3min chapter

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Section 230: Everything You Need to Know -- Tweets, Free Speech, Beyond

a16z Podcast

CHAPTER

The Biggest Gift to Free Speech, Right?

Section two thirty is designed to make sure that any web site can moderate content how i sees fit, in good faith. One of the best lines i heard was that in many ways, this act was a gift, not to big companies, but a gift to the internet. I think it's really the biggest gift to free speech for everybody, right? Because if you don't have two thirty set up, there would be much more limited ability for users to actually post content on line....

00:00
Speaker 1
And so that section of cd two thirty is designed to make sure that any web site can moderate content how i sees fit, in good faith, to present the content in a way that meets with the goals of the service,
Speaker 2
right? And to be clear, these are not just content moderation, things like, it could be spamy posts and the kind of thing thtwouldactully turn you off from using a service. Or when youd be a family friendly sight and getting rid of poor the companies can use whatever discretion they wanted, as long as it complied with their terms of services, basically, which that itself could change. But was interesting about this fact story, it's a very small thing that was preserved, but had huge consequences for where we are to day in terms of the inner net. We have to day, whether it's going on a recipe swap site, whether it's sharing photos of family and friends, whether it's posting a car for sale. There's so many layers to this it has allowed the modern inter net to thrive. One of the best lines i heard, i think this is actually inverge, is that in many ways, this act was a gift, not to big companies, but a gift to the internet. I
Speaker 1
think the point is not that it is the biggest gift to big internet companies, or that it's the biggest gift to the internet. I think it's really the biggest gift to free speech for everybody, right? Because if you don't have two thirty set up the way it is set up, there would be much more limited ability for users to actually post content on line. And it's a little bit crazy to me that people think that changing or getting rid of two thirty will enable more free speech, when the balances that are set up within two thirty are very much designed as a gift to free speech. Ok,
Speaker 2
so now my question for you is, given that we did enter this world where user generated content, whether on sights like you two with vidios, or educational or nond tional or political or non political. We now live in a world where a lot of these sites, people often use a framing of platform versus publisher, which i think is kind of meaningless and arbitrary. And then they also sometimes use the ridiculous phrase platisher as a hybrid of the two. I'd love to get your take on that framing and how that doesn't or does apply here. So
Speaker 1
one of the things that comes up over and over again, you see people say, well, if they moderate or if they change content, they are no longer a publisher. They are now a platform, and therefore they lose section two thirty protection. The law makes no distinction between platform and publisher. The law is not designed to protect one or the other, or say that there is a difference between it. There's no classification. It's not a safe harbor where you have to meet, you know, a b and c criteria in order to get the protections. You just need to be in interactive computer service that hosts third party content. So the debate over, are they a publisher or are they a platform, is completely meaningless under the law.

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