to do that correctly. The default position seems to be "revoking Section 230 will ruin the Internet". I'm honestly trying to see how and I just don't see it. It would change the Internet and it would make certain classes of business more difficult.

> Facebook will only become more centralized as other online communication platforms are unable to bear the costs of publishing user generated content

I don't see a substantial change in Facebook's position either way. Is everyone still waiting for Mastodon to usurp it? Or maybe we dream of some young, ethical startup to win the hearts and minds of the globe and show us all how to be benevolent in this space? The idea that Section 230 somehow helps create the conditions that gets us out of the mess we are in is a pipe dream. I would love someone to sketch me out a plan, based around the legal protection around aggregating user generated content provided by the current laws, that slays the beast of Facebook.

> Do you trust Facebook to not start censoring links to external websites?

Not anymore or less than I trust Facebook to show my posts on anyone else's feed. In a world where there is Gigabytes of content generated each day, more content than any human could possibly digest, Facebook necessarily shows you some slice of it. The fact that we don't hold them accountable for the slice they choose is frankly crazy to me.

> How are content aggregators going to exist? Forums? Chat rooms?

Should /unmoderated/ content aggregators, forums and chat rooms exit? This is a fundamental question which I am scratching at.

It seems people are making a motte and bailey argument here. They seem to suggest content aggregation couldn't exist without Section 230. This is hyperbole. It would mean the platforms that aggregate user generated content would be forced to strictly moderate it or face legal trouble.

> How is Google going to exist if it's liable for what it links to?

That brings us firmly in the territory of law that I am not familiar with. I know there are cases where the question of publishing links and how that relates to content and/or copyright is grey. However, what liability I would face if I were to post a link on my own blog to someone else's content is something I have no knowledge of.

> Meanwhile, all of my other options for discussion will slowly start disappearing as it becomes too costly to continue operating.

I'm not sure this is necessarily true. Outside of reddit and hacker news I can't think of any other space I even bother posting anything. The majority of my meaningful communication is done 1-on-1.

We're treating a specific class of communication as sacrosanct. Not even: I'm free to say what I want. But rather, I'm free to create open public spaces where anyone else can post anything they want. We're talking about a very specific kind of thing and I'm unsure if that specific thing is worth having at all.

I’m with you. I think we would all be better off without forums for people to anonymously yell at each other.

If Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit all disappeared tomorrow it would be an enormous win for American citizens. The path to unification and healing does not run through big tech.

And yes, I understand that it would also be the end of HN. I accept that.

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