> Some interpretations suggest that any editorial action by a platform [...] changes them from being a common carrier to a publisher
None that have been made with a straight face before a real court, that I'm aware of. That's the spin that the activists put on this, not something that anyone thinks SCOTUS is going to rule on.
You're absolutely right that 230 as written doesn't really speak well to the modern semi-automated echo chamber. But improperly written laws are congress's job to fix, not the courts. Courts step in when laws conflict, they aren't there to figure out how to solve problems with new laws.
The simplest way to look at the spirit of this law is: Congress said that internet companies shouldn't be punished just for hosting other people's opinions. And at the end of the day, TikTok and YouTube and Facebook are still just hosting this data. They didn't write it. They don't curate it. Anyone can post. Anyone can read.
Arguments about "recommendation algorithms" are legitimate, but not really in scope of the first amendment and liability issues envisioned by the original law. They're just not. It's not something congress thought about. And if congress didn't have a clue, why should the courts?
>You're absolutely right that 230 as written doesn't really speak well to the modern semi-automated echo chamber.
Section 230 does not speak about this because section 230 wasn't supposed to care about this. Section 230 was entirely about protecting large companies from legal harm when, say, the christchurch shooter posts their spree on your platform, or someone uploads literal child porn to your platform, as long as you attempt to remove such content when it appears. Section 230 is simply a legal admission that moderation is hard but necessary, and a single failure should not doom your platform.
If we think the way large platforms recommend content is harmful, we should write legislation for that, instead of yet again fucking with a working law to hammer it into something it wasn't meant to do. The USA loves to do that and all it does is give us really shitty legislation.
This isn't a case about turning 230 into a law that it isn't supposed to be... this is a case wondering whether 230 serves as an exception to another law which does create liability here...
>The simplest way to look at the spirit of this law is: Congress said that internet companies shouldn't be punished just for hosting other people's opinions. And at the end of the day, TikTok and YouTube and Facebook are still just hosting this data. They didn't write it. They don't curate it. Anyone can post. Anyone can read.
Okay - so in your universe, it's just as easy to punish them, not for the hosting, but the promotion of the content which is explicitly not covered in 230...
None that have been made with a straight face before a real court, that I'm aware of. That's the spin that the activists put on this, not something that anyone thinks SCOTUS is going to rule on.
You're absolutely right that 230 as written doesn't really speak well to the modern semi-automated echo chamber. But improperly written laws are congress's job to fix, not the courts. Courts step in when laws conflict, they aren't there to figure out how to solve problems with new laws.
The simplest way to look at the spirit of this law is: Congress said that internet companies shouldn't be punished just for hosting other people's opinions. And at the end of the day, TikTok and YouTube and Facebook are still just hosting this data. They didn't write it. They don't curate it. Anyone can post. Anyone can read.
Arguments about "recommendation algorithms" are legitimate, but not really in scope of the first amendment and liability issues envisioned by the original law. They're just not. It's not something congress thought about. And if congress didn't have a clue, why should the courts?