> We’ll say it plainly here: there is no legal significance to labeling an online service a “platform” as opposed to a “publisher.” Yes. That’s right. There is no legal significance to labeling an online service a “platform.” Nor does the law treat online services differently based on their ideological “neutrality” or lack thereof.
It wouldn’t take that long for people to read up on what section 230 actually is before saying “publisher” like that means anything (is related to anything the law talks about).
Laws of course need interpretation, but if people think, “Oh, they’re a ‘publisher’” (whatever that means; they probably couldn’t tell you) “they must be subject to different rules,” they’re frankly just kind of dumb.
-----
edit: my guess as to what they are now is online services who republish submitted third-party content or however section 230 defines them.
-----
edit2: An interactive computer service that retransmits material provided by an information content provider.
> 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.
So they are explicitly and definitively not publishers.