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The Supreme Court takes on Section 230
TechCrunch ^

Posted on 10/04/2022 4:49:10 AM PDT by FarCenter

Section 230 of the Communications Act, which prevents online platforms from being liable for the content posted by their users, will be evaluated by the Supreme Court in the coming season. It’s anyone’s guess how it may be affected, but we can be sure that the regulatory landscape for tech will look rather different this time next year.

We’ve discussed Section 230 many times on TechCrunch, and legal definitions and precedents can be found elsewhere, so we need not delve into the particulars for now. It suffices to say that this section of the law essentially says that as long as reasonable measures are taken to address illegal and objectionable material on their platforms, companies like Alphabet and Meta cannot be held accountable for that material.

There are limitations and exceptions to how this protection works, but the law functions as a “safe harbor” in which companies can operate without worrying that they’ll be sued for defamation over something posted by a user.

The question that has dogged these companies for years now, however, is the exact extent of those limitations and exceptions, and whether perhaps platforms are given too much leeway in how they handle content like COVID-19 misinformation, livestreamed crimes and hate speech. However wise or unwise Section 230 may have been when it was written, the last decade has seen the industry and world evolve to the point where it may be time to, at the very least, make a few judicious additions and revisions to it.

The case that the Supreme Court announced it intended to take on, Gonzalez v. Google, alleges that the latter is criminally responsible for allowing certain content from the Islamic State terrorist group to persist on its platform, leading in part to the 2015 attacks in Paris that killed 130 people. So, not that it matters for the purposes of the Supreme Court taking it on exactly, but the claim here has real gravity, unlike some complaints about the law.

Amicus briefs are already starting to pour in, because the worst case scenario — Section 230 basically being entirely nullified — would be devastating to countless online platforms and companies. As many have pointed out, this liability limitation is complex and important to all kinds of free expression online, and to remove it would open the door to abuse from every direction.


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bigtech; censorship; freespeech; internet; scotus; section230; socialmedia; technotyranny
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1 posted on 10/04/2022 4:49:10 AM PDT by FarCenter
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To: FarCenter

I hope 230 gets shot down by SCOTUS. You just know with the current issues with the FBI et al...FR would be one of the first targets. And it’s likely it wouldn’t survive.


2 posted on 10/04/2022 5:00:19 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (Great minds drink alike...me and my baby havin' a hell of a night. - - BB King)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

Sorry. Got that backwards. I hope SCOTUS keeps it alive.


3 posted on 10/04/2022 5:01:23 AM PDT by Bloody Sam Roberts (Great minds drink alike...me and my baby havin' a hell of a night. - - BB King)
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To: FarCenter

Social Media businesses ought to lose the ability to censor users if Social Media expects to be immune from defamation.

The idea that Twitter can ban President Donald Trump is outrageous. Especially if Twitter can freely publish lies against President Donald Trump and say “Nyah, nyah, nyah I’m immune so I can say anything I want.”


4 posted on 10/04/2022 5:15:26 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (We are already in a revolutionary period, and the Rule of Law means nothing. )
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To: FarCenter

I much preferred the “Wild West” internet. No censoring, no cancelling, let the buyer beware.


5 posted on 10/04/2022 5:24:45 AM PDT by muir_redwoods (Freedom isn't free, liberty isn't liberal and you'll never find anything Right on the Left)
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To: FarCenter

“I much preferred the “Wild West” internet. No censoring, no cancelling, let the buyer beware.”

I would take that view if social media was NOT using Section 230 to get around election laws. I have no doubt that many, many, other private companies would just love to donate millions, perhaps billions, to certain candidates (either directly or indirectly), but they go to jail if they do so.

Social media gets a free pass and 98% of it controlled by the Left.


6 posted on 10/04/2022 5:33:05 AM PDT by BobL (By the way, low tonight in Estonia: 41 degrees)
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To: ClearCase_guy

“Social Media businesses ought to lose the ability to censor users if Social Media expects to be immune from defamation.”

~~~

Yes, that is the real problem here.

The article summarizes 230 as “... as long as reasonable measures are taken to address illegal and objectionable material on their platforms, companies ... cannot be held accountable for that material.”

I totally would have been on board with this concept 20 years ago. In fact, I was a part of the first wave of ‘socializing’ the internet, taking websites from semi-static media pages to dynamic user driven content, and I learned very quickly that it is an enormous undertaking to moderate such content. The time developing such a site compared to the time needed to moderate it is absolutely minuscule.

These days we think of multi-billion dollar conglomerates like Meta or Alphabet, in the late 90s and early 2000s it was still the internet of the people. Speaking for myself, I wanted to do something creative and let people have fun, not to launch a juggernaut requiring thousands of people to function as editors. You have to do what you can, but in that spirit, section 230 enabled people to participate in the internet, not just passively ‘read’ it.

There in lies the problem, going back to what Clearcase_guy said. If you have to grow into a huge operation in order to moderate user driven content, even though you did not produce the content, then you DO become liable for that content. If you are augmenting your editing of user content from mere protection and safety to changing and censoring social and political messaging, then you are now the publisher, not the platform.

I repeat: if you become active in the kinds of content that you permit on your platform above and beyond good-faith public protection and you assist in controlling the message, YOU BECOME A PUBLISHER. You are no longer neutral. You are no longer a strict service provider.


7 posted on 10/04/2022 5:35:01 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: FarCenter
I'm certainly not a lawyer but it seems to me that if this gets shot down even FR could be badly effected. Just imagine some clown...or a number of clowns...visiting FR and seeing various longtime Freepers (like me) posting that homosexuals are perverts. Bingo! Lawsuit! "Your honor,my "husband" and I have been devastated by these disgraceful...".

You get the picture.

8 posted on 10/04/2022 5:38:31 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (I Miss Jimmy Carter)
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To: Bloody Sam Roberts

Saying you can’t be held liable for something someone posts is a far cry from a company that decides arbitrarily to censor some yet promote other far more heinous content. Google is EVIL. And their actions have been evil. I hope this case shows just how evil & they get bankrupted for it.


9 posted on 10/04/2022 5:53:22 AM PDT by Twotone (While one may vote oneself into socialism one has to shoot oneself out of it.)
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To: Gay State Conservative

The problem is a huge one. The supreme court can only strike down a law that is not constitutional. They cannot rewrite it.

They the fact that you are actually required to moderate user content creates a wide gray area that can be exploited for censorship. Some forms of hate speech, intimidation, or harassment are obvious to all, but some interpretations of it most would disagree with, and then there is everything in the middle. Subjective, and unfortunately exploitable.

So how do you protect people from seeing objectionable user created content without censoring protected speech?


10 posted on 10/04/2022 5:56:10 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: FarCenter

Let’s legislate from the bench.


11 posted on 10/04/2022 6:09:52 AM PDT by kvanbrunt2
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To: FarCenter

any way you go the lawsuit business will only go one way... to the conservative people and sites. liability increases as you control the content.


12 posted on 10/04/2022 6:16:03 AM PDT by kvanbrunt2
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To: z3n

There has to be some moderation. A completely open platform would have scum posting child porn which is illegal. That would get them shut down.

The problem is that after Trump won the 2016 election social media decided to never let that happen again. They started using Section 230 as a sword instead of a shield.

Companies like Facebook and Twitter became popular because they were open platforms. Once they got so big they decided to tighten the screws and restrict what they didn’t like.


13 posted on 10/04/2022 6:26:07 AM PDT by sloanrb
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To: sloanrb

I supported company’s rights to moderate however they wanted to up until about 5 or 6 years ago. I was on the “If you don’t like it, start your own” bandwagon. The first amendment restricts the power of government, not of private entities.

But it became obvious around and after 2016 that nearly all of the media became proxy propaganda arms of one political party. Is that their right individually? Yes. When it becomes collective, even without explicit collusion, then it becomes a “public square” problem for free speech.


14 posted on 10/04/2022 6:46:39 AM PDT by z3n (Kakistocracy)
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To: ClearCase_guy
Social Media businesses ought to lose the ability to censor users if Social Media expects to be immune from defamation.

Immunity should be employed and interpreted narrowly, especially where it is in derrogation of the common law. That has not happened with 230.

As I understand it, the platform has to act in good faith when curating the content it transmits. Their immunity makes themselves the arbiter of their own good faith because they administer the resolution process. The arbiter of good faith should be a jury.

15 posted on 10/04/2022 7:14:03 AM PDT by frithguild (The warmth and goodness of Gaia is a nuclear reactor in the Earth's core that burns Thorium)
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To: ClearCase_guy
Social Media businesses ought to lose the ability to censor users if Social Media expects to be immune from defamation.

Immunity should be employed and interpreted narrowly, especially where it is in derrogation of the common law. That has not happened with 230.

As I understand it, the platform has to act in good faith when curating the content it transmits. Their immunity makes themselves the arbiter of their own good faith because they administer the resolution process. The arbiter of good faith should be a jury.

16 posted on 10/04/2022 7:14:05 AM PDT by frithguild (The warmth and goodness of Gaia is a nuclear reactor in the Earth's core that burns Thorium)
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To: FarCenter

I lost trust in the SCOTUS when it decided that American corporations could donate to individual politicians, essentially paying to buy the politicians while they, the corporations, can’t vote. Yes, a CEO can vote but the same CEO dumps millions of the corporation’s money into a particular political campaign. This is the reason we face the fascism in this country that has taken control of DC. It has disenfranchised the individual citizen’s vote to a large degree.


17 posted on 10/04/2022 7:53:08 AM PDT by drypowder
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To: z3n

Agreed

Marsh v. Alabama was a case that prohibited blocking of free speech in a company town. This was a town where the company owned everything, including roads and sidewalks. The SC ruled that they couldn’t block people’s First Amendment rights in public areas.

Companies have been required to allow speech they may not want. Imagine AT&T in the 1940s or 1950s denying people phone service because they didn’t like your beliefs. They were prohibited from doing that because that would infringe on free speech.

If a company gets large enough to be able to be a gatekeeper to stifle free speech then there should be restrictions on their ability to restrict free speech.


18 posted on 10/04/2022 8:38:37 AM PDT by sloanrb
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To: FarCenter

230 protections from being sued for what a user posts does not bother me.

It is the ability to pick and choose who posts what, and the ability to ban for questionable reasons. That is what needs to end.


19 posted on 10/04/2022 8:42:33 AM PDT by jdsteel (PA voters: it’s Oz or Fetterman. Deal with it and vote accordingly.)
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To: z3n

>>The supreme court can only strike down a law that is not constitutional. They cannot rewrite it.

The Supreme Court can decide how to apply a law in a specific situation or in a class of situations.

Congress often writes laws that are vague and leaves it up the the Judicial branch to decide what they actually mean when applied to actual cases.


20 posted on 10/04/2022 9:11:35 AM PDT by FarCenter
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