Re Section 230: A Key Legal Shield For Facebook, Google Is About To Change

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Paul Alan Levy <plevy () citizen org>
> Date: March 24, 2018 at 8:20:28 AM EDT
> To: "'dave () farber net'" <dave () farber net>, ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Section 230: A Key Legal Shield For Facebook, Google Is About To Change
>
> The fact of the matter is that many of my friends in the community of policy folk and lawyers who care about section 
> 230 immunity decided that this was the place to take a stand, claiming that the world would end if this exception to 
> section 230 were adopted.  It was a stand at the weakest possible place, a place where they were very likely to lose. 
>  There is some reason for concern that the attention of legislators was called to section 230 in a place that cast it 
> in perhaps the worst possible light.   Those who have never liked section 230 now smell blood.
>  
> This is not to say that there were not perfectly fine arguments to be made about how a section 230-immune site could 
> HELP with the prosecution of child-trafficking criminals, but I question the judgment of my colleagues in deciding to 
> make their stand here.  Because how can they now say with credibility that the world will end the next time an 
> exception is proposed – assuming that the world has not ended after this statute takes effect?
>  
> From: Dave Farber [mailto:farber () gmail com] 
> Sent: Saturday, March 24, 2018 6:25 AM
> To: ip
> Subject: [IP] Section 230: A Key Legal Shield For Facebook, Google Is About To Change
>  
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: March 24, 2018 at 2:39:28 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Section 230: A Key Legal Shield For Facebook, Google Is About To Change
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Section 230: A Key Legal Shield For Facebook, Google Is About To Change
> A 1996 law sits at the heart of a major question about the modern Internet: How much responsibility should fall to 
> online platforms for how their users act and get treated?
> By ALINA SELYUKH
> Mar 21 2018
> <https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2018/03/21/591622450/section-230-a-key-legal-shield-for-facebook-google-is-about-to-change>
>
> It's 1995, and Chris Cox is on a plane reading a newspaper. One article about a recent court decision catches his 
> eye. This moment, in a way, ends up changing his life — and, to this day, it continues to change ours.
>
> The case that caught the congressman's attention involved some posts on a bulletin board — the early-Internet 
> precursor to today's social media. The ruling led to a new law, co-authored by Cox and often called simply "Section 
> 230."
>
> This 1996 statute became known as "a core pillar of Internet freedom" and "the law that gave us modern Internet" — a 
> critical component of free speech online. But the journey of Section 230 runs through some of the darkest corners of 
> the Web. Most egregiously, the law has been used to defend Backpage.com, a website featuring ads for sex with 
> children forced into prostitution.
>
> Today, this law still sits at the heart of a major question about the modern Internet: How much responsibility do 
> online platforms have for how their users behave or get treated? 
>
> In the first major change to Section 230 in years, Congress voted this week to make Internet companies take a little 
> more responsibility than they have for content on their sites.
>
> Library or newspaper?
>
> The court decision that started it all had to do with some online posts about a company called Stratton Oakmont. On 
> one finance-themed bulletin board, someone had accused the investment firm of fraud.
>
> Years later, Stratton Oakmont's crimes would be turned into a Hollywood film, The Wolf of Wall Street. But in 1994, 
> the firm called the accusations libel and wanted to sue. But because it was the Internet, the posts were anonymous. 
> So instead, the firm sued Prodigy, the online service that hosted the bulletin board.
>
> Prodigy argued it couldn't be responsible for a user's post — like a library, it could not liable for what's inside 
> its books. Or, in now-familiar terms: It's a platform, not a publisher.
>
> The court disagreed, but for an unexpected reason: Prodigy moderated posts, cleaning up foul language. And because of 
> that, the court treated Prodigy like a newspaper liable for its articles.
>
> As Cox read about this ruling, he thought this was "exactly the wrong result": How was this amazing new thing — the 
> Internet — going to blossom, if companies got punished for trying to keep things clean? "This struck me as a way to 
> make the Internet a cesspool," he says.
>
> At this moment, Cox was flying from his home in California to return to Congress. Back at work, Cox, a Republican, 
> teamed up with his friend, Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden, to rectify the court precedent.
>
> Together, they produced Section 230 — perhaps the only 20-year-old statute to be claimed by Internet companies and 
> advocates as technologically prescient.
>
> "The original purpose"
>
> Section 230 lives inside the Communications Decency Act of 1996, and it gives websites broad legal immunity: With 
> some exceptions, online platforms can't be sued for something posted by a user — and that remains true even if they 
> act a little like publishers, by moderating posts or setting specific standards.
>
> "Section 230 is as important as the First Amendment to protecting free speech online, certainly here in the U.S.," 
> says Emma Llanso, a free expression advocate at the Center for Democracy and Technology.
>
> [snip]
>
> Dewayne-Net RSS Feed: http://dewaynenet.wordpress.com/feed/
> Twitter: https://twitter.com/wa8dzp
>
>
> This message was sent to the list address and trashed, but can be found online.



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