No FB is not a "single site" on the internet. It is not a web page. It is a platform that hosts billions of sites (user profiles and timelines), user pages, user groups, ecommerce, payments, games and many other things still under development still to come and TBD. It is no more a single site than a dialup ISP was a single phone number or a single IP address.
"if you think that people should be forced to host speech against their will"
It's not "people" that we are talking about hosting the speech, it's commercial platforms that as a practical matter act like public squares.
Sec 230, though you wouldn't know it to read the comments here, was a Compromise with an implied message that differs from the actual language. What was the compromise? It was this: ISPs - the govt will take a hands off approach with you if you take a hands off approach (or a light touch) to user content. I know that is not what the law SAYS, but it's what the law MEANS. It is WHY the law was written. And if you don't understand that, you need to go back and read the issues of the day when the law was passed.
Congress had a choice - whether or not to make ISPs common carriers like phone companies or freight companies or shipping companies. They chose not to, provided that ISPs act like good citizens and don't interfere (too much) with individual speech. Sec 230 gives them the ability to screen or filter objectionable content mainly to make the Internet "safe" for children and "families" - an issue of the time that is no longer at the forefront of the issues of today, and one that is now largely absent from the marketplace - good luck trying to run a filtering business.
20 years later, the Internet is a more mature industry and social media platforms have become pervasive platforms for political speech. Political speech is a far different animal than family friendly content. Political speech is speech intended for an adult audience and raises an entirely different set of expectations than the issues of family friendly content. When it comes to political speech, protection OF the speech is more important than protection FROM the speech.
When it comes to political speech in America today, no one wants filtering by the ISP or the platform. No one wants blocking by the ISP or the social media platform or the web hosting company or the back end server company or the backbone provider, any more than anyone wants phone companies to block political speech. Instead what we want is User control over content - and the more fine grained the better - or not at all.
Bottomline - Lower level providers in the technology stack need to act like de facto common carriers if they expect to stay in business. If AWS acts like a walled garden it will go the way of AOL.
And if they don't adhere to the bargain struck by Sec 230 (what is says, yes, as well as what it really means and the reasons why it was written) then they can expect to be deemed common carriers. That is the sledge hammer that is hanging over their heads. Abuse your rights under Sec 230 and we will make you a common carrier.
It must be thus. Otherwise if it's ok for FB or AWS why not go down the stack even farther and allow HP or Dell to decide they don't want particular political speech on their brand of computers or Cisco on their routers. Try to type it in, they will block it. Or MS deciding you can't write particular political speech in MS Word. Or Samsung or Apple deciding they don't want particular political speech on their phones. Or Intel or AMD blocking at the chip level. It's quite trivial to implement, so easy they could have it in place overnight if they wanted to - as quickly as AWS pulling the plug on Parler or TW pullling the plug on Trump.
But blocking by TW or AWS only serves to highlight the issue. Just like FBI tactics in the 60's and 70's against left wing groups highlighted the issues then and today we see the same tactics applied to right wing groups. Either way, neither group is happy when the tactics are applied to them. In the same way, no one is happy when their own political speech is the target of blocking. Today it's them. Tomorrow it could be you. That is the issue - and the only issue. Which is why smart ISPs, smart social media platforms and smart backend providers act like de facto common carriers. And dumb ones don't.
"By its plain language, § 230 creates a federal immunity to any cause of action that would make service providers liable for information originating with a third-party user of the service”. Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327, 330 (4th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 524 U.S. 937 (1998).
As we can see today in 2021, its really very simple. If they're not liable for it, they have no business meddling with it. And if they do meddle with it they can expect Sec 230 to be rewritten to their disfavor and they'll have no one but themselves to blame for it.
When they act like a walled garden, they are a walled garden.
And are there in fact, "millions of other options"? Only in theory, not in reality.
Bottom line, Section 230 gives immunity to ISPs and platforms when they take a hands off approach. But they can't have it both ways. When they start meddling with content, they're going to lose their Sec. 230 protection. And when they lose it, we'll all lose.
On the flip side, what's good for the Internet goose is good for the broadcast gander. So if they want a Fairness Doctrine on the Internet they better be prepared to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to broadcast.
Today, freedom of the Internet belongs to the man (or woman - but are there any?) who owns an ISP or a social media platform. (to paraphrase a famous quote about newspapers)
Perhaps you have a short memory or weren't even alive when the Internet didn't exist or maybe you're just not paying attention. If you haven't been on the receiving end of blocking or banning at the hands of an ISP, a social media company, a platform, a web/cloud/email/ecommerce/content hosting company, an infrastructure provider, a domain registration company, a broadband provider, you a) have no idea or b) quite possibly haven't fully lived in our time ;)
The blocking and banning is so pervasive that I can confidently say sooner or later every Internet user will themselves be blocked or will be related to, or work for, or know someone who has been blocked by some Internet something or other just like Parler has been blocked by Amazon.
20-30 years ago it was AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy that were the dominant platforms that were moderating, blocking and banning users for saying the wrong thing or trying to sell anything. The advent of the Internet was a relief and a breath of freedom compared to those net nannies. AOL even claimed in one court case that it was like an online private country club that could set its own rules any way it wanted. Of course nobody knowingly signed up for that kind of justice and well, where is AOL today - it's a pale shadow of its former self - little more than a department at Verizon. It's been replaced by other dominant platforms like FB. But one day even mighty FB too could end up like AOL. I call it the AOLization of everything.
When commercialization was allowed on the Internet in 1996, ISPs came along and then started blocking Unsolicited Commercial Email (aka spam) or anyone accused (rightly or wrongly) of spamming - and those accused had no due process, no recourse, no right of appeal.
Adult websites, Napster, copyright infringement letters from the MPAA or Getty Images - do you remember none of this?
Of course banning or controlling speech did not start with the Internet we had many who felt their speech was limited (take your pick):
Newspapers
"Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns one" - A.J. Liebling
Books
Banned in Boston really was a thing
And no shortage of landmark Supreme Court cases regarding the First Amendment.
Tolerating free speech is hard. It's messy. It's inconvenient. And a lot of speech is annoying, offensive, repulsive. But when you think the rights of the blocker to block are more important than the rights of the speaker to speak, you're on the wrong side of the free speech issue.
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Re: Re: On the Internet everything is different & everything is
"Facebook are a single site on the internet"
No FB is not a "single site" on the internet. It is not a web page. It is a platform that hosts billions of sites (user profiles and timelines), user pages, user groups, ecommerce, payments, games and many other things still under development still to come and TBD. It is no more a single site than a dialup ISP was a single phone number or a single IP address.
"if you think that people should be forced to host speech against their will"
It's not "people" that we are talking about hosting the speech, it's commercial platforms that as a practical matter act like public squares.
Sec 230, though you wouldn't know it to read the comments here, was a Compromise with an implied message that differs from the actual language. What was the compromise? It was this: ISPs - the govt will take a hands off approach with you if you take a hands off approach (or a light touch) to user content. I know that is not what the law SAYS, but it's what the law MEANS. It is WHY the law was written. And if you don't understand that, you need to go back and read the issues of the day when the law was passed.
Congress had a choice - whether or not to make ISPs common carriers like phone companies or freight companies or shipping companies. They chose not to, provided that ISPs act like good citizens and don't interfere (too much) with individual speech. Sec 230 gives them the ability to screen or filter objectionable content mainly to make the Internet "safe" for children and "families" - an issue of the time that is no longer at the forefront of the issues of today, and one that is now largely absent from the marketplace - good luck trying to run a filtering business.
20 years later, the Internet is a more mature industry and social media platforms have become pervasive platforms for political speech. Political speech is a far different animal than family friendly content. Political speech is speech intended for an adult audience and raises an entirely different set of expectations than the issues of family friendly content. When it comes to political speech, protection OF the speech is more important than protection FROM the speech.
When it comes to political speech in America today, no one wants filtering by the ISP or the platform. No one wants blocking by the ISP or the social media platform or the web hosting company or the back end server company or the backbone provider, any more than anyone wants phone companies to block political speech. Instead what we want is User control over content - and the more fine grained the better - or not at all.
Bottomline - Lower level providers in the technology stack need to act like de facto common carriers if they expect to stay in business. If AWS acts like a walled garden it will go the way of AOL.
And if they don't adhere to the bargain struck by Sec 230 (what is says, yes, as well as what it really means and the reasons why it was written) then they can expect to be deemed common carriers. That is the sledge hammer that is hanging over their heads. Abuse your rights under Sec 230 and we will make you a common carrier.
It must be thus. Otherwise if it's ok for FB or AWS why not go down the stack even farther and allow HP or Dell to decide they don't want particular political speech on their brand of computers or Cisco on their routers. Try to type it in, they will block it. Or MS deciding you can't write particular political speech in MS Word. Or Samsung or Apple deciding they don't want particular political speech on their phones. Or Intel or AMD blocking at the chip level. It's quite trivial to implement, so easy they could have it in place overnight if they wanted to - as quickly as AWS pulling the plug on Parler or TW pullling the plug on Trump.
But blocking by TW or AWS only serves to highlight the issue. Just like FBI tactics in the 60's and 70's against left wing groups highlighted the issues then and today we see the same tactics applied to right wing groups. Either way, neither group is happy when the tactics are applied to them. In the same way, no one is happy when their own political speech is the target of blocking. Today it's them. Tomorrow it could be you. That is the issue - and the only issue. Which is why smart ISPs, smart social media platforms and smart backend providers act like de facto common carriers. And dumb ones don't.
Re: Re: Re: Re: On the Internet everything is different & ev
Hello! I don't need to read this I"ve already read it. Bye now!
(untitled comment)
Re: Re: On the Internet everything is different & everything is
When they act like a walled garden, they are a walled garden.
And are there in fact, "millions of other options"? Only in theory, not in reality.
Bottom line, Section 230 gives immunity to ISPs and platforms when they take a hands off approach. But they can't have it both ways. When they start meddling with content, they're going to lose their Sec. 230 protection. And when they lose it, we'll all lose.
On the flip side, what's good for the Internet goose is good for the broadcast gander. So if they want a Fairness Doctrine on the Internet they better be prepared to bring back the Fairness Doctrine to broadcast.
On the Internet everything is different & everything is the same
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