Section 230

Liberals and the media are fulminating at great length about “Section 230,” a law which they claim allows the internet companies to permit “hate speech” to be published on their systems without fear of lawsuit. In fact, Section 230 does precisely the opposite of that. Here is the “meat” of that section of the US Code,

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."

 

Note the words I underlined. This law, in fact, is precisely what allows internet companies to block hate speech (or anything which they consider to be hate speech) without recourse against them. It permits them to do what they are now finally doing, in fact, which is to cancel people whose messages they dislike.

It means the people who are suing them for cancellation will lose, because the law does not say who decides what material is “excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” Cancelling Section 230 would, in fact, prevent internet companies from blocking hate speech and from cancelling objectionable (to liberals) contributors.

Liberals are cheering the “cancellation” of the “other side” and delighted that their platforms will no longer be contaminated by writings that they don’t want to have to read, and at the same time they are demanding repeal of the law that permits that cancellation to happen.

This is another instance of knee jerk irrational liberalism. They are so upset to discover that a law protects an institution which they hate, even when their daily political activity is utterly dependent upon that institution, that they don’t even bother to find out what that law protects the institution from.