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I've seen this question come up a few times, and some of it is answered in this post from a few years ago, but let me try to answer @opinionhaver.bsky.social's question directly since he asks this every time 230 comes up. www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/h...

The real issue is you NEED to understand how 230 and the First Amendment intersect. This is a key thing that many people get wrong. The underlying issue is that MOST THINGS that companies would get sued over hosting/promoting/etc are all protected by 1A. Now, that leads some to say...

"Well, then, we really don't need 230 since 1A will protect." But that's wrong, as @ericgoldman.bsky.social neatly lays out in this paper. 230 provides a procedural benefit to get rid of *frivolous* cases *that would lose* but does so much earlier. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

The *practical* difference, especially for smaller entities, is MASSIVE. Basically it will get a case tossed out for ~$100k rather than over $2mil. For a massive multi-billion company (Meta, Google, etc) with buildings full of lawyers, the difference is minimal.

Yes, they will have to pay a little bit more, but rounding error levels. For a smaller entity, the difference is existential. And that means that smaller entities will have terrible options: (1) shut down (2) cave to basically any legal threats (3) stop allowing users to communicate or...

(4) basically stop moderating altogether. Because (and again, this is important) under 1A precedent, for a distributor to be liable, it has to have *actual knowledge* of *violating* content. And the best way to not get actual knowledge is to stop looking/stop moderating.

You could retain the protection for small companies. That’s pretty common in other areas of our law.

... massively limit person to person communication and content. End result: Meta/Google get MORE POWERFUL with LESS INCENTIVE to moderate. Every small competitor is massively limited or gone. I think that would suck. @opinionhaver.bsky.social may have a different opinion.

Wait, and the claim is they're doing this to bring big tech to the bargaining table? How the fuck does that work?

I'm sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. But the censorship mechanism without section 230 is expensive lawsuits, which would allow the government or private actors to sue people hosting speech online over that speech, which effectually would reduce the ability of that speech to be online?

Which the fear is then could be broadened to entire types of speech? My interest in being online is making adult fiction. So my concern is that with section 230 removed, it'd get too legally risky for anyone to host that.

Question: wouldn't eliminating 230 also make the platforms liable for any damages for content that is outside of 1A protection unless there is no moderation? If I genuinely defame someone on Facebook, couldn't they sue Facebook for damages as a publisher of the defamatory content?

If you genuinely defame someone, FB would only have liability *if they had actual knowledge that said content was defamatory.* In most cases they would not.

I'm not sure I see the argument behind "less incentive to moderate." As you said in your post, companies already have an incentive to moderate because unmoderated sites are unusable.

So if Facebook can't avoid actual knowledge without ending up worse than 4chan, wouldn't accepting the increased liability STILL be the less bad option?

Under existing 1A precedent, the only way a distributor could be held liable is if they have *actual knowledge* (not general knowledge) of *specific* content that violates a law. Most lawyers will tell sites that the best way to avoid having actual knowledge (and, thus, liability) is to never look.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratto.... Companies are liable for the speech of their users, possibly only if they moderate at all, so the Internet as we know it goes away?

How much would anti-SLAPP legislation mitigate the issue you just described?