1. What happens if Congress repeals Section 230? It's a big question and no one knows the answer. Here's my guess. Section 230 lets firms avoid dealing with harm they cause by monetizing data and third party content. Social pollution would began to carry a cost to the polluter.
2. For most firm, nothing would change. Most firms don't use data to harm customers. For big firms who monetize data and have large third party user bases, they'd have to buy insurance and pay a little more attention to harm they might cause. Online products would get safer.
3. Product liability, harassment and negligence, defamation - all standard legal claims - would reemerge, and firms like Grindr and Facebook would have to stop knowingly letting people use their product for harassment and fraud.
4. Very large firms would to break themselves up or radically revamp their business model, because there is no content moderation at scale and their businesses are based on externalizing harm. In other words, the biggest polluters would have to find a way to stop polluting.
5. There would be a lot more innovation to make the internet a safer and better place, just as there is a lot of innovation to make more energy efficient appliances and safer cars. Repealing Section 230 would force competition on the level of quality, not addiction/surveillance.
6. Would it radically change the internet as we know it? Well, the liberty to scam or steal, or to profit off scam or steal through targeted ads, would end. So I guess the answer depends on how much you want to defend theft and harassment in the name of a free internet.
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