For context Section 230 avoids strict liability for an "interactive computer service" hosting third-party content. For comparison, a first-party site (eg a media site) does have strict liability.

Here's the problem and what (IMHO) will become a big issue: if you, as a platform, only push out content with a particular view, how is that any different to just publishing that view and thus being liable?

Put another way: modern tech companies want to have their cake and eat it too. They want the protections from strict liability and, while hiding behind that shield of third-party content, they analyze the content of posts and they push or suppress posts based on the content. How is that any different to being a first-party publisher?

Example: if 10,000 people write posts for or against South African apartheid and I suppress only those posts that argue against it, aren't I, in effect, publishing a pro-apartheid position?

I think this is a landmine waiting to go off. Tech companies have successfully sold us on the idea that "the algorithm" is somehow agnostic or neutral. Nothing could be further from the truth, particularly with modern AI tools that can deeply classify posts based on their content, politics, etc. Meta's policy chief bragged about doing this [3].

People on HN seem to have this weird, third-rail stance on Section 230. It's nuanced.

Legally, I think making algorithmic decisions based on content should be treated as a first-party act of publishing. And I believe courts are going to get there.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47066527

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46148529

[3]: https://theintercept.com/2024/10/21/instagram-israel-palesti...

While much abusive speech can be blocked from being published with this sort of Prior Restraint, much more healthy, vital speech — that counters abuse — would be repressed by it, IMHO. See how litigation involving copyright law has been used by the Church of Scientology to silence critics, for example. The removal of 230 means platforms themselves could be targeted to efficiently censor large sections of the population.

And the basic principle of Prior Restraint flies in the face of the presumption of innocence that underlies conduct in a Free Society.

https://time.com/7336204/meta-lawsuit-files-child-safety/