There are already extraordinary chilling effects on speech -- try criticizing Black Lives Matter on any major social media, for example, and you will likely be censored, doxxed, and even receive death threats.
Up until now, major social media (FB, Twitter, Youtube etc.) have been free to suppress conservative voices in the name of opposing racism and white supremacists. The tech platforms have been shielded from lawsuits by 230. Once 230 is suspended or repealed, they will no longer be shielded from lawsuits.
As a result, someone gets doxxed, fired from his job, threatened with violence etc., he now has the wherewithal to go after the platform that facilitated the cancel mob.
You are suggesting a technical solution to a cultural problem.
Speech is supposed to have consequences. How else could it be?
> Up until now, major social media (FB, Twitter, Youtube etc.) have been free to suppress conservative voices in the name of opposing racism and white supremacists.
I guess nazis can be seen as conservative voices by definition. But isn't that the same thing as Fox in the other direction? Corporations suppress viewpoints they don't like. Have you read the ToS?
> As a result, someone gets doxxed, fired from his job, threatened with violence etc., he now has the wherewithal to go after the platform that facilitated the cancel mob
So newspapers will be unable to report the news because people might lose their jobs? People lose their job all of the time when newspapers report on their crimes/actions.
Cancel cultural is a bad cultural phenomenon. We need to develop a healthier culture to fix this problem. Hamfisted Federal laws are not going to make a significant difference here without causing significant harm.
> Cancel cultural is a bad cultural phenomenon. We need to develop a healthier culture to fix this problem. Hamfisted Federal laws are not going to make a significant difference here without causing significant harm.
I started writing a reply to parent before I saw yours but I stopped when I saw this sentence because there's no way I could put it better.
So imagine 230 is repealed. Facebook can now be sued for what crazy people say on their platform. Do you think this will be better or worse for free speech on the internet?
To the extent that a cancel mob was created by the editorialization of a company (eg promoting specific posts), they can already sue the company for its part - section 230 does not apply to the data that the company itself publishes. And to the extent that the cancel mob organized itself organically, attacking a company for providing a conduit is a direct attack on free speech.
That said if this does pass, we can only hope that the attractive nuisances of webapps will fall out of fashion. User-advocating client software is the real anti-censorship future. Of course what will likely happen is the frog will slowly continue to boil, and the censorship regime will be extended to p2p communications as well.
It dangerously goes two ways. Twitter tried to claim their banners on Trump's (and other public officials Tweets) were allowing because of 230! They're trying to have it both ways and it's a very very dangerous game to play. Viva Frei, a Canadian litigator, does a great breakdown of 230:
> Twitter tried to claim their banners on Trump's (and other public officials Tweets) were allowing because of 230
I doubt it (though feel free to link to a statement), because they aren't "allowed" to put labels on tweets because of Section 230, they're allowed to do so by the first amendment.
Up until now, major social media (FB, Twitter, Youtube etc.) have been free to suppress conservative voices in the name of opposing racism and white supremacists. The tech platforms have been shielded from lawsuits by 230. Once 230 is suspended or repealed, they will no longer be shielded from lawsuits.
As a result, someone gets doxxed, fired from his job, threatened with violence etc., he now has the wherewithal to go after the platform that facilitated the cancel mob.