alt Hacker NewsI think that censorship should be expressly limited based on size and usage of 230 protections. ex: if you have 10+ million users and you want to cite section 230 protections, you may not censor protected speech, but maybe allow users to opt-in to a "censored" feed, or otherwise limited such as for minors.
I'm mixed, but I don't think companies should have 230 protection AND be able to make express publisher decisions on editorializing content.
Replies
I'm not sure that would work. How about spam or adverts? That's protected speech. And downranking based on viewpoint is not any different from censoring.
Yeah you can say X but no one will see it.
I can see potentially requiring platforms to moderate in a "viewpoint neutral" way, though, which only applies if you have ~5% of potential customer base as users.
It would at least create a diseconomy of scale and discourage centralization.
I think this is one of those things that only ever makes sense in the abstract. How would this rule apply to Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy? Would it make sense to tell Prodigy that they'll be immune from defamation suits if only they agree to make their offensive language monitoring opt-in and publish a new code of conduct permitting racial slurs?
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas suggested that Congress could consider extending "Common Carrier" legislation to cover social media networks. I'm not convinced that would be an improvement over the current situation but it's an interesting idea. The telephone company doesn't censor which topics I can discuss in phone calls so perhaps other communication technologies should work in a similar way?
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-th...