Clarence Thomas is begging someone to sue over Section 230

Facebook and Twitter are also claiming they're not subject to the same rules as traditional broadcast outlets or newspapers. Broadcast media outlets are not monopolies either, and they can't wantonly censor election speech like this by law.

If CBS was to decide that all their outlets were going to cover only one candidate's speeches, they would be electioneering, and be afoul of the law. CBS is not even as close to a monopoly as Facebook or Twitter is.

We have a case here were two providers took it upon themselves to block references to a newspaper article, relating very directly to speech which would need equal access under any other medium.

So wikileaks? Any other articles that happen to have a person's personal info are blocked? Do they block tabloids as well? Was it cool how they unilaterally blocked people from mentioning that said article exists... sans URL and without PII?

There's a lot of mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance required to believe this was "just policy".

Likewise, why is it such a burden for Twitter to monitor illegal content but not legal content? Is there just so very much illegal content on Twitter relative to legal that they can't manage? But, yeah, they're all over this legal content like a hawk, just coincidentally. (Despite them talking about them implementing restrictions like this for years). It's politically targeted. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it.

From the article:

"That brings us back to Thomas, who adopted wholesale the conservatives’ read of Section 230 in his statement this week that accompanied the court’s list of appeals that it has chosen not to hear. (One of the cases the court turned down raised a Section 230 issue.) He begins by embracing a particular idiosyncratic version of the platform/publisher distinction (although he uses the word distributor instead of platform):

Thomas> Traditionally, laws governing illegal content distinguished between publishers or speakers (like newspapers) and distributors (like newsstands and libraries). Publishers or speakers were subjected to a higher standard because they exercised editorial control. They could be strictly liable for transmitting illegal content. But distributors were different. They acted as a mere conduit without exercising editorial control, and they often transmitted far more content than they could be expected to review. Distributors were thus liable only when they knew (or constructively knew) that content was illegal."

Thomas' argument is essentially repeating what all Internet providers have been saying for my lifetime: "Don't shoot the messenger, we're just the tubes. We don't exercise discretion over the content." The courts looked favorably on that argument for practical reasons. Back then though, providers were typically trying to avoid censoring, due to the fact they were hosting objectionable, possibly illegal content. These same providers are now arguing that the unbearable costs of censorship that they can not possibly withstand for illegal content... well, they in fact can manage to bear for voluntarily censoring legal content. And that particular legal, political content in this case is actually mandated with equal access provisions under election law by all other mediums.

It says nothing on whether it's fine if Facebook or Twitter do it.

If Twitter, Facebook, and Google all blocked some content, the odds of it being found is way less than if a single ISP blocked it. Yes, you, personally would not be able to see it if it was blocked and you had that ISP. But collectively, the content is still there.

Facebook and Twitter are 90% of social media and have network effects making alternatives implausible. They're no different than Standard Oil and trains were. ISP like trains shovel 1s and 0s around (raw stuff). But people also particularly cared about getting content or oil (specific stuff). Twitter and Facebook have a monopoly on that "specific stuff" and with legal indemnity to boot. Who cares if you have the capacity to transport oil if you can't actually get it delivered? Who cares if you can get 1s and 0s online if you can't communicate with anybody about relevant content?

As an aside, remember when it was social "networking" and not social "media"?

Let's not pretend that these folks didn't want to play the content publishing game. It's the only way to funnel clicks into ad revenue.

Indeed! And there's some real legerdemain going on by the author related to that "indemnity."

He brings up traditional cultural ideas around an open and free internet, and he then argues that opponents of Section 230 are against the spirit of the internet. But this is only the case if you believe the spirit of the internet was 3rd party indemnity, and that's what made it grow. (A cynical position to hold in my opinion.)

If you believe that the internet is what it is due to openness, then it's people like Twitter and Facebook that have got it all wrong. They're effectively saying "we don't want to be held responsible for content on our platform" (e.g. bear the costs of editorial oversight), and simultaneously "we also don't want to be held responsible for content we take off our platform" (done so voluntary with the same cost burdens they're fighting against).

It's a weird type of Internet Provider Exceptionalism: "The Internet is great because the providers were free to do whatever they wanted."