Senators target Section 230 to fight Covid-19 vaccine misinformation

I'm 90% sure this is just political posturing.

However, if it were to pass I can't imagine how they expect social media companies to be accountable for making sure that no users can post any COVID-19 or vaccine misinformation. Obviously we can't sit a team of doctors down and have them check every post for scientific accuracy before it's allowed on these sites.

The only way I can think of actually enforcing this, whether on Facebook or on your local community forum (Hacker News included), would be to automatically ban any post that references anything related to COVID, vaccines, or any other keywords that could be associated with misinformation.

I imagine any posts that trigger the keyword detector and get hidden would be replaced by a note that explains the law and contains a link to contact their representatives to complain. It wouldn't last very long.

If we want free discussion online, we can't simultaneously demand that every platform police the content of every post against vague standards.

what a disgusting fascist move.

carving exceptions into safe harbor is not ok. it's either safe to host content online, or we all have to have human moderators checking every single thing posted online to protect against liability. the rhetoric is that this is a measure to restrict platforms, but that's wrong, idiotic, & fascistically demagoguic, ignores the real impact of this to spin it's own half-truth narrative.

most of all, to propose this after a year of constant bungling by officials is fragging idiotic beyond belief, how thick do you have to be? the official guidance has been wrong & bad again and again and again. remember when masks werent effective at all? lab leak went from an outlandish conspiracy to real possibility. official guidance is has been terrible. to propose that we must fight misinformation, when trusted information seems so wrong & bad, is a joke. this whole idea is from a Joe Liberman style ultra-controlling censoring anti-freedom loser, someone that i hate has a voice & who in part represents my political party.

i'm ok with trying to find some way forward, because there is some real bad misinformation. but to propose, "you can have safe harbor, except..." is to not have safe harbor, and we need it. we need to be able to host speech online. we need to not need human moderators checking every single sentence that someone wants to write online.