Twitter And Facebook Removing Chinese Disinfo Campaigns Shows That, Contrary To Popular Opinion, They Do Moderate Against Disinfo

from the moderation-happens dept

Leaving aside the ridiculous and ignorant suggestions from some that no internet platforms should moderate anything, many, many people seem to believe (incorrectly) that the various internet companies refuse to moderate anything because it goes against their bottom lines. We've heard this from a number of politicians -- especially among those seeking to change Section 230, arguing (again, incorrectly) that because of Section 230 there's somehow no incentive to moderate content on their platforms.

This is wrong on multiple levels. There is tremendous business, political, moral, and social pressure to moderate content on these platforms. When they get it wrong, they get criticized. They can lose users. And (importantly) they can lose advertisers, partners, customers and investors. There is demand for "healthy" platforms, and it's Section 230 that allows them to experiment and moderate accordingly. That's why it's notable to me that both Twitter and Facebook announced the removal of what appears to be a coordinated attempt to abuse both platforms to push disinformation against protesters in Hong Kong. Here's Facebook's announcement:

Today, we removed seven Pages, three Groups and five Facebook accounts involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior as part of a small network that originated in China and focused on Hong Kong. The individuals behind this campaign engaged in a number of deceptive tactics, including the use of fake accounts — some of which had been already disabled by our automated systems — to manage Pages posing as news organizations, post in Groups, disseminate their content, and also drive people to off-platform news sites. They frequently posted about local political news and issues including topics like the ongoing protests in Hong Kong. Although the people behind this activity attempted to conceal their identities, our investigation found links to individuals associated with the Chinese government.

And here's Twitter's announcement:

This disclosure consists of 936 accounts originating from within the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Overall, these accounts were deliberately and specifically attempting to sow political discord in Hong Kong, including undermining the legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement on the ground. Based on our intensive investigations, we have reliable evidence to support that this is a coordinated state-backed operation. Specifically, we identified large clusters of accounts behaving in a coordinated manner to amplify messages related to the Hong Kong protests.

As Twitter is blocked in PRC, many of these accounts accessed Twitter using VPNs. However, some accounts accessed Twitter from specific unblocked IP addresses originating in mainland China. The accounts we are sharing today represent the most active portions of this campaign; a larger, spammy network of approximately 200,000 accounts — many created following our initial suspensions — were proactively suspended before they were substantially active on the service.

Despite common perception, both companies have put a lot of effort into discovering and stopping these kinds of efforts. Of course, none of it will be perfect, because content moderation at scale is impossible to do well. Mistakes of both false positives and false negatives are inevitable. But, if anyone thinks that modifying Section 230 will magically make companies better at this, they're not paying attention. Adding more liability to companies over their moderation choices won't make these efforts any better or any easier -- they might just bog the companies down in lawsuits.

Filed Under: cda 230, china, coordinated inauthentic behavior, disinformation, hong kong, misinformation, section 230
Companies: facebook, twitter

Josh Hawley Wants To Appoint Himself Product Manager For The Internet

from the hawley-knows-best dept

Say what you want about Senator Josh Hawley -- and we've said a lot -- but you do have to give him credit for actually proposing bills to respond to all of the problems he sees with internet companies these days. Of course, he sees their very existence as one of the problems, so the bills seem mostly nonsensical. His latest -- the Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology Act (yeah, yeah, the SMART Act) -- is only marginally less crazy than his last bill to strip internet companies of Section 230 protections, unless they agree to allow Nazis to speak.

It's... weird. It basically seems to be Congress (via Hawley) appointing itself as the new product manager for all internet services. It's taking what is a potentially reasonable concern that certain activities on various internet platforms may lead to addictive behaviors and then assuming that Congress must ban them, outright -- as well as take proactive steps to limit access to much of the internet. I'm assuming that noted Constitutional lawyer Josh Hawley will next propose a bill banning alcohol, cigarettes, TV binging, professional sports, books, and anything else engrossing in the future. Again, there are legitimate concerns about how the internet impacts people, but we're still in the very early days of understanding (1) what those issues are and how they're dealt with and (2) how society can and should respond to those things. And yet, this bill acts as if it's well established that a few very specific technology features are de facto evil and must be banned. Among them:

1. Infinite scroll
2. A lack of natural stopping points
3. Autoplay music and video
4. Badges that reward certain behavior (i.e., gamification)

First off, I probably agree with many of you in thinking that much of the above list is fucking annoying. I'm annoyed by infinite scroll. It's why we don't have it on Techdirt, even though tons of other sites do. But, how in the world does it make sense for Congress to step in and literally make design choices for the entire internet?

Also, autoplay ads are crazy annoy... wait, what's this?

AUTOPLAY.—The use of a process that automatically plays music or videos (other than advertisements) without an express, separate prompt by the user (such as pushing a button or clicking an icon)

Emphasis very much added. Got that? Autoplay advertisements are exempted. This is basically entirely targeted at YouTube and the fact that when one video finishes, another will start playing automatically. I do find that practice marginally annoying, but there's a giant switch at the top of the page that lets you turn it off, and once you turn it off once, it stays off, so, uh...? But, really, the exempting of advertising is quite amazing. Apparently Josh Hawley thinks that internet companies are bad for trying to addict you, but advertisers? Oh, no. They're pure as the driven snow...

If I'm reading this correctly, it could ban Techdirt's existing commenting feature in which we put badges on comments that have been voted "funny" or "insightful" by the community. Because that's evil. How dare we incentivize our commenters to be funny or insightful! An outrage! Here's the language in the bill:

BADGES AND OTHER AWARDS LINKED TO ENGAGEMENT WITH THE PLATFORM.—Providing a user with an award for engaging with the social media platform (such as a badge or other recognition of a user’s level of engagement with the platform) if such award does not substantially increase access to new or additional services, content, or functionality.

That is listed under "Prohibited Practices," though it's possible we might skate by, as we may not qualify as a "social media service" under the bill (it defines social media services as sites that "primarily serve as a medium for users to interact with content generated by other third-party users"). I'd argue that's not our "primary" business right now, but it's at least a bit fuzzy -- especially as we're, at this very moment, thinking about ways to improve our commenting features, and if this became law, we'd have to be very concerned that at some point we'd accidentally cross the nebulous border into a realm in which our "primary" business involved hosting user comments. Given that, it would certainly create a massive chilling effect on the features we're already working on implementing for you guys.

Of course, that's only if this bill had half a chance in hell of becoming law and not being tossed out as unconstitutional.

The bill also requires any "social media company" to add a bunch of features. Again, some of these features are probably good ideas, just not good ideas that should be required by law. Among the mandated features: a tool that users can use to set time limits on the platform, an opt-out rule that, by default, limits the use of any services to 30 minutes per day, and a regular counter of how much time you've spent on the site. So, if we were deemed to be "primarily" in the social media business, and you're reading Techdirt for more than 30 minutes, sorry folks, but I'll need to cut you off (and re-set the limit on the first of every month, even if you opt out). Yes, that's right -- even if people opt out of the 30 minute limit, this bill would require it be turned back on, on the 1st of every month. So paternalistic. And, apparently, I'll magically have to build such tools into my site.

Remember, of course, that Josh Hawley's major claim to fame was that he was the lawyer that represented Hobby Lobby in allowing it to ignore federal laws that it felt violated the religious sensibilities of its owners. I wonder, if we start a religion that worships the infinite scroll and gamification badges, will Hawley let us have an exemption from this law?

Believe it or not, there's even more in the bill, including requiring websites to have a "neutral presentation," banning "pre-selected" options, and having the FTC report to Congress about how internet companies are "exploiting human psychology."

There may be bad things about how internet platforms are run. There may be problems with certain implementations and the impact they have on society, but a blanket ban on stuff, just because Hawley has decided it's bad, seems kinda crazy. Whatever happened to the Republican party position of getting government out of regulating businesses? This is not just regulating businesses, it's literally getting down to the product/feature decision level for no obvious reason other than Hawley's personal animus.

Filed Under: addiction, autoplay, badges, infinite scroll, internet, josh hawley, social media, time limits
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Former Content Moderator Explains How Josh Hawley's Bill Would Grant Government Control Over Online Speech

from the not-a-good-idea dept

Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin, who used to work at Google as an in-house content moderator, has written a fascinating piece for the Washington Times, explaining just what a disaster Josh Hawley's anti-Section 230 bill would be for the internet. As we've discussed, Hawley's bill would require large internet companies to beg the FTC every two years to get a "certificate" granting them Section 230 protections -- and they'd only get it if they could convince 4 out of 5 of the FTC Commissioners that their content moderation efforts were "politically neutral."

Soderberg-Rivkin points out how that will stifle the kind of "clean up" efforts that most everyone -- especially folks like Senator Josh Hawley -- often claim they want when they complain about all the "bad stuff" on social media. Remember, just before introducing this bill, Hawley was whining about all the bad and dangerous content on social media. Except, under his own damn bill, social media sites would be forced to keep that content up:

Under the Hawley bill, the FTC would audit major platforms’ moderation practices every two years to determine whether those practices were “biased against a political party, political candidate or political viewpoint.” In practice, this would look something like this: A few FTC auditors would walk into a technology company and declare the beginning of the audit. They would comb through tens thousands of removals decisions, looking for those that are “politically biased” — a process that could take, at minimum, weeks to complete.

In the meantime, content moderators would hold back on their take down procedures because no one could really tell them how “politically biased” is interpreted. In other words, disinformation, Nazi propaganda and white supremacist videos would fester on the Internet. If a moderator fails this test, not only would they be fired, but thousands of lawsuits and fines would come tumbling down on the company.

At my former job, I tried to keep in mind that while I had to look at horrific content, thanks to my efforts, many others would not have to. Yet in a world where this bill passes, I would sit down at my same desk, take a deep breath and prepare myself to look at terrorist executions, aftermaths of mass shootings and hatred-motivated violence — but this time, with full knowledge that I had absolutely no control over its distribution.

To some extent, this gets at the weird mental pretzel logic Senators like Hawley keep twisting themselves into. They complain about all the bad stuff online... and think that the way to deal with that is to remove the one law that makes it possible for companies to design plans to moderate away that bad stuff.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, free speech, government control, josh hawley
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Gab, Mastodon And The Challenges Of Content Moderation On A More Distributed Social Network

from the experimentation-through-federation dept

While so many of the discussions and debates about content moderation focus on a few giant platforms -- namely Facebook, YouTube and Twitter -- it's fascinating to see how they play out in other arenas. Indeed, one of the reasons why we're so concerned about efforts to "regulate" content moderation practices on social media is that focusing on the manner in which those big, centralized platforms work could serve to stifle newer, more innovative platforms, whose very set up may inherently deal with the "problems" in the first place (see my protocols, not platforms discussion for one example).

There are a few interesting platforms out there trying to take a different approach to nearly everything -- and one of the more well known is Mastodon, an open source "federated" system that is sort of somewhat like Twitter. If you somehow have missed the Mastodon boat, I'd recommend the long piece Sarah Jeong wrote about it two years ago, which is a pretty good intro to the topic. The really short version, though, is that anyone can set up their own Mastodon community and, if others so choose, they may "federate" with other Mastodon communities. You could build a Mastodon instance that is totally isolated from others, or you could build one that connects to others and allows "toots" to go from one instance of Mastodon to others. And, of course, the federating can change over time. It's kind of neat in that it allows for multiple communities, who can set different rules, norms and standards, and thus you get much more widespread experimentation. And, unlike a fully centralized system, like Twitter, the ability for different instances to just "go there own way" if they disagree, allows for much greater flexibility, without a centralized content moderation impossibility.

I'm still more interested in much more fully decentralized protocol-based systems, but a federated system like Mastodon, that allows for a distributed set of mini-centralized instances that can join together or separate as needed, is still pretty fascinating.

However, it got more fascinating and interesting earlier this month when the social network Gab moved to Mastodon. If you haven't followed this space at all, Gab likes to call itself the "free speech alternative" to Twitter, but in practice that has meant that it's the place that many trolls, racists and other general assholes have gathered after being kicked off of Twitter. Gab announced, back in May, that it was planning to shift its platform to Mastodon, setting up its own instance. In theory, this solved some "problems" that Gab had been facing -- starting with the fact that Apple and Google had removed Gab's mobile app from their app stores (something Gab sued over, in a strategy that was not very successful). Since there are a bunch of Mastodon apps that allow users to log into any particular Mastodon instance, Gab itself made it clear that this was a key reason for the move:

Of course, building on top of someone else's better tested open source code probably also helps Gab with the long list of technical issues the site was having. And then there's the pure troll factor. Besides harboring social media trolls, Gab, as a company has always sort of gleefully taken on a trollish roll in the way it works as a company as well. And, considering that part of the very reason that Mastodon's creator, Eugen "Gargron" Rochko, set up Mastodon in the first place was to build an alternative to Twitter that was free of Nazis, assholes and trolls... it was a truly trollish move to jump onto that platform and at least imply to many a plan to "invade" (or, perhaps we should say brigading) the wider "fediverse" of Mastodon.

The switch over happened earlier this month and it's been fascinating to watch how it's all played out. The shortest summary might be that the federated model has shown to be somewhat resilient so far. Mastodon itself put out a statement urging various Mastodon instances not to federate with Gab and also suggesting that the various Mastdodon app developers choose to blacklist Gab's domains from their apps (meaning that Gab's plan to use this to get back into the app store might not work as well as planned).

The Verge has a long, in-depth article about how all of this is playing out, and it seems like, as a federated system is designed to do, different parts of the system are experimenting and figuring out what makes sense. Most of the other instances have decided they don't want to federate with Gab.

If you join a major Mastodon instance right now, chances are you won’t be connected to Gab. “All the admins that I know, that I interact with myself, have already blocked Gab,” says Rochko — including Mastodon.Social. “Essentially, they’re isolated.”

As for the various app makers, they're figuring out what they want to do:

This has turned app access into a battlefield. Developers can lock Gab out by disabling login options to the instance or completely blocking content from its servers. And several have done just that. Mastodon lists six major mobile apps on its homepage. Four of them — the Android client Tusky and the iOS apps Toot!, Mast, and Amaroq — block Gab in some fashion.

Amaroq developer John Gabelmann banned Gab to avoid potential problems with the App Store. “My core objective is to keep Amaroq publicly available and to abide by all Apple policies, which keep unmoderated extremist/hateful content off the store,” he tells The Verge. “If your network is large enough and unmoderated enough to get the negative attention of Apple, Amaroq will follow Apple’s policies.”

Mast’s creator Shihab Mehboob, by contrast, blocked Gab after users requested it. He’s gotten one-star reviews from angry Gab users, but “if hate speech is masquerading as free speech on an app I’ve built, it’s upon myself to somehow moderate that and reduce it where possible,” he says. “I understand that the Fediverse is intended to be open and entirely at the user’s discretion as to what they want to see/use/partake in, but that shouldn’t cover Nazi-based ideologies. There has to be a line drawn somewhere.”

Other app developers maintain that this blocking doesn’t fit Mastodon’s mission. The Android-based Fedilab app’s free version initially blocked Gab because of Play Store content policy fears. But the ban has since been lifted. “I will simply not block instances with the app,” wrote Fedilab’s developer. “I clearly think that’s not my role … If you want a strong block, it’s in the hands of social network developers or your admins.”

And the developer of Subway Tooter, who goes by Tateisu, is skeptical that stores will censure apps for supporting Gab. “They can run their web app on a web browser,” Tateisu points out. “If Google wants to ban it, they should start from their Chrome web browser.”

This is all quite interesting. It's also the kind of experimentation and more distributed decision-making we'd like to see more of online. This is not a truly distributed system where the power is moved all the way out to the ends, but it is a federated system where the power is moved to various nodes -- leading to more competition and variety. The fact that most of the major Mastodon instances have said they don't want to federate or deal with Gab is an expression of preferences, and in many ways a better overall system than one in which a single company is making the decisions. And it's much better than politicians telling companies what they need to do. Of course, in a world without Section 230 -- or one with a nonsensical requirement for "neutrality" in platform moderation -- would these options even be available?

Filed Under: content moderation, distributed systems, federation, mastodon, moderation, platforms, protocols, social media
Companies: apple, gab, google, mastodon, twitter

Trump Thinks That The Government Can And Should Sue Internet Companies Because He Doesn't Like The People Who Work There

from the not-how-it-works-don dept

In a move that will surprise absolutely no one, our President once again blindly and incorrectly lashed out at big internet companies and said that they should be sued for what appears to be the illegal action of having employees who didn't vote for him. I mean, that's not what he said, but that seems to be the only real reasoning behind the argument.

President Trump on Wednesday said the U.S. government “should be suing Google and Facebook and all that,” then wagered that “perhaps we will,” in a new broadside against Silicon Valley at a moment when it already faces heightened antitrust scrutiny in Washington.

Trump did not detail the exact basis for such lawsuits, which he raised after assailing European regulators for their investigations into U.S. tech companies.

So... he's against EU regulators investigating the companies, but he wants to have the DOJ do it? On what basis. Apparently, on the basis of a laughable, out-of-context propaganda video from an organization famous for producing misleading, out-of-context propaganda videos.

In doing so, Trump also swiped at Google, claiming the search and advertising giant is “trying to rig the election.” He then claimed that Twitter has made it “very hard” for users to find and follow him. But Trump did not provide new evidence for his latest allegation that the companies exhibit bias against conservatives, which Google and Twitter long have vehemently denied.

The "rig the election" is one that's been making the rounds this week after a group of people deliberately misrepresented Google's ongoing (and very public) efforts to prevent foreign intervention in the US election. If you think that blocking foreign intervention is "rigging the election," well, then you've got much bigger issues.

As for the claim that Twitter has made it "very hard" for users to find and follow him, he currently has 61.4 million followers -- which appears to make him the twelfth most followed account on the platform. He has more followers than Kim Kardashian. I don't think anyone is making it hard to find or follow him. Or, if Twitter is doing that, please, Twitter, make it just as hard for people to find and follow me on the platform.

Look, I get that Trump and his fans don't like the fact that tech company employees overwhelmingly didn't vote for him. But, that's not any basis for making up lies about them and sending the DOJ after them. There may well be legal and regulatory issues that deserve scrutiny regarding these legal companies, but making up fantasy stories only makes it that much harder to sort out what's legitimate from what's utter nonsense.

Filed Under: antitrust, doj, donald trump, internet companies, social media
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Indian Gov't Uses National Security Law, Bad Information To Block Twitter Accounts All Over The World

from the censorship-starts-at-home-but-has-plenty-of-travel-options dept

US social media companies are continuing to act as proxy censors for governments around the world. This is adding some bizarre twists to stories of social media content takedowns as governments target posts by non-citizens located thousands of miles away.

India may have abandoned a fake news law, but it still acting as though unverified news is a threat to national security. In a case covered by Kevin Poulsen for The Daily Beast, an American college student's tweets were targeted by the Indian government, which claimed the student was engaging in spreading propaganda.

Twitter is warning a Texas college student that it might “be obliged to take action” after some of his tweets were ruled a national security threat by the government of India eight thousand miles away.

The notice issued to 21-year-old Ryan Barenklau on Saturday is part of a crackdown on a group of open-source investigators who spend their days sifting through data and imagery to glean insights on regional conflicts around the world. Barenklau’s focus is primarily on Crimea and North Korea, but in May a journal in India wrongly claimed his account was part of a Pakistani disinformation ring.

Barenklau was hit with notices from Twitter over five tweets, none of which mention India. The tweets discussed North Korean missile tests, possible US government action in Iran, the recent Hong Kong protests, and, weirdly, CBS News footage of the Notre Dame cathedral fire.

Others received similar notices recently originating from the Indian government, including a British student who tweets covered Syria, Sudan and the Gulf of Oman, and "NatSecJeff," the Twitter account of Pakistani investigator/British counterterrorism think tank member Faran Jeffery.

The scattershot approach of these takedown demands suggests the Indian government is using an automated tool to search for targets and issue notices. Securing the nation from online threats is a job that is too important not to do, but not important enough to do well.

But there's more to this than bulk removal requests. Research published by the Great Game India journal claimed these accounts were all part of a coordinated misinformation campaign by Pakistani operatives.

Great Game India pegged Jeffery as a fake news operative working for Pakistan, citing some of his other tweets, and the fact that he previously worked for a Pakistani institute with military ties. In May, an Indian newspaper aired the journal’s findings under the headline “Retired Pak officers behind 'fake news,’” publishing a list of seven additional Twitter accounts that frequently share Jeffery’s tweets.

The paper, citing Great Game India’s research, claimed all the accounts “have Pakistani roots."

Now that the damage has been done and content blocked, the journal's researchers are saying mistakes may have been made. But they're unwilling to go into specifics about which of the targeted accounts -- which include two US college students -- they're wrong about. Given the circumstances, it appears the Indian government is targeting Twitter accounts in the US and Britain for spreading misinformation… based on bad information.

Pushback from US tech companies has been minimal. Users no longer need to fear just their own governments, but every government in the world. As more governments enact laws directly targeting speech, the effects will continue to be felt around the globe.

Filed Under: automated censorship, censorship, india, social networks
Companies: twitter

Self-Described Feminist Loses Lawsuit Against Twitter For Banning Her Account

from the 'your-opinion-isn't-welcome-here'-said-the-private-company dept

A California court has tossed a self-described feminist's lawsuit against Twitter for being kicked off the platform. [h/t Adam Steinbaugh]

Meghan Murphy was banned from Twitter for violating the terms of use with tweets stating "men aren't women tho" and "how are transwomen not men?" She also posted tweets referring to certain transgender women as "men," which contained personal information about their previous male identities. Twitter gave several warnings to Murphy that these tweets violated its Hateful Conduct Policy before banning her completely.

Murphy then sued, filing a putative class action lawsuit against the social media service that alleged a variety of contractual violations. She alleged the updated Hateful Conduct Policy hadn't been enacted at the point she was accused of violating it -- specifically the additions that made targeting or "deadnaming" transgender people a violation of the rules.

Murphy hoped to have the court find in her favor and bind Twitter to a large number of stipulations. From the decision [PDF]:

[M]urphy seeks a broad range of injunctive relief, including orders prohibiting Twitter from enforcing its "misgendering" rule, directing it to restore access to any accounts it has suspended or banned for violation of that rule, prohibiting it from promulgating or enforcing any other rules or policies that discriminate based on viewpoint, ordering it not to make material changes to its user agreement without providing 30 days' advance of the changes, prohibiting it from attempting to enforce any changes in its User Agreement retroactively, requiring it to remove the purportedly unconscionable provisions in its Terms of Service governing suspending or banning accounts, and requiring Twitter to "issue a full and frank public correction of its false and misleading advertising and representations to the general public that it does not censor user content…"

Not included in this recitation of redresses is the fact that Twitter reserves the right to remove accounts for "any or no reason," which may be bullshit, but it's bullshit Murphy agreed to when she created her now-banned account.

Twitter responded with an anti-SLAPP motion and a recitation of Section 230. The court finds the anti-SLAPP law does not apply because Murphy's complaint is fashioned as a class-action lawsuit seeking relief for her and others like her, rather than seeking to prevent Twitter from engaging in public interest speech of its own.

But Section 230 bars everything else. Contrary to popular belief, Section 230 immunity isn't nullified by moderation activity. In fact, Section 230 encourages good faith moderation efforts and specifically notes this does not remove the immunity given to service providers. Trying to use moderation efforts against platforms in lawsuits like these is a non-starter.

That this case involves Twitter's decision to take down content rather than post it is immaterial: "No logical distinction can be drawn between a defendant who actively selects information for publication and one who screens submitted material, removing offensive content. 'The scope of immunity cannot turn on whether the publisher approaches the selection process as one of inclusion or removal, as the difference is one of method or degree, not substance.'"

Furthermore, attempting to dodge Section 230 immunity with allegations of breached contracts, etc. isn't going to work either. What Murphy claims is a contractual violation is nothing more than the moderation efforts Section 230 encourages.

[A]ll of her claims challenge Twitter's interpretation and application of its Terms of Service and Hateful Conduct Policy to require Murphy to remove certain content she had posted in her Twitter account, to suspend that account, and ultimately ban her from posting from Twitter due to her repeated violations of the Terms of Service and Policy. All of those actions reflect paradigmatic editorial decisions not to publish particular content, and therefore are barred by Section 230.

Murphy's lawsuit is dead, at least in this court. Twitter's motion to demurrer is granted "without leave to amend," which indicates this complaint isn't fixable. This doesn't prevent Murphy from trying again at the federal level, but the outcome won't be any different.

Yes, being deplatformed sucks, especially when it seems -- at least subjectively -- the platform isn't consistent in its moderation efforts. But let's be clear about what platforms actually owe users: nothing. The terms of service quoted in this lawsuit make it clear Twitter has zero obligations to its users, whose accounts it can remove without cause. The guidelines may give some warning about what behavior won't be tolerated, but ultimately, users are at the mercy of the service provider.

Let's also be clear about this: Section 230 immunity does not make this situation worse. It actually allows more people to use these services, rather than fewer. Without this immunity, we wouldn't be seeing a trickle of stupid lawsuits trying to drag the government into platform moderation. We would see a steady stream of litigation that would only encourage swifter removals for less cause and a stifling of speech of all varieties across all platforms.

Filed Under: cda 230, content moderation, hateful content, meghan murphy, section 230
Companies: twitter