Section 230 is a law that prevents lawsuits against internet companies. You’d think conservatives would love this law so much that they’d tattoo it on their buttcheeks next to the Ten Commandments and the 2nd Amendment.
Specifically, the law is concerned with user generated content. This very post is the type of content that I, a user of DailyKos, have generated so that you can read it. This law actually protects DailyKos, Facebook, Twitter, Gab, and many, many other sites great and loathsome. This is kind of important, since many Internet users are terrible people.
The law protects website owners from liability if users create illegal content. Let’s say a troll makes a DailyKos post that claims his ex-wife is a drug dealer. His ex-wife claims to not know the identity of the troll, so she sues DailyKos for defamation. The case would get thrown out because of Section 230.
One problem with this is that websites can’t be held accountable if their services are used to harm people. But is AT&T at fault if a stalker uses his phone to harass his victim? Is Georgia Pacific at fault if a kidnapper uses their product to make ransom notes?
Of course, DailyKos would remove the offending post as soon as they became aware of it. This isn’t censorship, it’s content moderation. Section 230 also protects the right of a website to moderate content. Let’s say I have forum dedicated to the Chicago Bears and someone posts about how wonderful the Green Bay Packers are. Yes, expressing admiration for the wrong sports team is still protected by the First Amendment, but Section 230 allows me to remove that cheesehead’s post and delete his account. Likewise, if someone were make a post insisting that Donald Trump is the greatest statesman of all time, Section 230 would protect DailyKos’ right to delete it.
The alt-right hates Section 230 because they keep getting their Twitter and Facebook accounts deleted for racist dogwhistling. Gab and Parler aren’t good enough for them, they want to be able to bother the rest of civilized society.
Trump tried to get Section 230 while President because he knew his Twitter account could get banned after he left office. (Suprise! It was banned before he left office.)
Section 230 does have critics outside of the right. Mark Zuckerberg wants the law modified to require mechanisms for weeding out illegal content. Either he is sincerely concerned about this content, or he wants to make it harder for new potential competitors for Facebook to be formed.
Some argue that Section 230 allows social media companies to grow too big too quickly. I would argue that’s more of a byproduct of capitalism in general rather than this law in particular. Others might insist that Section 230 created the toxic social media universe that we live in now, and that the past 20 years were one big mistake. But I wouldn’t be using this forum at all if I hadn’t embraced social media, and you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t at least leaning the same way.