Judges Rule Big Tech's Free Ride on Section 230 Is Over
www.thebignewsletter.com/p/judges-rule-big-techs-free-ride-on
What Jamie wrote
Interesting movement and a decent background on Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act and the role it plays in social media. Let me first get a gripe out of the way. I strongly dislike the authors use of "Big Tech" here. More appropriate would be "Social Media". I don't equate those things — Apple, Amazon, and Google have no social media offerings of note. With that out of the way, I’m generally in strong support that Section 230 needs a massive revamp and I think where this is going makes sense.
Because TikTok’s “algorithm curates and recommends a tailored compilation of videos for a user’s FYP based on a variety of factors, including the user’s age and other demographics, online interactions, and other metadata,” it becomes TikTok’s own speech. And now TikTok has to answer for it in court. Basically, the court ruled that when a company is choosing what to show kids and elderly parents, and seeks to keep them addicted to sell more ads, they can’t pretend it’s everyone else’s fault when the inevitable horrible thing happens.
There are many discussions where speech and amplification are being intertwined in ways that make the conversation confusing, and Section 230 is one of them. First, remember that Section 230 was ratified in 1996. Back then we were thinking about Internet message boards and forums, or email. Should an online service provider be held liable for stuff that you write in your email? No, and in fact they shouldn't even be able to know what I write in my email. And message boards are largely if not all time based presentation. The newest thing here, and so on.
This all goes completely haywire with algorithmic feeds. I shared this in the intro to Weekly Thing 152:
Anytime that you are looking at content in something other than time order, ask yourself what the goal of the system behind it is.
There is no neutral way to present content using an algorithm. The algorithm must have a goal.
And folks, I’m my opinion, that goal removes Section 230 protection.
To have a goal is a form of opinion, and you are now exerting an opinion on other content (that content itself may be protected), but the culmination of the sorting is itself not protected.