The reason for this is very simple. Section 230 means you can't target a corporation that hosts content by other people, for content you dislike.
For example: currently if someone doesn't want to see someone posting "objectionable" content - you have to identify them, then sue them. That's a problem if there's messages you don't like but you can't make illegal. But if instead you can sue the host, you can just keep suing the host, and the host eventually starts disallowing that content on its services, even if it is legal. Like they already do for adult content.
But the incoming administration has stated that content they believe should be illegal is anything that says LGBT people have the right to exist. You see this with their consistent bans on library books, their attempts to reclassify books as fiction if they can't block them on "harmful" content, etc.
We can see that this is nothing about ensuring an ability for people to hold corporations accountable to people, but specifically to enable censorship: because the proposed removals of protection from prosecution for content they host is the only place that proposed changes increase corporate liability. Every other proposed change removes the ability hold corporations accountable, removing worker protection, removing or hamstringing the agencies responsible for regulating safety, and removing or limiting the liability for any accidents, disasters, or dumping.
>The reason for this is very simple. Section 230 means you can't target a corporation that hosts content by other people, for content you dislike.
No. Section 230 means you can't target the proprietor of a website/online property (whether it's a corporation, some other sort of organization or an individual) for content posted on those properties by third parties.
Revoking/removing Section 230 would allow the biggest corporations to continue hosting third-party speech, but would stop pretty much everyone else from doing so, as they likely can't afford to be sued by every crackpot who doesn't like what other folks say.
>It's not even that. You can host third-party speech without Section 230, you just also gain liability from moderating that content.
And if you don't moderate, your site turns into a cesspit of spam, illegal and disgusting stuff. Like the chans/kuns. Although even those sites are moderated to remove illegal stuff like CSAM.
So no. Not moderating isn't really a viable option if you want folks to actually post relevant/reasonable third-party content on your internet property.
I tell you what. Go ahead and implement a Pixelfed or Mastodon (or Lemmy or whatever) instance and open it up for anyone to sign up and use. Then don't moderate it in any way and see what becomes of it.
Assuming you aren't arrested for hosting CSAM, you'll likely find that your site is filled with spam and offensive garbage. So much so that the normal folks won't want to use it.
For example: currently if someone doesn't want to see someone posting "objectionable" content - you have to identify them, then sue them. That's a problem if there's messages you don't like but you can't make illegal. But if instead you can sue the host, you can just keep suing the host, and the host eventually starts disallowing that content on its services, even if it is legal. Like they already do for adult content.
But the incoming administration has stated that content they believe should be illegal is anything that says LGBT people have the right to exist. You see this with their consistent bans on library books, their attempts to reclassify books as fiction if they can't block them on "harmful" content, etc.
We can see that this is nothing about ensuring an ability for people to hold corporations accountable to people, but specifically to enable censorship: because the proposed removals of protection from prosecution for content they host is the only place that proposed changes increase corporate liability. Every other proposed change removes the ability hold corporations accountable, removing worker protection, removing or hamstringing the agencies responsible for regulating safety, and removing or limiting the liability for any accidents, disasters, or dumping.