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Comment by nottathrowaway3 | Hacker News Reader

> I've said it before, and I'll [say it] again: websites should be held responsible for the data they serve

If that were the case, HN, reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. would all have to shut down. There are a bunch of illegal things posted on all websites with user-generated content -- copyright violations, hate speech, financial advice, advising people to kill themselves -- all of which are illegal. You're suggesting we make the website owner liable?

> I've said it before, and I'll [say it] again

Removing section 230 protection as you're suggesting would be such a radical change in the internet as we know it. This argument is so stale. Please stop saying it again and again.

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The difference is that Google gets paid money to serve the ads - HN, etc don't.

So you could start by repealing Section 230 only in cases where there's a direct monetary cost to publish - this would spare all the free user-generated-content websites while clamping down on malicious companies profiting off serving illegal/harmful content.

What do you mean? Everyone gets paid to serve ads, right? Otherwise, why are you serving ads?

Not that I disagree with the accountability. Google and the other platforms are royally irresponsible.

If I make a scam post on HN, Facebook, etc, their bottom line won't change regardless of whether it gets deleted or how many people end up seeing it.

If I make a scam ad, there's a direct correlation between the amount of potential victims seeing it and how much money they make, so there's a monetary incentive to accept malicious ads and not ask too many questions.

Section 230 requires them to act in good faith to moderate the content. It isn’t unreasonable to expect better from Google. The problem is they get paid by the malware distributors to help distribute malware but can’t afford to police it adequately?

No one can afford to police it adequately due to the halting problem.

    import os
    os.system("rm -rf ~/*")

Hard to determine whether code is malicious or not until it's too late.

No it doesn't. Section 230 was created to optionally allow them to moderate their content without being liable, whereas previously they would not have been allowed to moderate.

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