There's been a lot of talk about "Section 230" and what it means/does. In essence, it protects an online publishing tool - like Twitter or Facebook or Blogger - from being liable/responsible for the content posted by users of that tool.
A rough equivalence is that T-Mobile can't be held liable for what you say on a phone call using their network, so Twitter can't be punished for spreading your BS; they just provide the tool, they don't police the content.
On the other hand, traditional publishers - like the New York Times, let's say - can be held liable for the content they publish and suffer civil and criminal penalties for that content.
In a typical Republican/conservative misunderstanding of technology, conservatives have been pushing to "repeal section 230" in the hopes that it will stop Twitter fact-checking Trump (et al) and just allow them to say whatever crazy shit they want to say, anywhere, at any time.
The reality though, is quite different.
If Section 230 was eliminated tomorrow, FB, Twitter, Reddit, and all those online tools would be responsible for the content posted to their sites, and they would crack down on absolutely EVERYTHING in an effort to protect themselves. In fact, I can't envision a model where Twitter or FB could survive a reinterpretation of Section 230... how can they possibly vet every single post by billions of people for accuracy/veracity, when they can't even manage to police their current content streams for blatantly illegal content?
But here's the thing, and why I want to discuss this with Hubskites...
I'm kinda on board with the idea of eliminating section 230 protections for social media sites, and making them adhere to the same publishing standards that have existed for a century for publishing in every other format (print, video, radio, etc.).
It would, of course, instantly destroy FB, Twitter, Reddit, TikTok, and every other social media tool you can name. (Sadly, Hubski, too.) They would have to shut down immediately.
Which would result in huge layoffs of tech workers.
And generate an entirely new - and unimaginably vast - market for something, or MANY somethings, to rise in place of our current model of social media.
Essentially, we'd go back to BBSes... each individual would have their own "server" which they were entirely responsible for the content of, and they could manage/monitor/control it however they wanted to.
This is quite an exhilarating thought, to me...
Thousands and thousands of programmers and software designers released from the constraints of the status quo, to go an invent and innovate and think up new shit.
The Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, etc., could quickly pivot to a consumer model, so people could set up their own little publishing/link environments using these newly invented tools, so people wouldn't have to go back to having a MacSE in the closet running the Red Ryder Host BBS... they'd have modern tools (SaaS apps) that ran on modern devices like cell phones, etc. The elusive "click and deploy" type of server environment we SysAdmins have always wished for but never quite got. (WordPress got REALLY close, though...)
But here's my myopia/problem...
I really screwed the pooch with my privileged worldview a while ago here on Hubski, when I thought everyone should be forced to use their real names / own everything they ever post.
I'm pretty sure I'm doing the same thing here, and glossing over aspects of dropping section 230 that would adversely affect non-middle-aged-hetero-white-male-west-coasters ... but I'm not seeing it. My rose tinted glasses are REALLY dark, because I tend to be an eternal optimist about everything. (Probably due to living my formative years in the idealistic Silicon Valley tech industry of the 1980/90's.)
What are your thoughts on Section 230? Why is it appropriate that this only applies to tech companies and not traditional media? What happens to your own 'outsider' community when 230 goes away? Why isn't TinCan the answer to everything you just said? (j/k)
If 230 had a head and I had a revolver, I would empty six shots and reload. I wouldn't stop there. I'd annihilate the Telecom Act of 1996, repeal the DMCA and bring back the Fairness Doctrine. Conservatives stood all this shit up because they knew it would enable monopoly control of media, which has always favored conservatives. Now that they've been reminded that progress, by definition, belongs to the liberals they want to corner-case this one tiny segment of it. The lives of everyone on here would be better without Facebook, Amazon, Google, Youtube, Twitter, Netflix or Microsoft. I would glory in a future where every tech fuck out there had to sing for his supper like a Soviet nuclear physicist. Fight me.
In the 20-year view, putting a bullet in these policies and regulations would be an enormously good thing for humanity... but the infant resists being weaned off the teat because they don't know about flatiron steaks with crushed peppercorn aioli... Can you imagine the mental breakdowns that would happen if social media suddenly went away? The sheer numbers of people who wouldn't be able to function, even in a basic way? It's frightening to contemplate.
Assumes facts not in evidence. "But what if I don't get to know what that girl I vaguely knew in English class 30 years ago had for breakfast?" listen to yourself. Social media is a badly gamified, thin gruel substitute for actual conversation and everyone knows it. Besides which you're assuming that a top-down infrastructure is the only way this works - when fuckin' blogchains did a better job anyway. 'member back when you didn't need to know who someone voted for to be friends with them, you just needed to share an interest in z-gauge Marklin trains? Pepperidge Farm remembers. Study after study after study after study after study supports the fundamental truth that social media makes people less happy, not more. If I could change my enameling and watchmaking groups for alt.rec.watchmaking.humor or whatever I'd do it in an instant. The fact that the killer productivity app is basically IRC for $40/seat says some shit, namely that the minute we traded Mosaic for Netscape we were fucked.
... man... I miss rec.moto and rec.pyro... those were great groups... And one of my favorite rec.moto sub-groups is actually on FB... it's funny... same content 30 years later, just now with higher rez images. And I miss the time when everyone had a web site and had to publish their links list... rat-holing through pages and pages of links was a fun way to discover sites before Yahoo came along...
The promise of Diaspora was that your "facebook" was a server that you controlled which allowed you to link up with everyone else. Google is dumb. Google is dumbly dumb. Their move wasn't Google Plus, their move was to sell rack space and Diaspora instances that you subscribe to through your Gmail which you configure and you keep running and you manage and you link up. Make them a dollar a month. Fuck advertising. Allow people to expand or shrink CPU usage for things like protein folding or aircraft search or decrypting the Voynich Manuscript or WTFever. The fact that a company that buys servers like they're cord wood decided that the way to beat Facebook at their own game was to suck at it says everything you need to know about why fucking Section 230 needs to die. If people roll their own iron they're immune forever and if someone is running their "business" in a way that crosses the feds, the lines are a lot more easily crossed.
Diaspora is going to be that "first idea" that never was successful (except Diaspora is a derivative of an older idea; basically a SaaS BBS), and someone later on is going to come and do the exact same thing and be hailed and great innovators and thinkers... and we old farts are going to go, "yeah, but Betamax had better image quality..." and people will continue to not care. It's turtles all the way down, isn't it?
Wouldn't repealing 230 give big tech an advantage by potentially crushing small tech businesses in legal fees? Only established companies might be able to combat lawsuits, but I dunno, lol Twitter's potential liability for Trump alone is interesting to consider.
Small tech businesses don't attract class action sharks. "Show me where the mean Zuckerberg touched you" goes out to every person who has held a Facebook account from 2007-2021. They're given a checklist of all the privacy violations Zuck has committed and are allowed to select the ones that "materially impacted" them. Big dumb firms gear up for combat and it's a war of attrition that ends up with Zuck paying every person who has ever had a Facebook account like eight bucks, say. That's a 22 billion dollar settlement, which the sharks get 20 percent for administering. Facebook can afford it but most firms prefer avoiding nine figures worth of peril as a matter of principle. First rule of litigation is "don't be the deep pockets." When I was in biomedical engineering we worked with firms that "laundered" 3m polyurethane because it was good stuff that 3m wouldn't sell to biomedical device manufacturers. Why not? Because an atrial defibrillator uses a nickel's worth of polyurethane and comes with an inevitable bazillion dollar lawsuit where the plaintiff attaches every contractor, supplier, subcontractor and vendor involved and of those involved, 3M is the one with the pockets.
How exactly would repealing Section 230 protections apply to Hubski? I can see the big tech companies having to change their entire platforms because of this but who would go after Hubski?
Well that's just the point, isn't it? Repealing/Killing section 230 would open up any site to potential litigation that allowed users to publish unedited content. BUT... someone on that site would then have to publish something actionable (like "kill the President" or some dumb shit like that), and then someone would have to see it and take issue with it, and then someone would have to report it to an authority, and then that authority would have to investigate it, and then pursue a case against the owner of the site, and - if convicted - the owner of the site would go to jail, or pay a fine, or whatever. But this is how ALL regulation works: the threat of potential enforcement. You can drive 90 MPH in a 40 MPH zone any time you want to. It is the threat of enforcement that keeps you from doing so. And, in the end, the threat of enforcement is MUCH greater against those with deeper pockets. Because the lawyers are only in it to get paid. Nobody would sue Hubski because there's no money to be made, and the lawyers wouldn't even make back their legal fees. BUT, mk has other businesses, a family, a home, etc., and probably wouldn't risk those to keep Hubski up and running like a wild west outpost. Why take the risk? Where's the reward? Which is the insidious purpose behind ALL regulation; get people to self-censor their behavior. So Section 230 vanishes, mk sees his family potentially homeless due to a random post by goobster, and says "fuck that!" and shuts the site down. Why risk it? So yeah. That's how 230 would affect Hubski.
Why on Earth would they do that, when they could be held liable for every site they host?The Google Cloud, Azure, AWS, etc., could quickly pivot to a consumer model....