Looks like Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is going to go away in the very near term - there's just too much conservative ill will against it.
Time to think about the consequences and opportunities that no Section 230 opens.
First, lawyers will make a lot more money until we figure out who's liable generally. I speculate that liability will fall on the deep pockets despite their best efforts. That implies comment sections go away, or are very heavily edited. I doubt people in general understand that Section 230 enables user content. A lack of platform immunity will mean much more moderation and editorial censorship. Conservatives are not going to get the forced readership they crave, and other people's financing their distribution.
You might find that some providers simply disable comments, e.g. there's no particular reason that, say, the New York Times needs to support comments on articles for their business to remain viable.
Other sites, say, YouTube, that don't really exist without user content, might simply transfer liability to their users in their ToS during account setup. The net would be that YouTube continues its march to becoming, essentially, cableTV-like corporate media, where only professional orgs want to publish.
I'd be curious if sites like YT or even HN will feel the need to offer deletion of existing content, as a way of reducing their vulnerability surface? (Would that extend to github? People can be endlessly creative about expressing their opinion, see, eg, DeCSS) And if so, what impact would that have on training data?
> Conservatives are not going to get the forced readership they crave
Is this referring to platforms allegedly [1] being more prone to ban conservatives? If so, undoing that (for the sake of argument - I don't see how repealing Section 230 actually accomplishes that) can't fairly be called "forced readership" any more than forcing a library to carry a book is forcing you to read it. Forced intermediarship would be the honest term.
You're not accusing content that platforms "force you to read" what they currently don't ban, are you?
Time to think about the consequences and opportunities that no Section 230 opens.
First, lawyers will make a lot more money until we figure out who's liable generally. I speculate that liability will fall on the deep pockets despite their best efforts. That implies comment sections go away, or are very heavily edited. I doubt people in general understand that Section 230 enables user content. A lack of platform immunity will mean much more moderation and editorial censorship. Conservatives are not going to get the forced readership they crave, and other people's financing their distribution.
Other sites, say, YouTube, that don't really exist without user content, might simply transfer liability to their users in their ToS during account setup. The net would be that YouTube continues its march to becoming, essentially, cableTV-like corporate media, where only professional orgs want to publish.
I'd be curious if sites like YT or even HN will feel the need to offer deletion of existing content, as a way of reducing their vulnerability surface? (Would that extend to github? People can be endlessly creative about expressing their opinion, see, eg, DeCSS) And if so, what impact would that have on training data?
Is this referring to platforms allegedly [1] being more prone to ban conservatives? If so, undoing that (for the sake of argument - I don't see how repealing Section 230 actually accomplishes that) can't fairly be called "forced readership" any more than forcing a library to carry a book is forcing you to read it. Forced intermediarship would be the honest term.
You're not accusing content that platforms "force you to read" what they currently don't ban, are you?
[1] I say "allegedly", but for some types of right-wing content, this is not alleged at all, as the platforms themselves admit it: https://www.npr.org/2019/03/27/707258353/facebook-bans-white...