Submitted 4 months ago by Cat@ponder.cat to technology@lemmy.world
That section should be repealed or rewritten. It was originally meant so hobbyists running forms wouldn’t be responsible for content posted by the users.
Currently companies like Twitter, Meta, Google etc can control what is shown to users and hide behind this protection.
trump’s admin change will likely make it worse though.
It should absolutely not be repealed. As you noted, it protects platforms from the speech of their users. Lemmy, too, benefits from this (at least for the instances in the US).
I’ve never heard of platforms abusing these protections to control what is shown. Can you explain?
If platforms are protected from the speech of their users, they shouldn’t be allowed to censor the speech of their users (unless that speech is actually criminal, as in defamation or specific, actionable death threats). The big platforms shouldn’t be able to have it both ways.
It’s the feed that I think Facebook started, but everyone uses. You think you are posting things and your friends see them, but in reality Facebook (or whomever it is) really controls who sees it (if anyone).
You just have illusion that you have a platform when you don’t.
I think this is also the reason why social media companies are all deep into generative AI. With it they no longer need to even have humans produce content they want to show to others.
Twitter, facebook, et al, claim their arbitrary censorship and algorithms are not editorialisation, so they are not “publishers”.
lemmy.world (and the entire republishing Fediverse) is protected from the commenter on this post saying “FCK YOU, ORANGE CNT” by Section 230. If they lose that protection, there is no way they or anyone else is going to allow any remotely controversial posts. (Except on X, which of course will enjoy special government protections.)
I don’t get a lot of forum posts on my site, but I will absolutely remove the forums entirely if 230 goes away. There’s no way I’m taking on the liability of all imaginable interpretations of everything anyone could possibly say.
Currently companies like Twitter, Meta, Google etc can control what is shown to users and hide behind this protection.
And this is the way it needs to be. Twitter, Meta, and Google run their own sites in the manner of their choosing. If you don’t like it, you can vote with your feet. They have no legal, ethical, or Constitutional requirement to offer their services to all comers. The alternative is some kind of government control of private companies that we really don’t need ever, and extra especially not in the next four years.
Repealing 230 will absolutely damage social media platforms of all kinds (yeah, except X), including the Fediverse. And it will lead to increased restrictions by those platforms, not decreased.
That’s why I said removed or changed. It should be changed in a way that wouldn’t apply to big sites, but still could somehow buy used by hobbyists as it was intended to.
Though I’m quite sure his team will do the exact opposite.
Section 230 doesn’t apply to lemmy.world already because their instance is hosted in the EU and has to comply with laws that make them responsible for what’s posted already. Or rather, responsible if content isn’t removed quickly.
It’s also why comments supporting Luigi Mangione’s alleged murder are removed as they would make lemmy.world liable.
The point of 230 was not to protect hobbyists, but rather to encourage big platforms (like CompuServe at the time) to moderate their users. The issue was that in moderating users, the platform makes themselves a publisher rather than a distributor (which were already immune from liability for the speech they distributed).
Without section 230, platforms will simply stop all moderation (including for illegal activity and content) to protect themselves from liability. Every single platform operating in the US would become 4Chan (or worse, since even 4Chan does some moderation).
My main problem with social media is that the users are the product.
So perhaps we should take it a step further and clarify that posts by a user are the property of that user, and they cannot be used for marketing, placed behind a paywall, etc without the express permission by and reasonable compensation to the user. If the platform is nonprofit, there’s no compensation to share. The platform can show or hide content as it sees fit, but it must share revenue.
The creator then takes full legal responsibility for their posts.
Or something along those lines.
They make it illegal except for Trump loyalists
For facist expectations are the point
There is one usual answer to this: FUCK YOU YOU ORANGE CUNT
Zorsith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
Oh great, they’re starting to use what are typically military terms. That’s not a red flag at all…
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 4 months ago
At least they’re not open enough to name it Leopard Team in reference to the Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party.
ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 4 months ago
If they actually named it Leopard Team. I would have to respect that.