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Section 230 needs to be reformed to better define platform vs publisher. Big tech even today is manipulating content allowance and placement, censoring and generally controlling what they allow on their sites. This is publishing. They cannot have it both ways. The threat to free speech is exactly this... platforms controlling content without liability for the content. What if your Internet service provider did this? Or your cell phone service provider? What about your utilities provider... say your electricity provider cut your service because you liked a comment that criticized some woke meme?

The entire concept of Section 230 protections for big tech was based on the premise of free and open use. Either the site is a platform that minimizes content manipulation only to comply with the law, or it is a publisher that takes agency responsibility for the content and should be liable for the content (or censorship of content).

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Certainly this is a complicated and critical topic which is made more problematic because of Sullivan which was a classic case of good facts and bad law. Moreover, the transparent intrusion of the government working with big tech promoting disinformation revealed by the Twitter Files has complicated the issue even further. The law that was meant to protect public square facilitators from defamation risk from random people instead creates a multiplier effect for governments, large media, and tech giants to lie with impunity all while make sure the *little people* get algorithmed out of the equation.

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May 5, 2023·edited May 5, 2023

The phone company doesn't get to decide what I can say over the phone. The electric company doesn't get to cut off service, because it doesn't like my politics. The post office can't refuse to deliver my mail for political reasons.

But Etsy can and does. Twitter can and does. Medium can and does. YouTube can and does. Time to treat all of them as common carriers and take away Section 230 if they don't comply.

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deletedMay 6, 2023·edited May 6, 2023
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