Stop Expecting Tech Companies to Provide 'Consequences' for Criminal Behavior

Just engage with the argument on its own merits -- valid arguments don't become invalid just because someone had an ulterior motive in making them, and conversely, invalid arguments don't become valid ones just because their proponents have honest motivations.

To be fair, there's a lot of those ideas I like. There's I think some naivety too, which I think you point out, but I'm glad these people exist. I think you need _some_ radicals (size is arguable) to push things in certain directions and challenge the status quo to ensure that we don't get stuck in our ways. Definitely seems like an optimal thing to have most people in a median and constant challengers, even if at times they are silly, it doesn't mean all their points are.

I think a good example of this might even be crypto currencies. There is definitely something to be said about the privacy of transactions and the power of government or any body has when they can see all your financial data. But this doesn't mean that MMT is complete bullshit and that there is something wrong with currencies not being on the gold standard.

Similarly, while I strongly support Section 230, I'm glad people push back against it. We need to be aware of its limitations and failures. Perhaps we can improve upon it (most certainly we can). But at the end of the day I'm on the side of Blackstone: It's better that $N guilty men go free than $M ($N > $M) innocent men be stricken of their freedom.

No system is perfect. It's unfortunate that we can't write laws to accurately codify the precise nature of our intentions (even if we removed much of the aggregation and wrote incredibly complicated laws) without erring in one direction or another (innocent being condemned, or guilty slipping free). It just means we need to approach things in a nuanced way and be aware that we need to tread carefully. So I'm happy radicals exist, but I also fear them gaining too much power.

And yet no one seems to hold anyone other then "tech companies" to the same standard. No one expects the phone company to preemptively identify and block stalkers, or monitor the content of people's phone calls to filter out threatening or offensive language. No one expects the postal service to do the same for written correspondence. No one expects the people managing parking lots to prevent people from driving without insurance or licenses, or newspapers to vet the intentions of whomever is still posting classified ads in print media.

The internet is just a digital version of the same sorts of communication tools and public gathering spaces we've always had. Why would we expect people who are providing tools to communicate with each other to preemptively police conduct of their users, when we don't expect the same (and would likely find it intrusive) from the offline venues that they're analogous to?

> Wishing to live in a world in which no one could ever break the law, or in which companies were somehow magically responsible for guaranteeing no one would ever misuse their products is not a good outcome. It would lead to a horrific mess of mostly useless tools, ruined by the small group of people who might misuse them.

Seems that the article isn't the one missing the point.