For the last fucking time Section 230 is not a "special legal protection afforded to technology companies"
It applies to literally every website. Including the comments section of The Hill, for example. It also protects you from getting sued for retweeting or forwarding an email
It applies to literally every website. Including the comments section of The Hill, for example. It also protects you from getting sued for retweeting or forwarding an email
https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1344010739019902976
If Section 230 were repealed entirely, it would throw the Internet into chaos. It would also ironically solidify the monopoly power of the companies everyone is mad at: Facebook and Google. They have the armies of lawyers to figure out how to navigate a world without 230
Repealing Section 230 would lead to MORE censorship on the Internet, not less. If you don't like the way Twitter and Facebook do content moderation now, wait til they're making those decisions based on whether they think your post might catch them an expensive lawsuit
It would also make it almost impossible for sites to engage in good faith moderation efforts. I'm not even talking about hate speech or disinfo or political stuff, just like ... imagine your entire feed is constantly filled with bot spam and cringe porn
The last time Congress amended Section 230 was with SESTA/FOSTA, a law that literally got people killed and is widely seen by experts as having harmed the very communities it claimed to protect. Ask sex workers about 230. whyy.org/segments/fosta…
Big Tech is a problem. Their surveillance based biz model is fundamentally incompatible with democracy & basic rights. And their content moderation practices are shoddy and lack transparency. But blowing up Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act makes it worse, not better.
It's unsurprising but disgusting that Trump & McConnell are playing this game with Section 230 to hold up stimulus (survival) checks that people desperately need to feed their children and not get evicted in the middle of a fucking pandemic that was exacerbated by their inaction
It seems very unlikely that they will succeed in gutting or changing 230, McConnell seems to be using it as an intentional "poison pill" to blow up the deal for $2,000 checks so that he can then blame it on the Democrats. Everyone should be outraged by this. It's inane and cruel
But even though it's unlikely the Senate will actually do anything to 230 before Trump leaves, everyone should be speaking out right now. Lawmakers in both parties are getting worse on this issue every day. If we don't mobilize and educate, we'll see another SESTA/FOSTA soon
You can use this site to write to your lawmakers. Tell them that blowing up Section 230 will do more harm than good. We need lawmakers to respond to Trump's absurd demands by CLEARLY STATING that they will defend Section 230, free speech, and human rights saveonlinefreespeech.org
UPDATE: since this thread started circulating Mitch McConnell has filed actual legislation that ties A FULL REPEAL of Section 230 to the $2,000 stimulus checks that people desperately need to feed their kids and not get evicted in the middle of a pandemic. Horrifying and cruel. 
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