Is the law that clear? Because multiple places that claim to be drawn from Section 230 are saying basically the opposite:
From
https://reason.com/volokh/2020/05/28...m-distinction/
"That led Congress to enact the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which tried to limit online porn; but the Court struck that down in
Reno v. ACLU (1997). Part of the Act, though, remained: 47 U.S.C. § 230, which basically immunized all Internet service and content providers platforms from liability for their users' speech—
whether or not they blocked or removed certain kinds of speech. Congress, then, deliberately provided platform immunity to entities that (unlike traditional platforms) could and did select what user content to keep up. It did so precisely to
encourage platforms to block or remove certain speech (without requiring them to do so), by removing a disincentive (loss of immunity) that would have otherwise come with such selectivity. And it gave them this flexibility regardless of how the platforms exercised this function."
"Under current law, Twitter, Facebook, and the like are immune as platforms, regardless of whether they edit (including in a politicized way). Like it or not, but this was a deliberate decision by Congress. You might prefer an "if you restrict your users' speech, you become liable for the speech you allow" model. Indeed, that was the model accepted by the court in
Stratton Oakmont. But Congress rejected this model, and that rejection stands so long as § 230 remains in its current form."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/1...-doesnt-matter
"One of the primary purposes of Section 230 was to remove this disincentive and encourage online intermediaries to actively curate and edit their sites without being so penalized. Former Rep. Chris Cox, one of the co-authors of Section 230, recalls finding it “surpassingly stupid” that before Section 230, courts effectively disincentivized platforms from engaging in
any speech moderation. And Congress recognized that even the notice-based liability that attached to distributors created the prospect of the “heckler’s veto,” whereby one who wants the speech censored tells the distributor about it and the distributor removes the speech without devoting any resources to investigating whether the objection had any merit."
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/21/1...seff-interview (figured a US Naval Academy Prof might know what he is talking about):
"I spoke with both [Section 230 architects] Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and former Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA) extensively, and I spoke with most of the lobbyists who were involved at the time. None of them said that there was this intent for platforms to be neutral. In fact, that was the opposite. They wanted platforms to feel free to make these judgments without risking the liability that Prodigy faced."
"
How do you think the mistake that Section 230 is about splitting internet services into categories of “platform” or “publisher” came about?
I have no idea! That’s just not, I mean... I don’t know."
Reading the law and the various precedent setting cases...it appears that the key phrasing for the courts is "interactive computer service" 9https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/uscode.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id =47-USC-1900800046-1237841278&term_occur=999&term_src=). Once you pass that comically low-bar for legal standing/coverage by Section 230 - you can do whatever you want.
From my reading it appears that in the US Court system there is no distinction between platform/publisher/distributor/insert noun here once you meet the standard for "interactive computer service". I can't even find a legal definition for the other terms or a court decision applying them.
If Congress hadn't freaked out over porn on Prodigy in the early dial-up days....we wouldn't even be having this conversation! From porn to arguing over what protected speech is on the internet....that is full of porn.....