schnurrito , 6 hours ago

Section 230 was invented for things like mailing lists, newsgroups, phpBB-style forums, wikis. IMHO all of those are great things that we should definitely continue to have.

Notice something? None of these have recommendation algorithms. If someone posts something to any of these kinds of platforms, it will be shown deterministically to those who have chosen to look at or subscribe to the place where it is posted; but it will not be shown to anyone else.

I think it makes sense, regardless of how the current law should be interpreted, to say that operators of these kinds of platforms aren’t liable for what users do with them, but once you install a recommendation algorithm to show things to more users who haven’t actively made the choice to look for/at those things, you are liable for the choices of that recommendation algorithm.

I admit that there are gray areas in that distinction, particularly whether search results should count as recommendation algorithms; but that is the general idea of what the law should ideally be.

Current large social media platforms get so much data uploaded to them all the time that their recommendation algorithms basically constitute a choice on the part of the social media platform to promote some of that data over other data. This makes these kinds of social media platforms essentially media companies, and everyone agrees that media companies are liable for what they promote.