Section 230 is, as it exists today, a terrible law. It is largely responsible for the harm that social media companies have caused society, and it has literally gotten people killed. I know that this is heresy in the tech world, but it is not a sure thing that the world is better now for its existence. Section 230 has been used successfully to remove internet companies from product liability laws just because the underlying algorithm surface speech others generated. That is insane. But losing all of Section 230 would be bad for free speech.
Section 230 makes it literally okay for Meta try and kill teenage girls. Now, I know that is an incendiary statement, but it is also a true statement. Meta knows that Instagram and Facebook are targeting teenage girls with content that makes them feel bad about themselves. Heck, it used to brag about how it would target them in vulnerable moments with ads for beauty products —these assholes were proud of that. And we know that some percentage of depressed and vulnerable girls are going to try and self-harm, and some percentage of those are going to be successful. And this is just one example — there are plenty others. But because courts have ruled that algorithms are protected by Section 230, these companies are allowed to continue to harm people.
This is starting to change, finally, but much too slowly and much too much at the whims of courts, and far too often against the wishes and advocacy of so-called free speech groups. This needs to change. But removing all of Section 230 likely won’t have the intended effects.
Section 230 does provide two things that are critical in these times. First, it prevents sites from being sued for material posted by others. Second, it allows sites to moderate as they see fit. Now, despite what the free speech absolutists and libertarian dude bros would have you believe, neither of these are entirely unalloyed goods. If I run a message board where people routinely call for murdering others at the same time that other people dox the people who the first group is calling to be murdered, then maybe I should share some of the liability when a person gets, you now, murdered. Not according to the defenders of Section 230.
And if I run the largest social media site in the world and regularly use my algorithms to push neo-Nazi content to users and shut down left wing accounts, maybe that should get looked at a little more closely. The idea that the commons has moved online is not entirely unreasonable. Again, though: not to the defenders of Section 230. Private firms must be allowed to do as they wish all the time! And the only solution to bad speech is good speech! As if the marketplace of ideas is not controlled by those with the biggest platforms. As if private firms never encroach on public goods.
I am obviously no fan of section 230. And I understand completely why some otherwise good lawmakers want to get rid of it. It has done so much harm and been so vociferously defended that the idea of reforming it must seem too hard a lift. If the law’s defenders would remember that they are members of a society and accept that there are situations where Section 230 does harm, maybe people wouldn’t feel they have to choose between letting teenage girls live and free speech. Honestly, it is tempting to burn the thing down, deal with the consequences, and rebuild something better in its wake.
But.
But without Section 230, given the existing courts, it is most likely that we will see of a flood of nuisance suits meant to take down outlets critical of the GOP and that some of those suits will succeed long enough to damage or destroy some outlets. If we take away the moderation protection, then neo-Nazis will fill ever online place with their filth, regardless of the site’s intended purpose. There are solutions to the problems of Section 230. If we have a process for taking down copyrighted material, then we can have the same for threats. The law can be changed to make it crystal clear that algorithms are products, not subjects to section 230. But getting rid of everything, in this time and place, is likely to lead to more harm than good.
But that calculation is a close-run thing. I know that they will not, because they are incapable of understanding that we live in a society where power and opportunity are unequally divided and where we should have a responsibility to other members of that society. But I sincerely hope the defenders of section 230 realize just how much damage the law is doing, and how that damage makes it harder and harder to defend the law. Sooner or later, that intransigence is going to lead to exactly the outcome they do not want.
People are not stupid. They can see the real harm Section 230 does to real human beings. And if you keep, falsely, insisting that any change to Section 230 is the death of the internet then sooner or later you are going to find that people will take that bargain to save their loved ones. Better to give up your libertarian fantasies, join the rest of us in a democratic society, and deal seriously with the trade-offs inherent in these products. The alternative is going to be the end so section 230, and all the problems that brings, much sooner than you think.
