Comment by Firebrand | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Firebrand | Hacker News Reader

Debating whether repealing Section 230 will suddenly grant people free speech on social media platform is missing the real issue. We should repeal Section 230 in order to destroy the social media industry.

Online you do not interact with "regular people" but people who put the most effort into online presence and those people are overwhelmingly individuals with very real mental disorder on the narcissistic spectrum often with other comorbid disorders.

On social media in particular you are exposed to both narcissists and in general a narcissistic mode of communication - because that's what social media is. Social media is a vehicle for turning an individual into a narcissistic persona. So even if you are not narcissistic in real life your social media activity will make it look like you are.

Social media is very unhealthy. It is a recipe for a mental disorder. It is primarily used by people with mental disorders. It is designed by people with mental disorders.

Quit social media—these online free speech advocates just want more people to pay attention to them which leads to more screen addiction. It's cancer for your soul. And I am not sure I am just being metaphorical.

You do realize you are writing this on a social media platform, right?

The key difference is AI curation. What you see here depends on what time things get posted and how many up-votes posts get. FB, twitter, et al, decide what to show you based on what they think you will like using opaque complex software.

If a newspaper publishes a 'letter to the editor' that is libel they are liable because they chose it to publish. that's what the big tech social media do.

If section 230 got repealed it would have effects on sites like HN, but the would be catastrophic for big tech social media.

> What you see here depends on what time things get posted and how many up-votes posts get.

Is that not a large part of how most social media algorithms work?

It appears sites regularly add or remove items from their trending lists, both by manual review as well algorithms which are essentially automated manual review by the person who wrote the algorithm. That kind of control is the same as a Newspaper determining what headlines you read and what stories get the most attention, basically controlling the conversation and making editorial decisions.

The collateral damage would be unacceptable. Goodbye any comment section, goodbye bulletin boards and forums; the damage may even extend to things like MMORPGs.

> It is primarily used by people with mental disorders.

You've been on HN for a decade. Repealing Section 230 would kill it just as dead as the other social media platforms.

So basically “ We don’t like you; we want you to suffer.”

We don’t bans or destroy things just because they contain narcissistic people. We certainly shouldn’t lump all social media into this camp.

230 protections needs to be something that can be challenged in court. Today, it is abused worse then the DMCA and there is no recourse. Good luck trying to strip protection from an entity that is essentially a publisher.

I think companies would be very honest if there was risk of repeated and consistent infractions.

I wholly believe in reform which brings some power back to the consumer.

What would you like to challenge them on? Are you thinking that stripping their 230 protection would essentially put them out of business, and therefore force them not to discriminate against viewpoints?

> these online free speech advocates

No, I want to challenge cancel culture and all the other radical activism that’s plaguing the country.

If you want to affect real change let’s reintroduce FCC fairness doctrine and prohibit the Sinclair group from giving talking notes to local media outlets.

The media is far more toxic than social media.

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