One of many, many, many things I don’t understand about Imaginary 230 is that online fora with OBVIOUSLY non-neutral moderation policies have existed since long before 230.
https://twitter.com/robpegoraro/status/1364674324586725379
Political & Religious boards. Listservs. Chat rooms. Blog comment sections. Online games. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands of different platforms and sub-platforms. All protected by 230. Like many folks, I’ve made use of all of these since way back in college.
Never, in all that time, did I hear anyone ever suggest that any of these platforms had some legal obligation to be neutral. That gay chats had to allow anti-gay trolls. That I would open myself to legal liability if I deleted comments on my blog I found rude or unpleasant.
Obviously some people would argue that the rules OUGHT to be different for huge platforms like Twitter or Facebook than for my personal blog comments or Discord server. But also obviously, nothing in 230 hints at any such distinction.
It is hard to avoid noticing this if you know anything at all about 230, because one of the earliest important rulings on its scope (and one that, FWIW, even I think interpreted it too broadly) concerned a relatively small listserv for museum professionals.
Our Dumb 230 Discourse often operates as though “platforms” (or more accurately “interactive computer services”) just means like ten enormous companies. But it actually means every blog comment section and chat room and mailing list.
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