It looks like 230 was passed in ‘96, but Usenet was around for more than a decade before that… somehow, there seems to be a way to make it work? Email could still be possible. I wonder if something like AIM could work without 230.
Maybe federated social media? You’d only want to host people you actually trust, but maybe that isn’t so bad.
Edit: I think it is not that surprising that people misunderstand 230, specifically 230c2. We have:
* A constitution that prohibits restrictions by the government on free speech
* Provides “decency” restrictions on speech in some cases
* An exception for sites that act more like communication service providers, as long as they don’t editorialize, which considers the content they host not their speech
* A Good Samaritan exception for sites to do moderation, so their edits and redactions are not interpreted as editorializing
An exception to an exception to an exception is easy to misunderstand.
Maybe federated social media? You’d only want to host people you actually trust, but maybe that isn’t so bad.
Edit: I think it is not that surprising that people misunderstand 230, specifically 230c2. We have:
* A constitution that prohibits restrictions by the government on free speech
* Provides “decency” restrictions on speech in some cases
* An exception for sites that act more like communication service providers, as long as they don’t editorialize, which considers the content they host not their speech
* A Good Samaritan exception for sites to do moderation, so their edits and redactions are not interpreted as editorializing
An exception to an exception to an exception is easy to misunderstand.