ABOUT SECTION 230: In an Instapundit item below, John Tierney links to a City Journal article that frames up “Big Tech Censorship” as the the most “controversial” problem with Section 230, which provides immunity to “internet service providers” for content ostensibly created by third parties.
While I agree that the censorship problem has to be solved by either a judicial ruling that declares the web a “public space” or a re-write of the statute, I think the real problem is that the more common problem is an overly broad statute that allows virtual newsrooms to defame with impunity. The statute was passed in part to protect companies like AOL and CompuServe for content they didn’t create, particularly, kiddie porn.
One prescient court noted in the early years of digital space that:
“The internet (or ‘Net’), heralded as the most significant achievement in human speech since the printing press, has become ground zero in a legal battle over the First Amendment and the right of individuals to speak (or rather type) anonymously. At its best, the Net is the ultimate conduit for free speech and expression; at its worst, the Net can be a character assassin’s greatest weapon.”
The statute reads in relevant part:
“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.”
The provision means that ISPs like AOL are not legally responsible for the defamatory postings of third parties. But neither are newsrooms, because the broad language of Section 230 defines “interactive computer service” as:
“The term “interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.”
As much as I support protection for a free and vibrant press, allowing “breathing space” for good faith errors, the broad word “any” has been used to allow some pretty nasty stuff to be published, from Gawker to Occupy Democrats to Wikipedia.
If they are going to “fix” 230, they need to consider this.