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Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

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2OEH8eoCRo0

Repeal section 230

All of this sounds like an aberration created by giving these companies immunity.

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It will result in way higher moderation, instead of less.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/section-230-good-actua...

I want smaller, tighter knit, and moderated communites.

Why do we care about outcome anyway? The outcome of section 230 was arbitrary moderation, consolidation, and surveillance capitalism. It is unnatural for an entity to not be liable for what they publish.

Do you want the owners of those small communities to get sued if someone posts copywrited material?

If they don’t censor, they’re not liable. If they censor, they are liable.

Sounds like a weird requirement. If they host the content, they should be sued, minus 230 protections

I've read that if you moderate you are acting as an editor even if the content is user generated and that means you are a publisher. Publishers are liable for what they publish.

Section 230 basically erased the distinction between publisher and distributor.

No, repealing Section 230 means every site with user generated content is publishing the information, just like a newspaper or TV channel, which get successfully sued all the time.

In fact, Section 230 was passed explicitly because of successful lawsuits against forums and websites hosting user generated content.

https://itif.org/publications/2021/02/22/overview-section-23...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubby,_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc.

> The court held that although CompuServe did host defamatory content on its forums, CompuServe was merely a distributor, rather than a publisher, of the content. As a distributor, CompuServe could only be held liable for defamation if it knew, or had reason to know, of the defamatory nature of the content.[2] As CompuServe had made no effort to review the large volume of content on its forums, it could not be held liable for the defamatory content.

When Section 230 goes every forum and smaller community becomes the legal wild west, open to being sued by any jackass claiming libel and to drag site owners into a years long legal battle.

No Section 230 means more centralization of discourse, not less.

>It is unnatural for an entity to not be liable for what they publish

Since when have paper boys been held liable for what's in the newspapers? Social media is distributing someone else's opinions.

The very forum you're posting in will cease to exist.

The paper boy isnt knowingly distributing, say, child porn magazine. If he were, the. he'd be an accessory. Big Tech does knowingly transport illegal things.

If the paper that the paper boy distributing has the occasional libel, then the paper boy is not liable because he cannot have a criminal state of mind for something he doesn't know is in contained within his cargo.

Finally, the paper boy is a boy, that is a child. Depending on the age he is not criminally liable no matter what he's carrying. Big Tech are not "niños de pecho", suckling bebes. They are large corporate monopolies with immense power, money, political influence and top lawyers

Finally, my solution is to de-centralize everything.

Your analogy doesn't work because social media companies are liable for hosting illegal things just like your paper boy.

Tell that to MindGeek.

Child porn was an example of something that obviously would get even a paper boy in trouble (as long as he's old enough).

There are a lot of things that are illegal, including libel. Section 230 just picked and choose which crimes to shield Big Tech from.

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