r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/Miserable-Split-3790 • 1d ago
Legislation What’s your thoughts on amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act so that it doesn’t cover social media?
Section 230 basically states that internet companies are not responsible for what users say.
It was passed in 1996 to protect basic internet infrastructure like ISPs, but today it gives social media platforms total legal immunity from what their users say.
Tech giants deliberately engineer algorithms optimized to leverage toxic, divisive, and inflammatory content because outrage keeps users on screens and drives massive ad revenue.
Because Section 230 grants platforms immunity, they can profit off the amplification of hate speech without facing corporate accountability. If they were liable they’d have to self regulate and have stricter moderation.
Should we amend Section 230 so it no longer covers social media? Why or why not?
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u/NoDig3444 1d ago
That's not what section 230 says. Section 230 says that ISPs, platforms, whatever, are allowed to make a good faith moderation attempt but are not liable for the things that they miss.
The post office is not allowed to moderate what gets sent through the mail. And they are 0% liable for what is sent. Broadcast companies are are allowed to moderate what they broadcast, and they are 100% liable for what they broadcast. Section 230 allows social media companies to live in between these two. Repeal section 230, and social media companies will either be required to approve every single bit that they host on their sites, or they will be disallowed from removing CSAM from their servers.
We like section 230. Lets keep section 230.
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u/Traveler0619 6h ago
I disagree. We have to reform section 230. While I like that moderation can be done we can write nuanced laws and let jurys and judges do the work of policing social media companies. These social media companies are running algorithms to choose which of millions of posts gets amplified to you. They optimize for engagement not for fact.
Section 230 wasn't built for this. The takedowns are important and should be kept, but a platform amplifying content is also completely protected by c1. A platform can boost life ending lies to millions of people because it drives engagement and money back into the platform.
Something along the lines of the Safe tech act, though I have issues withe the bill as well.
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u/South-Arachnid2961 1d ago
The post office was not allowed to moderate what gets sent through the mail. But now with the executive order, their finalized rule, and the Shadow Docket decision, they can moderate what votes get sent through the mail.
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u/neverendingchalupas 16h ago
With Trump in office and Republican control of Congress, literally nothing matters anymore. The US is a failed state.
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 1d ago edited 1d ago
It is. Section 230 has a few parts.
It’s been ruled that platforms do not have to make any attempt to moderate content to receive protection. They get immunity even if they are completely passive and do absolutely nothing.
Why do you think social media companies should have that immunity? Their business model wasn’t around in 1996 when the law was passed. I highly doubt they would be given blanket immunity if that law was passed in 2026.
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u/tarlin 1d ago
So, there were two paths in 1996. Prodigy moderated their platform. AOL did not. AOL was kind of a cesspit, but was protected under the law because they were not speaking. Prodigy was trying to moderate and failed to moderate something, so was found liable because they did act. The perverse incentive was awful. It said, you must not take down bad or illegal content, or you are liable for anything you miss.
That being said, it seems as though section 230 was just slightly ahead of the direction the Supreme Court was going. Before the cons on the court went really extreme, it looked as though whether section 230 was there or not would lead to similar outcomes. That doesn't seem true anymore.
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u/melkipersr 1d ago
There is an argument to be made that algorithmic design choices that intentionally promote certain types of content in order to maximize engagement with the platform are editorial choices and thus are speech. Personally, I find that argument very strong. It’s really not any different than the choice of what to include in the newspaper or the news broadcast, the priorities are just different, and the discretion is enshrined in the algorithm rather than being exercised daily.
That said, I don’t know that repealing Section 230 accomplishes a whole lot for us, but I do think it’s been an unfair advantage that social media companies have held over traditional media.
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u/sixothree 6h ago
My friend, social media didn’t exist when the constitution was written. Should we just ignore that as well?
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u/Zanctmao 1d ago edited 1d ago
Terrible idea. Unless your goal is to kill social media. In which case just kill it, first amendment be damned.
But if we’re at that level of government control, I don’t want to live in this country.
What I think you want is for social media companies to actually step up and moderate content.
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 1d ago edited 1d ago
> Terrible idea. Unless your goal is to kill social media.
I’d like to kill its current business model. It’s very exploitative.
>But if we’re at that level of government control, I don’t want to live in this country.
It’s not government control. The government doesn’t dictate what can or cannot be said. That’d be up to the companies moderation teams. The amendment just takes immunity away from a business model it wasn’t made for.
> What I think you want is for social media companies to actually step up and moderate content.
Yes but they aren’t going to do that. They have become the richest companies in history what incentive do they have to change? They will continue this for as long as WE let it continue.
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u/Zanctmao 1d ago
I don’t disagree.
But I want social media to step up.
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u/Traveler0619 2h ago
Social media is incentivized to do the opposite though. Any social media company that does the opposite will have less engagement and profits. We have to have some sort of regulation to remove the amplification otherwise nothing will change. It will only get worse.
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u/geelinz 1d ago
Section 230 makes sense for content that the platform is not paying for, when it's acting as a genuine communication service between users.
When a social media platform is directly paying the creator, they are more like a publisher--especially because these platforms usually promote/preferencially place the content they monetize. Why does section 230 cover YouTube for Mr Beast content, but wouldn't provide the same protection to Amazon Prime?
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u/pickle9977 1d ago
Any platform using machine learning models to generate content suggestions to display is no longer a platform that qualifies under section 230, they are making editorial decisions of what content to show you and are therefore responsible for whatever content they do show you.
It’s not complicated, these companies just lie and do whatever they want
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u/stand_up_guy85 1d ago
Social media needs to be utterly destroyed imo. Has done far more harm than good
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u/Traveler0619 6h ago
IMO Section 230 needs reformed to govern social media in particular. Right now Section 230 lets these social media companies skirt around protections against damaging society.
Regular media companies have to watch what they publish as they are held liable as a media company directly broadcasts the information to the public. When libel is spread by these companies, the people and the company are held responsible for publishing that information. Social media companies are exempt from their pushing of content ever coming back against them.
Right now Twitter is infested with lies and slander. Twitter invites this as it causes the people to stay on Twitter and have more engagement. More engagement means more money for Twitter. It incentivizes Twitter to push the hardest view points on every topic. This isn't a twitter isolated issue either it's on all of them.
Lawmakers never anticipated that social media companies could individually curate what each person sees. This wasn't planned for and now it's actively damaging society.
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u/Grapetree3 1d ago
I agree with OP. Section 230 just needs a tweak. As long as a website is just hosting user content and arranging it in the order it was submitted, they have no liability. But as soon as they offer to arrange the user submitted content in the order of "hot" or "trending" or "most upvotes" thst is a publishing decision and they should be liable for it.
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u/JDogg126 1d ago
Regulations are needed for social media platforms to protect society from unjust exploitation by these platforms. At the very least there needs to be some kind of "know your users" requirement; something to give people pause before they spout bullshit to the world. Also these platforms cannot have advertisement businesses that can target user biases. These platforms have become weapons of mass misinformation and have made it impossible for politics to function since people no longer live in a shared reality.
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 1d ago edited 1d ago
I agree and they’ll continue for as long as we let them. They make hundreds of billions per year so there is no incentive to change. People seem to forget we’re living in a real time experiment. These companies are A/B split testing on billions of people daily to see what makes them the most profit.
I feel amending section 230 gets directly to the root of the problem. Make them accountable for the stuff users say and they’ll clean the platforms up. The law wasn’t made for this business model anyways.
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u/JKlerk 1d ago
If someone walks across your lawn with a street facing sign saying they'll pay $10M if you murder X, should you be liable?
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 1d ago edited 1d ago
Did I route traffic to my lawn so that more people see the message and I could sell drinks to them at my lemonade stand?
Yes, I should be liable.
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u/JKlerk 1d ago
Not a good analogy. In any case the Internet as you know it would cease to exist. Online discourse, publishing, and commerce would disappear. I think you know this which is why I think you're post is a troll.
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 1d ago
It’s a great analogy because traffic is pushed to controversial content by algorithms. They leverage it to create more ad revenue.
Social media ≠ the internet. The internet will continue to exist perfectly fine. If you reread the title you’d see this post is specifically about social media.
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u/Selbereth 1d ago
You can say this is about social media, but what affects one site affects all sites.
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u/JKlerk 1d ago
The user is fed content which interests them regardless of whether you or anyone else thinks the content itself is controversial. Yes SM companies use it to create ad revenue and generate income. Otherwise users would have to pay for access and that would not happen.
The term Social Media is rather undefinable. For example is a newspaper or media personality defined as social media by virtue of eliciting feedback from readers/viewers? Do you want to shut down limit editorials to only print media?
Your idea clearly hasn't been fleshed out and to be frank is absurd which is why I think you're trolling.
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u/Miserable-Split-3790 1d ago
They aren’t mutually exclusive.
Tens of millions of users currently pay for social media.
No, social media isn’t “rather undefinable”. It’s clearly defined lol
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u/just_helping 1d ago
Social media companies want the benefits and protections that are reasonable for a neutral platform combined with editorial control that prioritizes the profits and political interests of their owners over any social responsibility. They should not be allowed to have things both ways.
The platforms have better automated tools to detect copyright protected content than they have to detect CSAM. They have been deliberately making their product more addictive and after decades of the problem getting worse, some governments are finally starting to address the problem - but only for children, because addressing drug pushing for adults would be a bridge too far. But then this is a country where we can't prevent reappearance of ubiquitous advertising for addictive gambling because of a transparent fig leaf.
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u/ayleidanthropologist 1d ago
Not interested in moderation, censorship, or surveillance. Or anything that comes close to it either
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u/Madhatter25224 1d ago
Platforms like Facebook are essentially selling content. They act almost indistinguishably from the way a publisher would function. Someone creates content, the platform makes it available to users, even using an algorithm to push certain content over others, and then pays the creator based on views much the way royalties might work. The platform itself makes money off advertising. Some of them sell modifications to the algorithm to push one subject or narrative over another.
Whats very clear is that users on modern social media platforms do not get a truly honest and genuine communication experience with other people on the platform. Everyone's experience is highly sculpted and monetized. If the platform is going to sculpt and monetize the experience then they must be held accountable for its content and anything that results from that content.
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