Not entirely ... they're defined as platforms and shielded from mistakes, as long as they're operating in good faith when they block material or unknowingly hosting something that should be blocked.
If they block stuff without being able to demonstrate good faith or keep stuff up that they've been advised isn't lawful, they lose the protections Sec230 grants.
The fact that lower courts have interpreted Sec230 to be a blanket immunity from any legal action at all is the issue, not Sec230 as written.
No. Look it up and read the text. Paragraph (c)(1) defines them as platforms, full stop: "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."
Then the other parts protect them from civil liability for censoring. There might be some wiggle room there, especially in terms of tortious interference or contract law (though IANAL). But with (c)(1) as written there simply is no publisher v platform argument to be made. This section just needs to be scrapped and redone.
That might be worth investigating, though no one has had success with it in court so far because the "good faith" clauses in (c)(2) are so vague (and because even without section 230 they have a first amendment right to censor, ironically).
But the platform versus publisher argument is that they should lose the protection of section 230 if they act as a publisher. The threat of losing that protection would be a big deal because it would encourage them to act as platforms, or risk liability for every defamatory, libelous or otherwise illegal bit of content uploaded to their platform (other than copyright infringement, which is covered by the DMCA). Unfortunately no matter how reasonable it sounds, that argument just isn't supported by the text.
Not entirely ... they're defined as platforms and shielded from mistakes, as long as they're operating in good faith when they block material or unknowingly hosting something that should be blocked.
If they block stuff without being able to demonstrate good faith or keep stuff up that they've been advised isn't lawful, they lose the protections Sec230 grants.
The fact that lower courts have interpreted Sec230 to be a blanket immunity from any legal action at all is the issue, not Sec230 as written.
No. Look it up and read the text. Paragraph (c)(1) defines them as platforms, full stop: "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."
Then the other parts protect them from civil liability for censoring. There might be some wiggle room there, especially in terms of tortious interference or contract law (though IANAL). But with (c)(1) as written there simply is no publisher v platform argument to be made. This section just needs to be scrapped and redone.
Right, but I don't care if they're platforms, if they're still held liable for decisions made in bad faith. Is that not the important bit?
That might be worth investigating, though no one has had success with it in court so far because the "good faith" clauses in (c)(2) are so vague (and because even without section 230 they have a first amendment right to censor, ironically).
But the platform versus publisher argument is that they should lose the protection of section 230 if they act as a publisher. The threat of losing that protection would be a big deal because it would encourage them to act as platforms, or risk liability for every defamatory, libelous or otherwise illegal bit of content uploaded to their platform (other than copyright infringement, which is covered by the DMCA). Unfortunately no matter how reasonable it sounds, that argument just isn't supported by the text.