If Section 230 weren’t in place, social media companies would have even more pressure on them to suppress speech
The court heard arguments in Gonzalez vs. Google which focused mostly on whether tech companies should be held civilly liable for content promoted by their algorithms.
Section 230 was written years before Facebook or even MySpace entered our world when people went online using services like Compuserve and Prodigy. Both of these companies had forums. At that time, I was a columnist at Compuserve and also a columnist and forum host at Prodigy. Prodigy’s forums were moderated — a human decided whether a post was appropriate. Compuserve’s forums were more of a free-for-all.
In many ways, Section 230 is like a Good Samaritan Law that protects health care workers and others who render aid in an emergency. Without such a law, if you stop and help, you could wind up in court. But if you just drive by and do nothing, you won’t get into trouble. What Section 230 did was to allow companies to moderate content without adding the risk of being sued if offensive content got through anyway.
While I don’t fully agree with the Democrats’ argument, I at least understand it, but I’m baffled by the Republican argument. If 230 weren’t in place, social media companies would have even more pressure on them to suppress speech that might lead to violence, misinformation about vaccines or other alleged harms because they could be held liable.
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