<story><title>Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-propose-limiting-internet-firms-protections-11592391602</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwawaygh</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m generally sympathetic to the idea that Section 230 protections should come with some sort of obligation to allow free speech.&lt;p&gt;However, the actual policy proposals for replacing Section 230 are all outright dystopian. Josh Hawley, in particular, is &lt;i&gt;NOT&lt;/i&gt; a free speech advocate. His problem with Facebook&amp;#x2F;Tiwtter is perceived liberal bias, and the alternatives to Section 230 that he suggests are 100% about wrestling editorial oversight away from one class (tech CEOs) and then giving it to another (a politically-appointed board).&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have a good proposal for how to go about reforming Section 230 in a way that&amp;#x27;s workable and values free speech?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jasode</author><text>&lt;i&gt;&amp;gt;Section 230 protections should come with some sort of obligation to allow free speech. [...] Does anyone have a good proposal [...] and values free speech?&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;Nobody has a good proposal because every discussion about the idealism of &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;values free speech&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; is always hiding the true difficulty:  nobody wants to be forced to &lt;i&gt;pay&lt;/i&gt; for others&amp;#x27; undesirable speech.&lt;p&gt;E.g. Youtube can&amp;#x27;t be a &amp;quot;free speech&amp;quot; platform because advertisers have free will and can choose to not pay for it. (Previous comment about Adpocalypse: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=23259087&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=23259087&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;p&gt;Always mentally translate &amp;quot;create a website that allows free speech&amp;quot; into &lt;i&gt;&amp;quot;create a website that forces others to always pay for undesirable speech they don&amp;#x27;t agree with&amp;quot;&lt;/i&gt; -- and you will see that&amp;#x27;s a virtually impossible dream to accomplish.  There is no broadcasting medium (including websites) in any country that doesn&amp;#x27;t have interference and pressure to remove&amp;#x2F;ban content via consumer boycotts, advertisers, subscribers, business judgement, or government officials.&lt;p&gt;Websites have the hard reality of requiring cpu&amp;#x2F;disk&amp;#x2F;bandwidth and they all cost &lt;i&gt;money&lt;/i&gt; and that&amp;#x27;s the lever used by others that keeps &amp;quot;absolute free speech&amp;quot; from getting realistically implemented.</text></comment>
<story><title>Justice Department to propose limiting internet firms’ Section 230 protections</title><url>https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-to-propose-limiting-internet-firms-protections-11592391602</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwawaygh</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m generally sympathetic to the idea that Section 230 protections should come with some sort of obligation to allow free speech.&lt;p&gt;However, the actual policy proposals for replacing Section 230 are all outright dystopian. Josh Hawley, in particular, is &lt;i&gt;NOT&lt;/i&gt; a free speech advocate. His problem with Facebook&amp;#x2F;Tiwtter is perceived liberal bias, and the alternatives to Section 230 that he suggests are 100% about wrestling editorial oversight away from one class (tech CEOs) and then giving it to another (a politically-appointed board).&lt;p&gt;Does anyone have a good proposal for how to go about reforming Section 230 in a way that&amp;#x27;s workable and values free speech?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thoughtstheseus</author><text>Make it all dumb pipes and make users responsible for regulating what they see&amp;#x2F;hear.  Make a market for filtering content, one great filter across a platform is not flexible.&lt;p&gt;Require platforms over a certain size to provide real-time data accessibility across platforms. Facebook and Twitter are monopolies by virtue of market position, anyone can build a platform that is functionally the same.  Create competition here.</text></comment>