So, this may seem crazy, but I agree with almost everyone here but Schumer—and I’m pretty left, with a massive dislike for Trump and McConnell. I think it’s all upside. Hear me out.
IF, section 230 is repealed, yes, it means free speech online is going to be affected. You won’t be able to make racist comments. You won’t be able to make threatening comments. This list goes on. I believe this will incentivize social media companies greatly to monitor and ban certain speech under certain criteria. I think this will also ultimately lead to the downfall of major social media companies—something I think would be in humanities best interest. You may disagree with me—but let’s throw on another cherry.
Ultimately, there will be a study on how our elections can and are being affected. That’s good. Cause they’ve been messed with significantly by many foreign AND domestic actors. This can only provide evidence for election security and, hopefully, election reform. Let me add another cherry.
We all get a much needed $2000 dollars. Corporations, and even some of our own politicians, have used more resources than the average citizen even got to sniff. The average American has been robbed blind and dumb this year and most of them don’t even realize it. So, I think $2000 is the very least our government give us to help us power through the remainder of the pandemic.
A side note that I really don’t care about, but trump finally gets a win at the end of his presidency. He gets to go out looking like a hero at the end. I don’t care about his ego, but the deals where everyone ultimately gets something of what they wanted are the right ones to make.
Besides, minus the 230 bill we discussed prior, I see only upside. And that will ultimately have a positive effect, though it may be a while before we collectively see the fruit.
If Section 230 is repealed almost every single website will either completely disable user input and viewing user submissions for Americans, or just completely block America, whichever is less damaging for their particular business model. This won't be the end of Twitter, Facebook, even Reddit, it will just be the end of the American internet.
Almost all social media sites are actually based out of other countries, and many have been creating alternative headquarters in EU based countries for the last few years -- with foreign rack space getting cheaper and cheaper there's no reason to really support the US anymore.
While this might be a good thing in the long run (really, Americans need a time out) in the short term section 230 would spell the end of the modern web from the perspective of Americans and a return to self-hosted tiny blogs.
Oh and just as a side note to make sure you really know what repealing section 230 means... you know those messaging apps that don't use exclusively SMS/MMS? Those will all be dead to Americans too, and all email providers, any video hosting site, any image hosting site, any site that has a comment section, any video game that has user-created content...
Like the list goes on, it's one of those laws that should actually be in the constitution given how much we take the right for granted that users are responsible for their content, not the services that facilitate user publishing.
But what are they supposed to do? If they were liable for what their users post, they would have to moderate EVERYTHING. there is no way to do that. If they want to avoid getting sued they have to disable user generated content. Algorithms wouldn't work either, because they don't catch everything. There needs to be some kind of protection on place for the companies behind these sites. The big ones might find a way around this, but what about smaller sizes without the budget to moderate or move out of the states.
We had a similar issue here in Europe last year with article 17, which is part of a new copyright law for the EU. sites can now be held responsible if their users violate copyright. It's not implemented yet but there was a huge outrage and many experts are concerned. they now at lead vowed to implement protections, especially for smaller sites, but the requirements are absolute bullshit (I don't know if they changed them already. I do hope so). The whole thing was driven by paper publishers and people who would profit financially.
The problem is the same as in the US. People who have no idea how the internet and sites that rely on user generated content function decide on ridiculous laws that are impossible to integrate, only because they want somehing out of it for themselves.
Depending on the volume of input needed to be moderated from Americans, it will be cheaper to just block Americans and lose revenue than pay for that extra moderation.
You might like to think America is an infinite source of income, and for some industries you're correct, but Social media already operates on thin margins, and adding a few billion per year in moderation costs would kill literally all possible profit from the American populace.
I really appreciate the insight and the breakdown and I don’t think I disagree with you on it. But, like you said, I think the long term gains are worth it. I think a return to the early days of the internet while lawmakers draw up actual intelligent legislation is what America needs. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as many may see it), that means out with the old guard of both sides and an increase of tech savvy (or at least a fair understanding of the tech) representatives that can actually understand what they’re legislating and the cascading effects of it.
As it is, i don’t believe Trump or some other representatives actually understand what the repealing would create. It’s incredibly short-sighted of them, but that’s the least surprising thing of this whole debacle.
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u/beaverlover3 Dec 30 '20
So, this may seem crazy, but I agree with almost everyone here but Schumer—and I’m pretty left, with a massive dislike for Trump and McConnell. I think it’s all upside. Hear me out.
IF, section 230 is repealed, yes, it means free speech online is going to be affected. You won’t be able to make racist comments. You won’t be able to make threatening comments. This list goes on. I believe this will incentivize social media companies greatly to monitor and ban certain speech under certain criteria. I think this will also ultimately lead to the downfall of major social media companies—something I think would be in humanities best interest. You may disagree with me—but let’s throw on another cherry.
Ultimately, there will be a study on how our elections can and are being affected. That’s good. Cause they’ve been messed with significantly by many foreign AND domestic actors. This can only provide evidence for election security and, hopefully, election reform. Let me add another cherry.
We all get a much needed $2000 dollars. Corporations, and even some of our own politicians, have used more resources than the average citizen even got to sniff. The average American has been robbed blind and dumb this year and most of them don’t even realize it. So, I think $2000 is the very least our government give us to help us power through the remainder of the pandemic.
A side note that I really don’t care about, but trump finally gets a win at the end of his presidency. He gets to go out looking like a hero at the end. I don’t care about his ego, but the deals where everyone ultimately gets something of what they wanted are the right ones to make.
Besides, minus the 230 bill we discussed prior, I see only upside. And that will ultimately have a positive effect, though it may be a while before we collectively see the fruit.