... Because if you’re wrong about 230, there’s a damn good chance you’re wrong about the 1st Amendment too.
While this may all feel kind of mean, it’s not meant to be. Unless you’re ... purposefully saying wrong things about Section 230, like Senator Ted Cruz or Rep. Nancy Pelosi (being wrong about 230 is bipartisan). For them, it’s meant to be mean.
For you, let’s just assume you made an honest mistake — perhaps because deliberately wrong people like Ted Cruz and Nancy Pelosi steered you wrong. So let’s correct that.
Before we get into the specifics, I will suggest that you just
read the law, because it seems that many people who are making these mistakes seem to have never read it. ...
If you’re in a rush, just jump to part (c), entitled Protection for ?Good Samaritan? blocking and screening of offensive material, because that’s the only part of the law that actually matters...
if you’re in a real rush, just read Section (c)(1), which is only 26 words, and is the part that basically every single court decision (and there have been many) has relied on....
If you said “Once a company like that starts moderating content, it’s no longer a platform, but a publisher”
I regret to inform you that you are wrong. I know that you’ve likely heard this from someone else — perhaps even someone respected — but it’s just not true. The law says no such thing. Again, I encourage you to read it. The law does distinguish between “interactive computer services” and “information content providers,” but that is not, as some imply, a fancy legalistic ways of saying “platform” or “publisher.” There is no “certification” or “decision” that a website needs to make to get 230 protections. It protects all websites and all users of websites when there is content posted on the sites by someone else.
If you said “Because of Section 230, websites have no incentive to moderate!”
You are wrong. If you reformulated that statement to say that “Section 230 itself provides no incentives to moderate” then you’d be less wrong, but still wrong.
First, though, let’s dispense with the idea that thanks to Section 230, sites have no incentive to moderate. Find me a website that doesn’t moderate. Go on. I’ll wait. Lots of people say things like one of the “chans” or Gab or some other site like that, but all of those actually do moderate.
There’s a reason that all such websites do moderate, even those that strike a “free speech” pose: (1) because other laws require at least some level of moderation (e.g., copyright laws and laws against child porn), and
(2) more importantly, with no moderation, a platform fills up with spam, abuse, harassment, and just all sorts of garbage that make it a very unenjoyable place to spend your internet time.
Thought I'd throw this in because I'm surprised to see this rear its head again.
And because Durbin is making a big mistake just to look like the Senate is doing SOMETHING hailed as bipartisan. Booker should definitely not go in for this.