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#section230

7 posts5 participants0 posts today
Public
AI6YR Ben

Hmm, not a lawyer, but if Section 230 goes, someone not in the US is going to have to host my users.

eff.org/issues/cda230

Electronic Frontier FoundationSection 23047 U.S.C. § 230 The Internet allows people everywhere to connect, share ideas, and advocate for change without needing immense resources or technical expertise. Our unprecedented ability to communicate online—on blogs, social media platforms, and educational and cultural platforms like Wikipedia and the Internet Archive—is not an accident. Congress recognized that for user speech to thrive on the Internet, it had to protect the services that power users’ speech.  That’s why the U.S. Congress passed a law, Section 230 (originally part of the Communications Decency Act), that protects Americans’ freedom of expression online by protecting the intermediaries we all rely on. It states:  "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." (47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1)). Section 230 embodies that principle that we should all be responsible for our own actions and statements online, but generally not those of others. The law prevents most civil suits against users or services that are based on what others say.  Congress passed this bipartisan legislation because it recognized that promoting more user speech online outweighed potential harms. When harmful speech takes place, it’s the speaker that should be held responsible, not the service that hosts the speech.  Section 230’s protections are not absolute. It does not protect companies that violate federal criminal law. It does not protect companies that create illegal or harmful content. Nor does Section 230 protect companies from intellectual property claims.  Section 230 Protects Us All  For more than 25 years, Section 230 has protected us all: small blogs and websites, big platforms, and individual users.  The free and open internet as we know it couldn’t exist without Section 230. Important court rulings on Section 230 have held that users and services cannot be sued for forwarding email, hosting online reviews, or sharing photos or videos that others find objectionable. It also helps to quickly resolve lawsuits cases that have no legal basis.  Congress knew that the sheer volume of the growing Internet would make it impossible for services to review every users’ speech. When Section 230 was passed in 1996, about 40 million people used the Internet worldwide. By 2019, more than 4 billion people were online, with 3.5 billion of them using social media platforms. In 1996, there were fewer than 300,000 websites; by 2017, there were more than 1.7 billion.  Without Section 230’s protections, many online intermediaries would intensively filter and censor user speech, while others may simply not host user content at all. This legal and policy framework allows countless niche websites, as well as big platforms like Amazon and Yelp to host user reviews. It allows users to share photos and videos on big platforms like Facebook and on the smallest blogs. It allows users to share speech and opinions everywhere, from vast conversational forums like Twitter and Discord, to the comment sections of the smallest newspapers and blogs.  Content Moderation For All Tastes  Congress wanted to encourage internet users and services to create and find communities. Section 230’s text explains how Congress wanted to protect the internet’s unique ability to provide “true diversity of political discourse” and “opportunities for cultural development, and… intellectual activity.”  Diverse communities have flourished online, providing us with “political, educational, cultural, and entertainment services.” Users, meanwhile, have new ways to control the content they see.  Section 230 allows for web operators, large and small, to moderate user speech and content as they see fit. This reinforces the First Amendment’s protections for publishers to decide what content they will distribute. Different approaches to moderating users’ speech allows users to find the places online that they like, and avoid places they don’t.  Without Section 230, the Internet is different. In Canada and Australia, courts have allowed operators of online discussion groups to be punished for things their users have said. That has reduced the amount of user speech online, particularly on controversial subjects. In non-democratic countries, governments can directly censor the internet, controlling the speech of platforms and users.  If the law makes us liable for the speech of others, the biggest platforms would likely become locked-down and heavily censored. The next great websites and apps won’t even get started, because they’ll face overwhelming legal risk to host users’ speech.  Learn More About Section 230 Most Important Section 230 Legal Cases Section 230 is Good, Actually How Congress Censored the Internet With SESTA/FOSTA Here's an infographic we made in 2012 about the importance of Section 230. 
#Politics#USpol#Section230
Public
petersuber

From @mmasnick: "Democratic Senators Team Up With MAGA To Hand #Trump A #Censorship Machine"
techdirt.com/2025/03/21/democr

"The fundamental problem here is that these Senators don’t understand what #Section230 actually does — or how its repeal would make their stated goals harder to achieve… Here’s what repealing Section 230 would actually do: remove the law that explicitly protects websites when they resist government pressure to censor speech. Without those protections, the Trump administration would have far more leverage to force platforms to remove content they don’t like — whether that’s criticism of Trump, exposure of corruption, or information about voting rights. It can also allow them to pressure websites to host pro-MAGA or pro-Nazi content that sites might not wish to associate with."

Techdirt · Democratic Senators Team Up With MAGA To Hand Trump A Censorship MachineAt the exact moment when Donald Trump and his MAGA allies are actively dismantling democratic institutions and working to silence critics, a group of Democratic Senators have decided to collaborate…
#Internet#USLaw#USPol
Continued thread
Public
Nonilex

Sen #DickDurbin, a #Democrat, & Sen #LindseyGraham, a #Republican, plan to introduce a bill that would set an expiration date of Jan 1, 2027, for #Section230, acc/to a congressional aide familiar…. The senators have wide support from their respective parties: #Republicans #JoshHawley & #MarshaBlackburn & #Democrats #SheldonWhitehouse & #AmyKlobuchar have agreed to co-sponsor the bill. 2 more Dems, #RichardBlumenthal & #PeterWelch, have discussed cosponsoring.

#law#internet#regulation
Public
Nonilex

Exclusive: #Section230 May Finally Get Changed as Lawmakers Prep New Bill

By Paris Martineau

As early as next week, Senators plan to introduce the first bipartisan bill to repeal Section 230, the landmark #internet #law

Martineau spoke w/congressional aides to get the details of the ambitious effort, which internet experts described as akin to #extortion

#Congress #Senate
theinformation.com/articles/ex

The Information · Exclusive: Section 230 May Finally Get Changed as Lawmakers Prep New BillBy Paris Martineau
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Toni Aittoniemi

To American #Democrats; this is urgent: DO NOT REPEL SECTION 230!!!

#Section230 is literally the thing that enables random people to setup #Mastodon instances on a shoestring budget.

It protects small tech. Big Tech can afford the lawyers to defend itself in court. Your friendly admin furry cannot.

Would it be repelled, taking out your instance would be easy: Hire some goon to post hate speech & child porn there, and hire a team of lawyers to sue them into oblivion.

#fediverse#uspol
Public
Joe Ortiz

And there it is!

Instead of Dems trying their best in saving our democracy, they're clear top priority is to kill #Section230 and online freedom of expression plus giving the biggest tech companies to solidify their monopoly positions in the process.

As I and a few others have said before, I'll be totally shocked if Section 230 survives beyond this year. :(

techdirt.com/2025/02/21/while-

Senate Dems tweet: Enough is enough. We're introducing a bill to remove Big Tech's legal immunity this week.
Techdirt · While Democracy Burns, Democrats Prioritize… Demolishing Section 230?While an unelected tech billionaire is effectively orchestrating a coup of the US government, violating federal law with apparent impunity, and disclaiming all responsibility for the chaos he&#8217…
Public
Miguel Afonso Caetano

"During his first presidency, Trump did attempt to revise Section 230, which most tech platforms opposed and ultimately stalled out. “When he started waging war on content moderation . . . he ran out of time and didn’t have the loyalists in place to carry out what he wanted. Now he has both time and the people he needs,” said Szóka.

Tech platforms seem more eager than in the past to stay out of the political tug of war over information, according to experts. Meta moved ahead of the election to de-emphasise political content, and YouTube is also “trying to stay under the radar,” said Brendan J Nyhan, professor in government at Dartmouth College. “The platforms have stepped back from these issues,” he said."

ft.com/content/bfb404e8-aa7e-4

Financial Times · Donald Trump’s return sends shivers through the anti-misinformation worldBy Hannah Murphy
#USA#Trump#SocialMedia
Public
Miguel Afonso Caetano

"Carr has called on Congress to clarify the rules. He also wants to see consumers given more rights to challenge moderation decisions and for "Big Tech" businesses to be transparent about their algorithms and allow appeals on moderation decisions.

However, this might backfire on Carr's boss, as Aaron Mackey, free speech and transparency litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), explained to The Register.

"We know that Trump's nomination of Carr to be the Chair signals that Trump approves of this general direction and motives," he explained. "But I think when the rubber hits the road in terms of what the actual rule making looks like, is there actually the political will to do these types of rule makings that, in fact, would increase liability on a platform that the President owns."

That's a reference to Truth Social – the social media service operated by Trump Media & Technology Group and majority-owned by the once and future president.

Another Carr position that may impact tech players is a proposal to make them contribute to the $9 billion Universal Service Fund, which Washington uses used to pay for comms infrastructure spending. Currently the funds are paid by telcos, but Carr feels tech firms should also contribute, since they see huge benefits from increased internet access.

That's an argument that has been made, and largely dismissed, in many other jurisdictions. Tech giants oppose it on grounds that they make big investments in submarine cables, and that their activities create demand for carriers' services."

theregister.com/2024/11/19/bre

The Register · Trump's pick to run the FCC has told us what he plans: TikTok ban, space broadband, and Section 230 reformBy Iain Thomson
#USA#FCC#BigTelcos
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Brandon

I’ve been on Fedi for a year now and have fallen in love with the platform, so here’s my introduction! I studied computer science with a focus on RTOS and FP/PL, but I’m about to start my final semester of law school. I’ll be practicing at a boutique firm that primarily handles IP cases once I’m barred. I foilboard and I play way too many rhythm games in and out of the arcade.

I contribute to open source projects where I can, and I write up my experience in my digital garden which I’ve been maintaining for over a year now. It’s also a good place to find usage tips for projects/tools that you might want to use.

My passion for tech also includes privacy, and I’m an advocate for minimizing your digital footprint. GenAI is a scam and its purveyors are causing real harm while they sell it as hard as they can.

Follow me for: #selfhosting #digitalgardening #privacy #lawfedi #section230 #copyright #patents #rustlang #gleam #haskell #RSS #neovim #NixOS #zotero #tmux #alacritty #linux #egpu #qemu #arch #archlinux #GNOME #watches #watchmaking #obsidian #obsidianmd #thunderbird #fpv #mechkeys #mechkeeb #mechanicalkeyboard #matrix #signal #fido2 #passkeys #dancerushstardom

be-far.combe-far's Digital GardenTip You will own nothing, and you will be happy. On my little corner of the internet, I document my adventures in tech and complain about the internet of shit.
Public
Ecologia Digital

Lots of info on the strange #TikTok #section230 case, #Durov's arrest in France, X's ban in #Brazil and #Zuckerberg’s awful pro-Trump letter.
What a week!

pca.st/episode/8e4892cb-5f1e-4

Pocket CastsThe Platform to Prison Pipeline - Ctrl-Alt-SpeechCtrl-Alt-Speech is a weekly news podcast co-created by Techdirt’s Mike Masnick and Everything in Moderation’s Ben Whitelaw. Each episode looks at the latest news in online speech, covering issues regarding trust & safety, content moderation, regulation, court rulings, new services & technology, and more.The podcast regularly features expert guests with experience in the trust & safety/online speech worlds, discussing the ins and outs of the news that week and what it may mean for the industry. Each episode takes a deep dive into one or two key stories, and includes a quicker roundup of other important news. It's a must-listen for trust & safety professionals, and anyone interested in issues surrounding online speech.If your company or organization is interested in sponsoring Ctrl-Alt-Speech and joining us for a sponsored interview, visit ctrlaltspeech.com for more information.Ctrl-Alt-Speech is produced with financial support from the Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund, a fiscally-sponsored multi-donor fund at Global Impact that supports charitable activities to build a more robust, capable, and inclusive Trust and Safety ecosystem and field.
Public
Miguel Afonso Caetano

#USA #SocialMedia #Section230 #CDA #TikTok #ContentModeration #Algorithms: "Because TikTok’s “algorithm curates and recommends a tailored compilation of videos for a user’s FYP based on a variety of factors, including the user’s age and other demographics, online interactions, and other metadata,” it becomes TikTok’s own speech. And now TikTok has to answer for it in court. Basically, the court ruled that when a company is choosing what to show kids and elderly parents, and seeks to keep them addicted to sell more ads, they can’t pretend it’s everyone else’s fault when the inevitable horrible thing happens.

And that’s a huge rollback of Section 230.

The business model of significant corporate actors today, from Google to Meta to TikTok, relies on them being immune from liability for what their users say even as they serve targeted advertising. That business model, of “keep ‘em swiping,” is now in jeopardy. With the Third Circuit splitting with how most other judges have interpreted Section 230, and using the recent NetChoice opinion to do so, policymakers will now have no choice but to start working through problems in Section 230. This case will get appealed, and it’ll likely go to the Supreme Court."

thebignewsletter.com/p/judges-

BIG by Matt Stoller · Judges Rule Big Tech's Free Ride on Section 230 Is OverBy Matt Stoller
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