Section 230 Protects Users, Not Big Tech

Section 230 is critical for tech businesses and platforms that facilitate free distribution of speech. Without this, we can be confident that "user generated content" would look very different, and moderation efforts would be much more censorious. As the EFF said in the article...

> The law is not a shield for Big Tech. Critically, the law benefits the millions of users who don’t have the resources to build and host their own blogs, email services, or social media sites, and instead rely on services to host that speech.

Even if you support a re-write of 230, you should oppose the proposed law to remove it because the timing of the proposed law. The proposal would expire 230 during an election cycle, and that would be horrific for online discourse about the election. The liability of hosting political discourse, and the potential to be sued for libel would make user content about politics toxic. It's undoubtable that at least one side of the political spectrum would use it to remove opposition and opposing opinions. The current administration has proven they're absolutely willing to take punitive measures against companies and people based on their speech, even when legally protected, and large companies have shown a willingness to comply, even preemptively, to avoid a fight that can disrupt their revenue.

EFF is supported by Big Tech and Section 230 definitely does protect Big Tech and makes their entire business model possible.

Section 230 protects big tech by removing liability from what they publish, giving a competitive advantage to big tech over local newspaper and other media.

Because local newspapers are responsible for what they publish, they don’t get the viewership that unfiltered social media can get. This is why local news does, because of section 230.

"Don't be fooled - many of Section 230's detractors claim that this criticla law only protects big tech."

What about the detractors who claim it protects _all_ websites, regardless of size.

"The law is not a shield for Big Tech."

It is commonly understood that Section 230 is what allowed "Big Tech" to get so big. In fact, Big Tech's lawyers have argued this in front of the Supreme Court.

"Critically, the law benefits the millions of users who don't have the resources to build and host their own blogs, email services, or social media sites, and instead rely on services to host that speech."

"Section 230 protects individual bloggers, anyone who forwards an email, and social media users who have ever reshared or retweeted another person's content online."

According to EFF 230 protects people who don't have resources to host and it protects people who do have resources to host, e.g., individual bloggers, etc.

Then EFF tries to suggest 230 "is not a shield" for Big Tech. That 230 does not protect Big Tech.

No one hosts more than Big Tech and no one has Big Tech's resources. 230 protects Big Tech as much as anyone else. As a constant target of litigation that is dismissed on 230 grounds, arguably it protects Big Tech much more than anyoone else.

However the question is not who is or is not proetced by 230. The question is what effect 230 has on the internet.

230 is what allowed Big Tech to grow so large.

Every internet subscriber paying fees has the resources to host: a computer and an internet connection.

The assumption EFF makes is that the internet must be used for advertising (because reasons), and consequently it must be used to publish to large audiences suitable for advertising. That is what Big Tech does. Nothing requires the internet be used for such purposes. Big Tech requires it for their survival.

Big Tech solicits and exploits "user-generated content" for surveillance and advertising purposes.

230 also allows small websites publishing controversial information to survive, if they are targeted with litigation.

Who gets targeted more: (a) the small website hosting one person's content or (b) the mega-sized Big Tech website hosting the content of millions of people.

230 protects _all_ websites.

"As EFF has explained, online speech is frequently targeted with meritless lawsuits. Big Tech can afford to fight these lawsuits without Section 230."

230 does not discriminate between cases that have merit and those without merit. It prevents them all.

Big Tech does not want unfavourable decisions by courts relating to their operations. Decisions that might favor internet users. Big Tech can afford to fight but history shows it settles. It avoids trials that it could easily afford. Section 230 results in countless cases being dismissed that might lead to decisions, or at least settlements, favorable to internet users.

"Engine has estimated that without Section 230, many startups and small services would be inundated with costly litigation that could drive them offline. "

EFF reminds me of Mozilla. EFF wants to protect startups. It is like Mozilla wanting to protect the "advertising ecosystem"and claiming they are protecting privacy. Advertising services fund the invasion of privacy for the purpose of selling more advertising services.

These so-called "startups" that EFF is concerned about usually envy, emulate and often want to be acquired by Big Tech. EFF cannot claim to be on the side of "everyday internet users" and then proceed to campaign for the interests of "startups" that exist to exploit those internet users, conducting wanton under-the-radar surveillance to support noxious online advertising services. Big Tech once called themselves "startups". 230 enabled them to grow and become "Big Tech".

Perhaps the most concerning omission in this blog post is the failure of EFF to disclose its own interests. Without 230 would EFF's interests one affected. Does EFF itself rely on 230 protection. Questions for the reader.

This feels much like Mozilla proclaming they are protecting web users but at the same time selling them out to Google and arguing that online advertising, the very thing that users do not want, is essential.

The title of this blog post is "230 Protects Users, Not Big Tech"

The truth is it protects both.

Some absolutely deranged comments accusing the EFF of being in the pockets of big tech. There are hundreds of threads on EFF topics on HN, and pretty widely I think the EFF sees enormous support. And I have never seen such bald bold baseless negative accusations hurled about before! Some absolutely wild shit jumping out to try to slander the EFF this time, totally out of the blue!

They must really be touching a nerve. Some absolute slime-tastic behavior. Again, never backed up, never substantiated, just broad accusation with no evidence, totally out of the blue.

The EFF has said all sorts of anti big tech things. They've had some real energy & excitement for FTC anti Big Tech monopoly action. They'd had data portability / adversarial interoperability arguments. They've argued again and again and again, unflinchingly, for the user.

I absolutely cannot believe some of the replies & accusation I'm reading. There are thousands and thousands of comments on EFF matters, and we are seeing waves of absolute deranged insanity the likes of which we have never seen s before. Utterly unmoored positions, with no arguments, no support, just blandly writing off some of the best pro-digital-citizen pro rfc8890 people on the planet as being secretly not what they've seemed for decades. Shame on you, you who would unleash bedlam and madness against this planet!

Section 230 is absolutely required for user content to be hosted online. The Wolf of Wall Street, Starton Oakmont, sued Prodigy because they didn't like something that was posted. Prodigy lost, causing or vastly accelerating their downfall. Savvy senator & one of the only people in Congress who understands technology Ron Wyden got 230 added to the DMCA, a fallen awful terrible piece of legislation that's been chipped away at, rolled back, as the one amazing incredibly positive shift, that's on par with Al Gore's work to allow priviitzed use of the internet in allowing online space to become a thing. We would have so little without 230. Shame shame shame on the fools, morons, and know nothing's who would post comments saying it should be withdrawal or repealed; none of us would have a forum to talk about such a thing online, none of us would be commenting at all, without 230. You monsters.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/hip-hip-hooray-hipster...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40618135

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/10/flourishing-internet-d...

> Section 230 protects individual bloggers, anyone who forwards an email, and social media users who have ever reshared or retweeted another person’s content online.

If someone you have never heard of writes a letter -- on paper, with a pen, communicating some kind of message that is somehow restricted by law... whether it be libel, copyright infringement, offensive, or hate speech -- and I decide I like it so much that I want to send a copy of that letter in the mail to everyone in my town... I am sorry, is the intuition that the EFF is claiming here that I shouldn't be held liable, just because I in some way curated the message from someone else?

I mean, this person didn't even ask me to mail it... it isn't like I am running a newsletter for the town, having to filter out the best messages from the numerous I am sent, lest I run out of paper and my readers run out of time. No: the person who sent me that letter wanted some audience of theirs to read it, I was one of the people they sent it to, for all I know I was the only person they expected would ever read it, and now I am the reason a thousand people will.

In this scenario -- as with the examples from the EFF -- I plucked this message out of world and chose to send it to my audience... this isn't me merely deciding not to moderate it: this is more like a museum going out and hunting for pieces of art for an exhibit... is the exhibit itself somehow not an act of speech?

I dunno... I personally feel like, if anything, I should be held more liable than the person who wrote the original letter in this scenario, not less: I am the person who chose to give their message some immense audience, not them. If I try to now claim "I didn't say it... this other person did!", that's not only disingenuous, that borders on nonsensical, as if I want to say something false and bad about you, I bet I can find someone else who said something similar, and I shouldn't just to get to avoid accountability because I merely "forwarded it".

I think what the EFF is doing here is trying to claim that a law that has successfully defended a user is thereby a law that helps users; and... I do see the logic there? But--and I guess this is where the EFF and I really disagree--I'm going to say that, just because a law helps some user avoid accountability, that doesn't mean I want that user to avoid accountability! The law should make sense, not merely be a useful and powerful card to play during legal battles.

There is something else going on here, though, as I clicked on the links in this quoted section to see if I would agree with the scenarios being defended, and I feel like this phrasing was dubious and even downright misleading :/.

Take the "anyone who forwards an email" one that I am kind of poking at here... and that's not at all a good description of what happened, as the EFF website notes that the key issue at hand is whether the message has been intended to be forwarded: if not, Section 230 wouldn't apply... but like, that's the situation with most end-user email forwards, as end users aren't expected to run forwarding service!

More to the point, this was about a non-profit that runs a mailing list, a newsletter, and a mailing list, not a user. Sure: the court kind of leaned into the word "user" to make a newsletter and mailing list be an idea that could be managed under this law, but that technical definition of "user" clearly isn't what the EFF is trying to make us think of here.

But like, returning to the result: in this case, they actually did forward an email they received which clearly was not intended to be forwarded: if you read the email, that much is obvious. The actual user here, Smith, is the person I'd think we want to protect, not the non-profit that took their self-admittedly "crank" question and forwarded it to their serious mailing list and put it on their serious website as part of their serious newsletter.

Worse, nothing about this seemed to end up decided by Section 230: as I noted, the appeals court decided it would only apply if the email had been intended to be forwarded, but they don't establish fact, so they sent it back to the district court to decide that...

...and, while I would be shocked if they had decided the message had been intended to be forwarded, it doesn't matter, as they dismissed the case due to a procedural issue caused by the same lawsuit having been filed in two jurisdictions, and the other copy of the lawsuit was both slightly earlier and hasn't been forwarded correctly to this defendant, so we know nothing.

So, frankly, I just feel kind of lied to here? The EFF is telling me this law protected a user, but, as far as I can tell, the part of this case where this law came up was about a corporate interest running a service, not a user, and it didn't even manage to protect them either, for good reason, as the intuition I feel we should have here is that the service provider was in fact liable :/.

And, to make it all the more ridiculous, the court of course had to evaluate section 230 as it existed--it determines how the law is to be applied, not what the law should be--but it also clearly thought it was a stupid law and wanted to make that known ;P, and so thereby started its opinion thusly:

> There is no reason inherent in the technological features of cyberspace why First Amendment and defamation law should apply differently in cyberspace than in the brick and mortar world. Congress, however, has chosen for policy reasons to immunize from liability for defamatory or obscene speech “providers and users of interactive computer services” when the defamatory or obscene material is “provided” by someone else.

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/us-9th-circuit/1158381.htm...

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Then separate the businesses of the online platforms (user generated facebook/twitter pages), and the online publishers (algorithmically generated news feed of said pages) and have libel laws for the latter.