A Section 230 hearing goes awry
Casey Newton,
The Platformer,
Oct 29, 2020
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) contains what are foften called 'the 26 words that created the internet': "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." I personally think 'created the internet' is overstated, but the judicial interpretation (in the U.S.; in other jurisdictions, where the internet still exists, the law is different) is important: it says platforms are not required to moderate content, but in the interests of a better experience, they may. That's what the current hearings in the U.S. are about, and while everybody has an interest in both tighter regulation and looser regulation by the platforms, right now in the U.S. nothing much is likely to change. In my view what we really need are decentralized platforms that give us platform choice and the ability to manage our own preferences, but that's not what they're arguing about. More from the Verge, CNN, the Guardian.
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