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Comment by shbooms | Hacker News Reader

That's part of the issue here--they aren't breaking the law (at least in the U.S.)

Thanks to protections enacted by "Section 230" of the 1996 Communications Descent Act [1]:

    Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:

    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."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

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You should read the wikipedia page further as it points out an exemption for this type of case... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230#Sex_trafficking_-_...

The exception for this type of case had bi-partisan support.

Section 230 no longer protects companies who are hosting child exploitation as of SESTA/FOSTA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Enabling_Sex_Traffickers_...

And Section 230 will be gutted more thoroughly or retired entirely in the coming decade. A lot of internet marketing is going into protecting it from tech companies whose bad behavior relies on it, but both political parties in the US agree it's time is over.

> but both political parties in the US agree it’s time is over.

There are factions within both parties that agree that Section 230 should be repealed or replaced with something significantly different, but there are factions in both parties that disagree and, perhaps more importantly, there is a lack of consensus on whether it should be simply repealed or modified/replaced, and if the latter on what the replacement/modification should be, and many of the people that agree that there is a problem view the status quo as better than other faction’s preferred end-state.

So, while I think there will be a lot of noise about 230 over the next few years, I’m a lot less confident than you seem to be that there will be any successful action to repeal or massively modify it.

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