Notices by Mike Masnick ✅ (mmasnick@mastodon.social), page 9

@PeoriaBummer I am stating my opinion.

@DeanBaker13 @david1 @timjan @GreenFire Facebook has literally been running ads non-stop in DC offering to get rid of 230.

@DeanBaker13 @david1 @timjan @GreenFire if we got rid of the community (as would be necessary without 230, we'd get less advertising and still die). if we got rid of advertising... we wouldn't make enough money to survive and would go under as well.

Congrats. Thanks for killing Techdirt in your grand experiment based on vibes.

@DeanBaker13 @david1 @timjan @GreenFire I run a business. It relies on 230 to host a community and advertising to stay in business. You want me to lose the part of my business that's important to me (the community) if I want to be able to keep it in business.

That's insane. It's academic foolishness from an out of touch ivory tower with no actual real world experience.

@DeanBaker13 @david1 @timjan @GreenFire "Also, if 230 protection is valuable, sites that currently take ads or sell personal information can change the way they operate."

Tell me your an academic who has NEVER had to run a small business without telling me your an academic who has never had to run a small business.

Holy shit Dean. That's embarrassing.

@david1 @DeanBaker13 @timjan @GreenFire no, section 230 enabled tons of smaller sites and much greater competition. I did a whole research report on this.

And it enabled SITES LIKE THE ONE WE'RE ON.

@DeanBaker13 @timjan @GreenFire your proposal removes it for smaller sites too Dean.

Don't lie. You just remove it for those who don't use advertising. Plenty of smaller sites rely on advertising. Without advertising many smaller sites would die.

@DeanBaker13 @timjan @GreenFire because I've explained this to you before. The "cost" of losing 230 is disproportionately placed on smaller entities. The "cost" is in having to face many more ruinous legal threats that are RIDICULOUSLY expensive.

Meta & Google have buildings full of lawyers. The cost is meaningless to them.

The cost to smaller sites would put many out of business.

@david1 that's incorrect. Only (c)(2) requires "good faith" and it is for anything "otherwise objectionable" which only the site itself can decide. (c)(1) allows for moderation whether in good faith or not.

Separately, the 1st Amendment allows for moderation.

Neither of those issues has *anything* to do with common carrier status.

And finally, some righteous fire from @KarlBode about the managerial incompetence destroying various journalism outlets. https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/27/the-vice-media-collapse-was-entirely-the-fault-of-incompetent-fail-upward-brunchlords/

Next, an analysis of the astoundingly silly 77 page "threat letter" that Bill Ackman's wife (though, really, Ackman himself) sent to Axel Springer over Business Insider's stories. Ackman seems incapable of comprehending the underlying issue. https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/27/bill-ackmans-wife-sends-hilarious-misleading-defamation-threat-letter-to-business-insider-that-confirms-bill-ackman-is-a-censorial-hypocrite/

Okay, we've had some banger posts on Techdirt today so I'm sharing. First up, a summary of yesterday's Supreme Court hearing on the future of the internet, in which (incredibly) I try to explain what Alito meant when asking about the weight of YouTube (it was dumb, but not for the reasons everyone thinks). https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/27/sir-this-is-a-supreme-court-not-a-wendys/

@digiphile @kegill yes, what Alex said. They take fundamentally different approaches. Bridges will come.

@timjan @DeanBaker13 @GreenFire I've done the counterpoint to Dean thing in the past. I can't do it every time he tweaks his proposal. Last I checked he still misunderstood the nature of the 1st Amendment & distributor liability if you removed 230.

https://www.techdirt.com/2021/12/29/those-who-dont-understand-section-230-are-doomed-to-repeal-it/

@DeanBaker13 @hardindr @molly0xfff Distributor liability is still bound by the 1st Amendment, because it's liability based on speech. Which means that, per multiple 1st Amendment lawsuits, there are standards of what it takes to make a distributor liable. And you.. acknowledge literally none of them.

@DeanBaker13 @hardindr @molly0xfff In which you still refuse to understand the 1st Amendment and how distributor liability worked pre-230. I told you this before. You still refuse to do the necessary research and so you publish misleading things

@buermann @WIRED i've read this post twice, and I'm sorry but I don't understand what you're saying.

@marlinspike @molly0xfff I regularly criticize Facebook and will continue to do so. But if someone lies about them, I'm also going to push back on those lies?

I mean, there is plenty of REAL shit that Facebook does that they can be criticized for that no one needs to bother pushing made up or misrepresented stuff.

@hardindr @molly0xfff @DeanBaker13 and I have a long debunking of Baker's position on this: https://www.techdirt.com/2021/12/29/those-who-dont-understand-section-230-are-doomed-to-repeal-it/

@buermann @WIRED there's a link to it where I name the title. The whole title is linked.