Long thread/51
There'd be no online spaces where the powerful were held to account. Meanwhile, rich and powerful people would continue to enjoy online platforms where they and their bootlickers could pump out the most grotesque nonsense imaginable, either because they owned those platforms (ahem, Twitter and Truth Social) or because rich and powerful people can afford the professional advice needed to navigate the content-moderation bureaucracies of large systems.
51/
Comments
Displaying 0 of 1 comments
Cory Doctorow
In response to this postLong thread/52
We know exactly what the internet looks like when platforms are civilly liable for their users' speech: it's an internet where marginalized and powerless people are silenced, and where the people who've got a boot on their throats are the only voices you can hear:
https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referred-here-because-youre-wrong-about-section-230-communications-decency-act/
The evidence for this isn't limited to the era of AOL and Prodigy. In 2018, Trump signed SESTA/FOSTA, a law that held platforms liable for "sex trafficking."
52/
Long thread/53
Advocates for this law - like Ashton Kutcher, who campaigns against sexual assault unless it involves one of his friends, in which case he petitions the judge for leniency - were warned that it would be used to shut down *all* consensual sex work online, making sex workers's lives *much* more dangerous. This warnings were *immediately* borne out, and they have been repeatedly borne out every month since.
53/
by Cory Doctorow ;
Likes: 0
Replies: 1
Boosts: 1