Speaker 1: Welcome to text Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: and I love all things tech And what if websites
Speaker 1: were held responsible for the content that other people post
Speaker 1: to those websites. What if after a customer left a
Speaker 1: bad review for a product online, the company that makes
Speaker 1: that product would sue Amazon for hosting the review. What
Speaker 1: if that company that makes the thing, what if they
Speaker 1: won that lawsuit. What if Facebook were liable for the
Speaker 1: posts made by its two billion users worldwide. If sites
Speaker 1: were held accountable for the content that users and third
Speaker 1: parties posted to them, we would not have the ornet
Speaker 1: we have today. In fact, companies and organizations like Wikipedia, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter,
Speaker 1: even Google wouldn't exist, or at least they wouldn't exist
Speaker 1: in the forms they do today if that were the case. Now,
Speaker 1: if you live in the United States, you might have
Speaker 1: heard a bit about a section to thirty. Even if
Speaker 1: you're outside the United States, you might have heard some
Speaker 1: references to it. Now, if you're only casually following the
Speaker 1: news or you just here section to thirty in passing,
Speaker 1: it's probably pretty confusing. It clearly has something to do
Speaker 1: with technology and liability and communication. President Donald Trump called
Speaker 1: upon Congress to revoke it several times now, even threatening
Speaker 1: to veto the funding of the National Defense Authorization Act
Speaker 1: unless Congress repealed Section to thirty. But Trump is not
Speaker 1: the only politician to call out this legislation. Representatives from
Speaker 1: both the Republican and Democrat parties have proposed those changes
Speaker 1: or even the outright elimination of Section to thirty over
Speaker 1: the years. Heck, President elect Joe Biden has also called
Speaker 1: upon the need to revoke to thirty. And if you
Speaker 1: live in America, you might be surprised to hear that
Speaker 1: Trump and Biden have agreed on something, though I guess
Speaker 1: it's fair to point out they agree on the end result,
Speaker 1: but for very different motivations. So in today's episode, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about what Section to thirty is, where
Speaker 1: it came from, what its purpose was and is, and
Speaker 1: why there's so much discussion about the need to change
Speaker 1: or get rid of it from various viewpoints across the
Speaker 1: political spectrum. And I'll do my best to avoid any
Speaker 1: political commentary, but I do want to say that the
Speaker 1: motivations behind these various calls for change. They very a
Speaker 1: great deal. I think a lot of folks in politics
Speaker 1: agree that section to thy needs some attention, but they
Speaker 1: don't all agree as to the reasons why or how
Speaker 1: it should be done. So we're gonna get into all
Speaker 1: of that. And before we jump in, I want to
Speaker 1: recommend an amazing resource. It's a book by Jeff Kossa
Speaker 1: titled The Twenty six Words That Created the Internet, and
Speaker 1: it's all about section to thirty, from the genesis of
Speaker 1: the idea to the implementation of Section two thirty in
Speaker 1: court cases. And it's also a really good read, which
Speaker 1: is a weird thing to say about a book centering
Speaker 1: on a subsection of a huge telecommunications bill. I should
Speaker 1: also add as a trigger warning that book discusses some
Speaker 1: cases that deal with some really heavy, dark stuff. To
Speaker 1: thirty has been tested in some really emotionally charged cases
Speaker 1: that include truly awful things that have happened to people,
Speaker 1: So fair warning if you do want to check that
Speaker 1: book out and give it a read. Now. At the
Speaker 1: heart of all of this are concepts like free speed,
Speaker 1: each which has very wide protection in America, and liability
Speaker 1: that is being held accountable legally accountable for something. Because
Speaker 1: while there are broad protections for freedom of speech, it
Speaker 1: is not absolute. There are some forms of speech and
Speaker 1: expression that are not protected under the First Amendment. And
Speaker 1: that's because free speech sometimes bumps up against other important
Speaker 1: things like security or privacy, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: it's one of those things where it's not pure black
Speaker 1: and white. There's some shades of gray. Now, let's find
Speaker 1: out what section to thirty is. And it's called Section
Speaker 1: two thirty, so that suggests it's part of something bigger. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a section of something. Well that it's a section
Speaker 1: of a larger piece of legislation, and that piece was
Speaker 1: the Communications Decency Act. So let's turn back the hands
Speaker 1: of the clock a bit. Heck, maybe i'll maybe I'll
Speaker 1: dust off the old text of time Machine for this one.
Speaker 1: I don't think we've actually used it in years. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: I did bring it home with me when our office
Speaker 1: went into lockdown, so it's really just taking up space
Speaker 1: in the corner. Hang on, hang on a second. I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna get it out. I gotta move a couple
Speaker 1: of things. Be right back. Alright, alright, so I've got it. Now,
Speaker 1: let me set the dial back to uh, let's see
Speaker 1: nineteen all right, Okay, here we go, everybody in, come on,
Speaker 1: let's all get into the time machine. All right, Ready,
Speaker 1: push the button, Frank, and here we are. It's The
Speaker 1: number one hit single of the year is hold On
Speaker 1: by Wilson Phillips, a song I'm not ashamed to say
Speaker 1: I absolutely loved at the time, shows like Cheers, A
Speaker 1: Different World and Murphy Brown, or on television that the
Speaker 1: box office, the film Ghost comes out on top, with
Speaker 1: Home Alone not far behind. But we're not here to
Speaker 1: see the awkward transition of the nineteen eighties transform into
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties. Now, we're here to learn about how
Speaker 1: US law would view the role of online platforms now
Speaker 1: back in where we are now, the Internet isn't really
Speaker 1: a thing as far as the mainstream public is concerned.
Speaker 1: It exists, but hardly anyone knows very much about it
Speaker 1: Outside of research facilities and government offices. There's no such
Speaker 1: thing as the Worldwide Web. Yet, However, there are a
Speaker 1: few big online service providers or OSPs. Now these are
Speaker 1: sort of the predecessors to Internet Service providers or I
Speaker 1: s p s, and OSP is kind of like its
Speaker 1: own micro internet, though really, we would just kind of
Speaker 1: call it a network. So think of it as a
Speaker 1: self contained collection of servers that hosts stuff like forums
Speaker 1: and newsletters and articles and files, and you're on the
Speaker 1: right track, and they don't necessarily talk to each other,
Speaker 1: so they're kind of self contained. Well, one of those
Speaker 1: big OSPs is compu Serve, and it's going to get
Speaker 1: taken to court. At the heart of the matter is
Speaker 1: an accusation of libel that is, uh, a misinformation with
Speaker 1: the intent to cause harm that's in print. The plaintiffs,
Speaker 1: Robert Blanchard and a company called Cubby Incorporated, have developed
Speaker 1: a news and rumors service called scuttle Butt, which focuses
Speaker 1: on the radio and TV industries. Now, according to the plaintiffs,
Speaker 1: a newsletter that is also that's called Rumorville USA, which
Speaker 1: also covers rumors in the TV and radio spaces, has
Speaker 1: published untrue and harmful things about scuttle Butt, and Rumorville
Speaker 1: is available on compu Serve. So the plaintiffs targeted not
Speaker 1: just Rumorville, but compu Serve in their lawsuits. So they
Speaker 1: say compu Serve is responsible because it allows the distribution
Speaker 1: of Rumorville, which in turn has published libelous content about
Speaker 1: scuttle butt. So the lawyers representing Company Serve argue that
Speaker 1: the service has no connection to Rumorville other than as
Speaker 1: serving as a way for people to get the newsletter.
Speaker 1: In other words, compu Service saying, hey, we don't write that.
Speaker 1: We just have it on our service, but we don't
Speaker 1: write it. There's no there's no employment here to generate
Speaker 1: that newsletter. Compu Serve isn't involved editorially in the newsletter
Speaker 1: at all. It just comes from another company. That company
Speaker 1: is Don Fitzpatrick Associates of San Francisco, and it's referred
Speaker 1: to in the court documents as d f A. Compu
Speaker 1: Serve did not employ this company or pay for this
Speaker 1: news letter. And moreover, according to the agreement between compy
Speaker 1: Serve and d f A, d f A accepts full
Speaker 1: responsibility for the contents of its newsletter. So compy serves
Speaker 1: lawyers go and make a motion for a summary judgment,
Speaker 1: which in this case was to dismiss the the the charges,
Speaker 1: just for the court to make a decision on behalf
Speaker 1: of one party against another party without the need to
Speaker 1: go to a full trial. And the judge grants this
Speaker 1: to Compy Serve. And the judge agrees that compu Serve
Speaker 1: did not bear responsibility for the contents of this newsletter.
Speaker 1: The judge says that compu Serve is kind of like
Speaker 1: a bookstore, and you wouldn't hold a bookstore responsible for
Speaker 1: the contents of a book that was published by a
Speaker 1: third party just because it happens to be in that bookstore.
Speaker 1: The bookstore is just that's where customers can buy books.
Speaker 1: The store did not put the actual content into the books,
Speaker 1: and this becomes a precedent that would serve as a
Speaker 1: foundational building block for section to thirty later. All right, everyone, um,
Speaker 1: we're done here. Let's all jump back in the time machine.
Speaker 1: Come out, no stragglers. I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: come back to lived through it. Once we're done. We
Speaker 1: got a hop forward a couple of years. Okay, ready
Speaker 1: push the button. All right, now we're in. So now
Speaker 1: the number one song in America would be Ace of
Speaker 1: Bases the Sign which I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: it opened up my eyes. I'm happy now. Seinfeld is
Speaker 1: dominating TV ratings and the big movies at the box
Speaker 1: office are The Lion King and Forest Gumps. So what
Speaker 1: are we doing here? And now, well, this time we've
Speaker 1: got another lawsuit, but this is one that's against a
Speaker 1: different osp called Prodigy. Now. Like compu Serve, Prodigy hosts
Speaker 1: stuff like forums and articles and their services on one forum,
Speaker 1: and anonymous user alleged that a securities firm named Stratton
Speaker 1: Oakmont was committing fraud in a stock offering and Stratton
Speaker 1: Stratton Oakmont would sue Prodigy for liabel. Now, Prodigies lawyers
Speaker 1: said that we shouldn't be held responsible for the content
Speaker 1: that's posted by a third party by a Prodigy user,
Speaker 1: and they cited the CompuServe ruling that came back a
Speaker 1: few years earlier. But the judge in this case disagrees
Speaker 1: with Prodigies lawyers. They rule against the service, and the
Speaker 1: judge says that Prodigy exercised editorial control over the forums.
Speaker 1: The service could and did remove material that was objectionable.
Speaker 1: Unlike CompuServe, which had taken largely a hands off approach
Speaker 1: to the stuff that was published on CompuServe, Prodigy got
Speaker 1: more involved and would remove things that were in violation
Speaker 1: of you know, community standards, and therefore that made Prodigy
Speaker 1: not like a bookstore and made them more like a
Speaker 1: publication like a newspaper, and the editorial control means that
Speaker 1: Prodigy would have to assume responsibility for stuff that appeared
Speaker 1: on the service. After all, if Prodigy intervenes in some cases,
Speaker 1: it means it could and should have intervened in other cases,
Speaker 1: like with Strattonoqumont. So we have that nine one decision
Speaker 1: that says a platform is not responsible for third party
Speaker 1: content published on that platform. But then we have a
Speaker 1: nineteen five decision that seems to contradict that if the
Speaker 1: platform exercised any sort of content management, that means that
Speaker 1: they can be held liable. And I know we traveled
Speaker 1: to nine respectively, but court cases can take a really
Speaker 1: long time. So the decisions were actually handed down a
Speaker 1: year after the initial lawsuits started. I'm sorry that we
Speaker 1: all had to wait around so long for that. Well,
Speaker 1: this created a precarious situation for online companies because the
Speaker 1: message seemed to be that if you provided a space
Speaker 1: for users and third parties to post stuff, it would
Speaker 1: best suit you if you just never ever interfered with that,
Speaker 1: regardless of what gets posted to the platform, because intervening
Speaker 1: would be a slippery slope if you start removing content,
Speaker 1: even stuff that clearly should not be there, like videos
Speaker 1: of violence, or pornography, or death threats, or or personal
Speaker 1: information of other users, whatever it might be. If you
Speaker 1: remove it, no matter how obviously awful it is, you
Speaker 1: create a precedent in which you are acting in an
Speaker 1: editorial capacity. And if you can do that, then are
Speaker 1: you really free of liability when someone posts something that's
Speaker 1: libelous or otherwise illegal. And remember this is the mid nineties.
Speaker 1: The online world hadn't even really started to take off yet,
Speaker 1: so there was a real concern that we would see
Speaker 1: a big negative impact, a chilling effect on the founding
Speaker 1: and evolution of online businesses. Considering that people had generally
Speaker 1: come to the belief that the internet was going to
Speaker 1: be the future of business, or at least an important
Speaker 1: component of business, this was a bad thing. Now, if
Speaker 1: you guys pay attention out there, you probably know that
Speaker 1: politicians typically lag behind big issues and technology. Technology changes
Speaker 1: much faster than policies do. And a lot of politicians
Speaker 1: in this country are in the United States, Um, how
Speaker 1: do I put this delicately? They're old, Like a lot
Speaker 1: of them are really old. The average age, the average
Speaker 1: age of a congress person is twenty years older than
Speaker 1: the average American in the average age of a representative
Speaker 1: is fifty seven. For senators it's sixty one. And generally speaking,
Speaker 1: older generations are a little a slower to pick up
Speaker 1: on technological advances than younger ones. Now there are exceptions
Speaker 1: to this, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: be agist here, but as a general rule, older people
Speaker 1: are less up to speed on emerging technologies. I think
Speaker 1: that rule applies double when it comes to politicians from
Speaker 1: my own anecdotal experience, which I get isn't really evidence.
Speaker 1: So while this was a growing concern within the tech world,
Speaker 1: only a couple of politicians really picked up on how
Speaker 1: these court decisions could create an issue and impede the
Speaker 1: growth of online services in those early days. Now, that
Speaker 1: pair included a Democrat named Ron Wyden and a Republican
Speaker 1: named Chris Cox, who wanted to create legislation full stop.
Speaker 1: They both wanted to make their mark, they wanted to
Speaker 1: pass some laws, but at this particular time in American
Speaker 1: history where it was really hard to do that because
Speaker 1: partisan politics were any vicious at the time. I think
Speaker 1: they were gentle as a kitten compared to today's politics,
Speaker 1: but at the time it was considered pretty brutal, and
Speaker 1: that meant there was very little chance to get agreement
Speaker 1: across the aisle. Republicans at the time controlled both the
Speaker 1: House and the Senate. In Congress in the United States
Speaker 1: are our Congress is divided up into two branches, the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives and the Senate. And a Democrat was president,
Speaker 1: so president and a Republican Congress, and they figured. These
Speaker 1: two people figured that their best chance at making an
Speaker 1: impact was to find a topic that was so new,
Speaker 1: so cutting edge that neither party had actually formed an
Speaker 1: opinion about it. Yet the Internet was a perfect target.
Speaker 1: And this, my friends, drives me bonkers because it points
Speaker 1: out that the writing of section to thirty didn't begin
Speaker 1: with politicians identifying an issue and then finding a way
Speaker 1: to solve it. Instead, it was a case of a
Speaker 1: couple of politicians trying to figure out what sort of problem,
Speaker 1: any problem, could they find where they could potentially tackle
Speaker 1: it and get their names on some legislation. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: probably being a little unfair, but it is sort of
Speaker 1: the reality of politics, and from a practical standpoint, I
Speaker 1: get it. But it's also kind of disillusioning to me.
Speaker 1: The pair determined that they would have a decent chance
Speaker 1: at proposing legislation that would protect online services from being
Speaker 1: sued for the content that other people were posting to
Speaker 1: those services, plus give the services the freedom to moderate
Speaker 1: content without fear of being sued for that. Either. The
Speaker 1: Internet was so new and the potential was so huge
Speaker 1: that they felt that this was a pretty good bet,
Speaker 1: so they drafted out a proposed piece of legislation that
Speaker 1: they called the Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act. It
Speaker 1: would ultimately have as its core principle the following quote.
Speaker 1: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall
Speaker 1: be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information
Speaker 1: provided by another information content provider. End quote. Now. In addition,
Speaker 1: the piece has what has been called the good faith section,
Speaker 1: which states that platforms will not be held liable for
Speaker 1: quote any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict
Speaker 1: access to or availability of material that the provider or
Speaker 1: user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing,
Speaker 1: or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.
Speaker 1: End quote. Now when we come back, we'll learn more
Speaker 1: about what this actually means from a practical sense. But
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break. So on the face
Speaker 1: of it, Section two thirty is fairly simple. You cannot
Speaker 1: hold someone or thing, in the case of a platform,
Speaker 1: as the person responsible for what someone else or something
Speaker 1: else says on that platform. So that applies to the
Speaker 1: services and the users. If I'm on a forum and
Speaker 1: I'm making an argument for a certain point of view
Speaker 1: and someone else joins them with libelious accusations about a
Speaker 1: third person, it would be unreasonable to hold me accountable
Speaker 1: for that other person's words. Right, I didn't say the
Speaker 1: libelous thing, why would I be responsible for it. I
Speaker 1: might have started the discussion thread, I might have initiated
Speaker 1: the conversation, But if I didn't actually say anything libelous,
Speaker 1: then I shouldn't be held responsible. Right. Well, that same protection,
Speaker 1: according to this legislation, would apply to online platforms. In addition,
Speaker 1: the platforms would be able to make their own moderation
Speaker 1: policies and not be held liable if the platform removed
Speaker 1: something that would otherwise be constitutionally protected. So, in other words,
Speaker 1: if Facebook removed a post because it violated a Facebook standard,
Speaker 1: even if that post would otherwise be protected constitutionally, Facebook
Speaker 1: would not be held liable as long as that removal
Speaker 1: was done in good faith. Now, in at the time
Speaker 1: that Cox and Widen were putting together their proposal in
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives, there was another piece of legislation
Speaker 1: under consideration that aimed at the issue of pornography online.
Speaker 1: But that was taking place over in the US Senate,
Speaker 1: and this piece tried to treat online content in a
Speaker 1: way similar to how the US government regulates content on
Speaker 1: TV and on radio broadcasts. There was a growing concern
Speaker 1: about the availability the accessibility of pornographic and obscene material.
Speaker 1: Obscenity in this case would fall under a pretty conservative definition,
Speaker 1: like you know, kind of like beauty, obscenity is in
Speaker 1: the eye of the beholder. It's one of those things
Speaker 1: that you know it when you see it. That's kind
Speaker 1: of the famous quote in US history. But the proposed
Speaker 1: legislation would criminalize the act of exposing those under eighteen
Speaker 1: to obscene or pornographic materials online. Now, I should say
Speaker 1: it covered instances in which the age of the recipient
Speaker 1: or at least they're under eighteen status would have to
Speaker 1: be known to the person or entity sending the material
Speaker 1: for this to be relevant. The proposed legislation went a
Speaker 1: bit further than that too, with sections related to speech
Speaker 1: that is indecent but not obscene. Again, really weird gray
Speaker 1: area territory here, but the language raised some concerns among
Speaker 1: civil liberties organizations, so people made some pretty strong arguments
Speaker 1: against this Senate version of the idea. For example, in
Speaker 1: the medical industry, there's terminology that some people might define
Speaker 1: as indecent that's absolutely critical for legitimate medical communication in
Speaker 1: clear terms, So sites that provide useful information for sensitive
Speaker 1: topics like educating people about sexually transmitted diseases or resources
Speaker 1: for people who are in the g b t Q
Speaker 1: plus communities, all that could be at risk if you
Speaker 1: allowed this kind of legislation to go forward. So Ron
Speaker 1: Wyden and Chris Cox were positioning their proposal in the
Speaker 1: House of Representatives as kind of an alternative to the
Speaker 1: approach that was being talked about in the Senate. They
Speaker 1: suggested that online platforms have the ability to moderate content
Speaker 1: on their sites without the risk of being held liable
Speaker 1: for the stuff that people and other parties were posting
Speaker 1: to those sites, And according to Kasaf, their idea met
Speaker 1: with no resistance. In fact, barely anyone even noticed. In
Speaker 1: the United States, the way Congress creates new laws requires
Speaker 1: both the House of Representatives and the Senate to vote
Speaker 1: on the legislation and approve it before sending that piece
Speaker 1: on to the President to be signed into law or
Speaker 1: potentially vetoed. In a case where both the House and
Speaker 1: the Senate are working on something similar but distinct as
Speaker 1: far as legislation goes, those two versions have to be
Speaker 1: hashed out in committee to create a more unified approach.
Speaker 1: Both the Communications Decency Act out of the Senate and
Speaker 1: what would become Section to thirty in the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives would ultimately be lumped in with the overall discussions
Speaker 1: of what would become the Telecommunications Act of NIX. Most
Speaker 1: of Congress was really focused on the other elements of
Speaker 1: the Telecommunications Act. The stuff that related to telephone companies
Speaker 1: and telephone infrastructure and cable companies and the Internet portions
Speaker 1: were more of an afterthought. It was so new that
Speaker 1: a lot of people weren't really thinking about that. They
Speaker 1: were thinking, no, the futures and long distance phone calls,
Speaker 1: Gosh darn't it. And so both the c d A
Speaker 1: which had support due to it being positioned as a
Speaker 1: piece of legislation that was advocating for family values, which, boy,
Speaker 1: was that a big, big point of discussion in the nineties.
Speaker 1: And then Section to thirty, which was positioned as protecting
Speaker 1: new and a vulnerable industry. Both of them made it through.
Speaker 1: So in the end, the language that would become Section
Speaker 1: to thirty and the alternative proposal which would become the
Speaker 1: online portions of the Communications Decency Act would be bound
Speaker 1: together to form kind of a vultron like construction of
Speaker 1: online policy. Now, the Telecommunications Act is enormous. It's a
Speaker 1: beast of a law, covering stuff like telephone lines, cable television,
Speaker 1: and more. Section to thirty is just a tiny part
Speaker 1: of that beast. Interestingly, the anti obscenity measures in the
Speaker 1: Communications Decency Act would not stand the test of time.
Speaker 1: Judges would strike down large portions of it, citing issues
Speaker 1: such as vague terminology like indecent and offensive without firm definitions.
Speaker 1: That legislation was open to far too much subjective interpretation
Speaker 1: to be useful. But while a lot of the c
Speaker 1: d A would go by by Section to thirty remained intact,
Speaker 1: so all that obscenity and decency stuff was gone, but
Speaker 1: that section to thirty I idea from Widen and Cox
Speaker 1: was still there. It wasn't brought into question in the
Speaker 1: courts the way the parts of the c d A
Speaker 1: that specifically dealt with indecency online did. But Section to
Speaker 1: thirty went untouched and it was a doozy. So with
Speaker 1: Section to thirty, online services received immunization from liability regarding
Speaker 1: what their users and third parties published. Section to thirty
Speaker 1: means that these entities things like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Google,
Speaker 1: they cannot be held legally responsible for user generated content,
Speaker 1: with only the most minute exceptions, and those most of
Speaker 1: those would come much much later. It's sort of a
Speaker 1: get out of jail free card. Especially in the early
Speaker 1: days when drafting the language, Widen and Cox were careful
Speaker 1: to avoid being too broad. Uh. The idea was that
Speaker 1: outright criminal activities and stuff like copyright infringement wouldn't receive
Speaker 1: full protection under too thirty, but pretty much anything else
Speaker 1: was at least that was the potential for it. Now
Speaker 1: here's the thing about laws. They get tested in the courts.
Speaker 1: Courts are left to interpret and enforce laws. So Congress
Speaker 1: writes the laws. The President approves the laws, but the
Speaker 1: laws are interpreted and enforced in the court system, in
Speaker 1: the judicial system, So the fact that the courts could
Speaker 1: interpret this meant that there was still a question as
Speaker 1: to whether the court would say that Section to thirty
Speaker 1: would mean that online services would have a conditional shield,
Speaker 1: a conditional immunity to liability as long as they did
Speaker 1: operate in good faith, you know, kind of like if
Speaker 1: they were told to remove something because it was illegal
Speaker 1: or harmful, that they then went and did so, and
Speaker 1: then they'd be fine. Or the courts could interpret a
Speaker 1: different way. They could say that the protections are more
Speaker 1: broad and they could give online services complete freedom from
Speaker 1: liability unless an exception were to be applied. And as
Speaker 1: it turned out, the court system leaned toward option number two,
Speaker 1: that broad application approach, and it wasn't done lightly or easily.
Speaker 1: I would love to go into this more, but it
Speaker 1: would take up way too much time, and trust me,
Speaker 1: this episode is going to be a long one. So
Speaker 1: if you want to learn about the legal decisions that
Speaker 1: would codify the extent to which Section to thirty protects
Speaker 1: online services, read Jeff Kossoff's book that I mentioned earlier now.
Speaker 1: When Widen and Cox put this plan together, their concept
Speaker 1: was that these service providers, protected by immunity to legal
Speaker 1: repercussions as far as user generated content is concerned, would
Speaker 1: be freed up to moderate that user generated content as
Speaker 1: much as they needed to. The goal was to create
Speaker 1: a safety structure so that Prodigy or America Online or
Speaker 1: much later, Amazon or Facebook or Google would have the
Speaker 1: freedom to exercise objectionable material off the site without risking
Speaker 1: being seen as a published that has liability like Prodigy
Speaker 1: was a few years earlier. And I've seen this described
Speaker 1: as the sword and shield approach. The shield is that immunity,
Speaker 1: and the sword is that editorial capacity to intervene without
Speaker 1: fear of retribution. But there was a problem. Platforms began
Speaker 1: to adopt a tendency to just rely on the shield part.
Speaker 1: Frequently they did very little to editorialize or to moderate.
Speaker 1: Now this might sound familiar to you. Over the past
Speaker 1: few years, Twitter, for example, has come under fire for
Speaker 1: being reticent when it comes to applying the company's own
Speaker 1: terms of service as far as content goes. Time and again,
Speaker 1: people have cited tweets from various users and asked Twitter's
Speaker 1: management why such examples are allowed to stay on Twitter when,
Speaker 1: but at least what is arguably a reasonable interpretation, those
Speaker 1: tweets violate the code that Twitter says it has in place.
Speaker 1: We've seen this a hunt with certain politicians in particular,
Speaker 1: and it was only recently that Twitter would even flag
Speaker 1: posts from prominent politicians like the President as containing misleading
Speaker 1: information or untruths, and Twitter in no way rushed to
Speaker 1: address this problem. I'll get to why they ultimately did later,
Speaker 1: but spoiler alert, it doesn't really have anything to do
Speaker 1: with Section to thirty. Now. I don't mean to just
Speaker 1: single out Twitter and ignore everyone else, because, as I said,
Speaker 1: it was far more common across the board for platforms
Speaker 1: to take a very hands off approach when it came
Speaker 1: to moderating content. Typically, they only stepped in during particularly
Speaker 1: extreme or blatant abuses of the platform's policies, and not
Speaker 1: always even then. All of this despite that immunity granted
Speaker 1: by Section to thirty. There were a couple of reasons
Speaker 1: for this. One is that, as I mentioned in the
Speaker 1: Facebook algorithm episode that published last week, companies like Facebook
Speaker 1: benefit financially from people being active on their platforms and
Speaker 1: controversial posts generate a lot of action, so you could argue, hey,
Speaker 1: that bad stuff that we would rather not have on
Speaker 1: these platforms, that's making the platforms a lot of money,
Speaker 1: so there's not a lot of financial incentive for them
Speaker 1: to act against it. Second, over the past few years,
Speaker 1: several platforms have emerged that seek to encourage trolling and
Speaker 1: malicious behaviors. Like they're not just hosting it, their whole
Speaker 1: purpose is to be a hot spot for that, and
Speaker 1: they rely on Section to thirty to shield them from
Speaker 1: repercussions because that immunity, at least at first, extended so
Speaker 1: far that even if platform were to distribute or perhaps
Speaker 1: even encourage the distribution of malicious content, it was still
Speaker 1: protected as long as it was not generating the content.
Speaker 1: If it was someone else was using their platform to
Speaker 1: spread terrible stuff, they were still in the clear because
Speaker 1: Section to thirty gave them that protect action. There were
Speaker 1: numerous court cases that challenge this in different ways, including
Speaker 1: ones that would see plaintiffs sup platforms for negligence for
Speaker 1: failing to take down a harmful post after being told
Speaker 1: about it, But early on courts and decided that if
Speaker 1: they found in favor of plaintiffs in these cases, it
Speaker 1: would just represent a work around for Section two thirty,
Speaker 1: and it would essentially invalidate the protections entirely, because all
Speaker 1: it would do is send the message of don't sue
Speaker 1: Twitter for libel, for example, suthe them for negligence. So
Speaker 1: that would mean that you would just have a different
Speaker 1: pathway to go after these platforms, and Section to thirty
Speaker 1: would be meaningless. So the courts decided that was unacceptable,
Speaker 1: and they ruled early on that immunity from liability extended
Speaker 1: beyond stuff like libel. In fact, some of the rulings
Speaker 1: appeared to give online companies even more protection than Chris Cox,
Speaker 1: one of the two original drafters of the law, had
Speaker 1: in mind. He said, it may be that this was
Speaker 1: applied more broadly than we had intended for malicious websites
Speaker 1: and forums. This could mean that if you have a
Speaker 1: particular agenda and a means to launch an online platform,
Speaker 1: you can push your agenda even if it causes harm
Speaker 1: to other people by giving sympathizers. You know people who
Speaker 1: share your philosophy if you give them a place to
Speaker 1: promote their ideology your ideology, as long as you're careful
Speaker 1: not to do it. Yourself, because you're really just providing
Speaker 1: a place for third parties to do it. If you
Speaker 1: start to publish your own words, you no longer have
Speaker 1: protection because you're not acting as a distributor for a
Speaker 1: third party's content, and and that would be fine. So
Speaker 1: we saw it happen a lot. We still do. And
Speaker 1: then third, over the years, the government has steadily chipped
Speaker 1: away bit by bit at that protective shield, with various
Speaker 1: court cases leading judges to interpret exemptions for that immunity
Speaker 1: to liability. And that makes platforms a little less keen
Speaker 1: on editorializing fear of being pulled into one of those exceptions. Now,
Speaker 1: when we come back, I'll talk a bit more about
Speaker 1: the ways that courts have eroded Section to thirty from
Speaker 1: its original and arguably o P status. But first, let's
Speaker 1: take another quick break. All right, guys, you know what,
Speaker 1: I guess it's about time we kind of jumped back
Speaker 1: into the present. So the nineties were fun and all,
Speaker 1: but take off the flannel, stop listening to grunge, forget
Speaker 1: about my so called life for a minute, and let's
Speaker 1: all get back in the time. Everyone back in the
Speaker 1: time machine, you two, all right, I'll push the button
Speaker 1: for the first decade of its existence. Section to thirty
Speaker 1: was kind of like a bulletproof vest for online platforms
Speaker 1: when it came to liability linked to user and third
Speaker 1: party content. There are numerous incredible court cases featuring some
Speaker 1: really sympathetic plaintiffs, you know, people who inarguably suffered hardships
Speaker 1: because of someone sharing harmful or abuse of materials online.
Speaker 1: And the message seemed to be that, at least in
Speaker 1: some cases, there was no real legal recourse for these
Speaker 1: people to seek out justice. If the perpetrator who's publishing
Speaker 1: this harmful information is anonymous, it can be really hard
Speaker 1: to track that person down and hold them accountable for
Speaker 1: what they said online. There are lots of ways that
Speaker 1: people can hide their identity, including ways to hide their
Speaker 1: IP address, which means that in some cases it would
Speaker 1: just be impossible to figure out who was ultimately responsible.
Speaker 1: And Section to thirty would shield the platforms from legal action,
Speaker 1: which meant that the victim would have no real options
Speaker 1: and that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Now,
Speaker 1: before I get into details, I do want to say
Speaker 1: that I acknowledged this is a very tricky situation. On
Speaker 1: the one hand, it seems unreasonable to hold a platform
Speaker 1: accountable for something that it didn't generate. It wasn't responsible
Speaker 1: for creating it. So if I pop onto Twitter and
Speaker 1: I post harmful lies about you, it's not Twitter's fault
Speaker 1: that I did that, right, It's my fault, and Twitter
Speaker 1: should be protected from being unfairly lumped in with me
Speaker 1: on that matter. Online platforms serve millions or even billions
Speaker 1: of people, and there's just no way to filter every
Speaker 1: single post from every single person to make sure that
Speaker 1: there's nothing harmful there. But on the other hand, let's
Speaker 1: say I post something that is demonstrably false and harmful
Speaker 1: directed towards you, and you alert the platform I've used
Speaker 1: to this problem. If the platform fails to act to
Speaker 1: take down that post or perhaps even go further, maybe
Speaker 1: ban me from using the service, then doesn't that suggest
Speaker 1: the platform itself should be held accountable. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: allowing a wrong to continue. Is there no responsibility to
Speaker 1: prevent harm? And if there isn't, what makes the Internet
Speaker 1: different from other things that law covers Because other areas
Speaker 1: of the world that you know, in the legal world
Speaker 1: in the United States, they don't enjoy this protection. But
Speaker 1: it's a really complex issue, and it reminds us that
Speaker 1: you can have a lot of things that are really important,
Speaker 1: like freedom of speech or a right to privacy or
Speaker 1: an expectation of security, and you can have those come
Speaker 1: into conflict with one another, and it ultimately means that
Speaker 1: whatever decision you make, it's not going to be satisfying
Speaker 1: to everybody. Starting it. Around two thousand eight, courts began
Speaker 1: to rule that Section two thirty wasn't a perfect force
Speaker 1: field protecting online services from all liability. In California, a
Speaker 1: pair of fair housing nonprofit organizations brought a lawsuit against
Speaker 1: a website called roommates dot Com. They said that the
Speaker 1: site was encouraging users to post and sort housing opportunities
Speaker 1: in a discriminatory way, and that violated federal and state law.
Speaker 1: It is illegal to advertise housing with a language that
Speaker 1: indicates preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, sex, familial status,
Speaker 1: and that kind of thing. But roommates dot Com allowed
Speaker 1: users to fill out fields on all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: You could create a profile where you included things like
Speaker 1: your gender, your familial you know status, your sexual orientation,
Speaker 1: all this kind of stuff, and some people on the
Speaker 1: site started posting discriminatory notices saying things like, you know,
Speaker 1: essentially only white people need to apply that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: Terrible stuff. Now, the lawyer for roommates dot Com argued
Speaker 1: that the site was protected under Section to thirty, but
Speaker 1: the plaintiffs lawyer said, hang on roommates is totally setting
Speaker 1: all this up because it has people fill in that
Speaker 1: information in the first place. It asks people to give
Speaker 1: that that those details. Now, the case was initially dismissed
Speaker 1: in a lower court, but an appeals court would take
Speaker 1: it into further consideration, and that three judge court ultimately
Speaker 1: decided that with a very narrow focus, roommates dot Com
Speaker 1: was liable for asking questions that were allegedly discriminatory, but
Speaker 1: that it was not liable for the content that users
Speaker 1: were writing in the site, like under additional comments. And
Speaker 1: it's a fine distinction, but it marked a small weakness
Speaker 1: in two thirties armor. Moreover, a subsequent hearing found that
Speaker 1: a website develops content if it quote contributes materially to
Speaker 1: the alleged illegality of the conduct end quote, which would
Speaker 1: mean in those cases the service would no longer be
Speaker 1: a simple publisher or distributor. It would be a developer
Speaker 1: of content, and thus to thirty protection would not apply.
Speaker 1: Subsequent court cases reinforce the idea that if a website
Speaker 1: quote unquote materially contributes to the illegality of material posted
Speaker 1: to that site by third parties, it would not or
Speaker 1: may not qualify for Section to thirty immunity. So the
Speaker 1: parameters of protection began to change a little bit. Should
Speaker 1: a court find that a site had not just allowed
Speaker 1: users to post a legal material, but to somehow be
Speaker 1: active in that process beyond just being a publication platform,
Speaker 1: then it could be held accountable. But while there were
Speaker 1: new parameters, they weren't strictly defined, and courts would have
Speaker 1: to interpret specific cases within the context of this kind
Speaker 1: of vague notion of restrictions to immunity. A subsequent case
Speaker 1: brought against Yahoo by a woman named Cecilia Barnes would
Speaker 1: further complicate matters. Barnes's ex boyfriend created a fake profile
Speaker 1: on Yahoo, claiming that the profile will longed to Cecilia,
Speaker 1: and he included nude pictures of Barnes that he had
Speaker 1: taken without her consent, which is truly horrifying. And then
Speaker 1: he also included her work contact information and before long
Speaker 1: men were showing up and trying to contact Cecilia, and
Speaker 1: that must have come as a real shock to her.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how disruptive that had to have been
Speaker 1: to her life. Cecilia found a link on Yahoo that
Speaker 1: explained what people should do in the event that they
Speaker 1: wanted to claim a profile that purported to represent them
Speaker 1: was in fact a fake, and it involves sending an
Speaker 1: assigned statement and a copy of their ID to Yahoo
Speaker 1: via snail mail. So not exactly the fastest or most
Speaker 1: streamlined of processes, but Barnes went ahead and did it,
Speaker 1: but the Yahoo profile stayed up. Barnes had heard nothing
Speaker 1: back from Yahoo, so she tried it again a couple
Speaker 1: of times and still didn't receive any reply. Then she
Speaker 1: was scheduled to give an interview on local television and
Speaker 1: talk about her experience, when miraculously, a Yahoo representative actually
Speaker 1: reached out to her. Now that representative was the director
Speaker 1: of communications at Yahoo, and the director of communications promised
Speaker 1: Cecilia that she would take a fact request from Cecilia
Speaker 1: over to the proper division by hand and make certain
Speaker 1: that the profile was removed. And the profile was not
Speaker 1: removed it stayed up for another couple of months. So
Speaker 1: Barnes goes and sues Yahoo. Now I'm going to skip
Speaker 1: most of the court process, But ultimately the case hinged
Speaker 1: on the fact that a Yahoo representative had made a
Speaker 1: promise to do something but then didn't do it, and
Speaker 1: that the court found was outside the protections of section
Speaker 1: two thirty. Ironically, if Yahoo had not reached out at all,
Speaker 1: if the company had just allowed things to keep on
Speaker 1: going as they were going with the fake profile up
Speaker 1: and they just never replied to Barnes, Section to thirty
Speaker 1: would still have applied to Yahoo. It was only because
Speaker 1: the representative had promised to do something and did not
Speaker 1: follow through that the company was found liable. Now, if
Speaker 1: y'all who had actually pulled down that profile, there also
Speaker 1: would have been nothing to talk about here. So if
Speaker 1: they had done what they said they were going to do,
Speaker 1: there also wouldn't have been a problem. So literally, Yah,
Speaker 1: who went down the one pathway where there still would
Speaker 1: be liability. Barnes actually ultimately withdrew her lawsuit before it
Speaker 1: would go through the entire court process, but that earlier
Speaker 1: finding in court would hold and it would oddly discourage
Speaker 1: platforms from taking a more active role in moderation, because
Speaker 1: if a site did promise to remove something and then
Speaker 1: they didn't do it in a timely enough manner, they
Speaker 1: could be held liable for that because they didn't carry
Speaker 1: through on a promise. If they did nothing at all,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be liable. They beat protected under section to thirty.
Speaker 1: And I don't know about you, but doing nothing tends
Speaker 1: to be easier than doing something. I mean, it's even
Speaker 1: easier than promising to do something but not doing it.
Speaker 1: Just not doing anything at all, it's still the easiest
Speaker 1: thing to do. So in a way, these rulings that
Speaker 1: found limitations to two thirty reinforce the behaviors of companies
Speaker 1: that were reluctant to moderate the content on their platforms.
Speaker 1: More recently, cases have been brought to light that section
Speaker 1: to can play a role in suppressing voices of marginalized
Speaker 1: and vulnerable population. So, in other words, a piece of
Speaker 1: legislation tied to the spirit of free speech could in
Speaker 1: itself be suppressing the free speech of others. For example,
Speaker 1: while there are plenty of cases of online harassment campaigns
Speaker 1: for all sorts of people, women represent a disproportionate number
Speaker 1: of victims of online harassment. Women, particularly young women, encounter
Speaker 1: sexualized online abuse are more frequently than men do, and
Speaker 1: so there is a real issue of Section to thirty
Speaker 1: providing immunity to platforms that house communities who are perpetuating
Speaker 1: an abusive set of behaviors, which is not great and
Speaker 1: other vulnerable populations face this too. We see it in
Speaker 1: terms of race and sexual orientation, religious affiliations, political affiliations,
Speaker 1: and more. And that harassment can have the effect of
Speaker 1: silencing the people who are being harassed, So it is
Speaker 1: a form of suppression of the freedom of speech. So
Speaker 1: courts have whittled back a bit of the Section to
Speaker 1: thirty protection and we have seen a bit more of
Speaker 1: a move towards moderating content on platforms. However, this is
Speaker 1: not out of a fear of legal liability. Instead, it's
Speaker 1: because of consumer demand. We've seen platforms like Facebook and
Speaker 1: YouTube and Twitter get more involved in content moderation, not
Speaker 1: because the government was, you know, not going to provide
Speaker 1: them immunity. The immunity, the illegal immunity was still there.
Speaker 1: It's because users were demanding it and a failure to
Speaker 1: act could have resulted in users dumping the services. And
Speaker 1: these companies could still operate with an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: legal protection, but that doesn't save them from the consequences
Speaker 1: of people abandoning their their business. They need those customers.
Speaker 1: And then in Congress passed a bill that amended section
Speaker 1: to thirty. It removed protections for any site that knowingly
Speaker 1: contributes to or supports sex trafficking. While the goal of
Speaker 1: eliminating the support of sex trafficking is a really good one,
Speaker 1: it's one we absolutely need to focus on. The actual
Speaker 1: bill itself would receive some criticism, not for its purpose
Speaker 1: but in its creation, like in its wording. So law
Speaker 1: professor Eric Goldman wrote that quote As a result, liability
Speaker 1: based on knowledge pushes internet companies to adopt one of
Speaker 1: two extreme positions moderate all content perfectly and accept the
Speaker 1: legal risk for any errors, or don't moderate content at all,
Speaker 1: as a way of negating knowledge. So when you think
Speaker 1: of it that way, if if the law says if
Speaker 1: you know that this is happening, you're obligated to stop it,
Speaker 1: or if not, you're going to be held liable, then
Speaker 1: that also opens up the opportunity to quote unquote not
Speaker 1: know it is happening. It creates an incentive to not
Speaker 1: get involved, which is like the earlier problems that I
Speaker 1: mentioned in this episode. But you know more, but any
Speaker 1: system designed by humans is going to be imperfect, right,
Speaker 1: And that brings us up to this year where we're
Speaker 1: seeing various politicians and others calling for an end or
Speaker 1: at least an amendment to Section to thirty. President Trump
Speaker 1: appears angry that Twitter, for example, has flagged many of
Speaker 1: his tweets as containing misleading information. He has gone so
Speaker 1: far as to call Section to thirty a threat to
Speaker 1: national security, which echoes something that was actually argued back
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies that related to the publication of
Speaker 1: the Pentagon papers. Uh, that tactic didn't work then, and
Speaker 1: I don't think it's really gonna work now. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't help that the root of the problem, which is misinformation,
Speaker 1: is really to blame here. There's also and a misinterpretation
Speaker 1: of Section to thirty going on here because Trump has
Speaker 1: argued that platforms must be neutral in their approach, which
Speaker 1: just isn't true. It's not part of the original law
Speaker 1: at all, Nor is that an interpretation that's been supported
Speaker 1: in the numerous court cases that have shaped the practice
Speaker 1: of Section two thirty. Nowhere does it state that a
Speaker 1: platform has to be neutral. In fact, in some of
Speaker 1: the most famous cases in which Section to thirty protections
Speaker 1: were upheld, it involved content platforms that were most assuredly
Speaker 1: not new neutral, and in at least a few cases,
Speaker 1: they were arguably downright maliciously biased. Now last year, in
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, Senator Josh Holly, a Republican from Missouri, introduced
Speaker 1: legislation that would require any online service with more than
Speaker 1: thirty million US users or three million users globally, or
Speaker 1: with a revenue of at least five hundred million dollars
Speaker 1: would be required to take a politically neutral stance when
Speaker 1: it came to moderating content in order to qualify for
Speaker 1: Section to thirty protection. So the implication here is that
Speaker 1: the platforms have a bias against a particular political philosophy.
Speaker 1: In this case, he's arguing that they are biased against conservatives,
Speaker 1: and therefore when these platforms moderate content, they tend to
Speaker 1: do so disproportionately to the detriment of conservative voices. Not
Speaker 1: many people are taking this particular proposal seriously because it
Speaker 1: would probably get torn to shreds under First Amendment arguments
Speaker 1: in court. It wouldn't hold up to scrutiny at all.
Speaker 1: Other proposals aimed to follow the path of the teen
Speaker 1: Amendment that covered sex trafficking, with the idea that you
Speaker 1: could do the same thing with other exceptions to the
Speaker 1: section to thirty protection. But one potential problem with that
Speaker 1: approach is that it creates a real mess as far
Speaker 1: as what to thirty does and doesn't apply to, and
Speaker 1: it could potentially reach a point where it's harder to
Speaker 1: tell under what conditions platforms have protection versus the conditions
Speaker 1: where they don't, and it would place a very heavy
Speaker 1: burden on the court system to determine through various lawsuits
Speaker 1: if the defendants, that being the platforms, had met the
Speaker 1: legal burden to qualify for two thirty protection. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, that's not ideal. Either. Then there's the possibility
Speaker 1: that Congress will just repeal TO thirty totally, which would
Speaker 1: have been terrifying to companies back in the nineties when
Speaker 1: they were still trying to establish themselves. But frankly, to
Speaker 1: thirty protection is an im American thing. In other places
Speaker 1: like Europe, these broad protections don't exist in that form,
Speaker 1: and yet social networking platforms forums that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: They still operate in those places now, granted they have
Speaker 1: to do so while following a more strict set of rules,
Speaker 1: and it's a pain in the butt. But we should
Speaker 1: also remember that the big tech companies that this would
Speaker 1: affect are also heavily involved in mobbying efforts in politics.
Speaker 1: So how likely is it that we're going to see
Speaker 1: section to thirty completely repealed? I honestly don't know, but
Speaker 1: I think it would be a steep, uphill battle because
Speaker 1: you've got a lot of money from these tech companies
Speaker 1: influencing a lot of politicians. According to a great piece
Speaker 1: in Ours Technica titled Section to thirty, the Internet Law
Speaker 1: Politicians Love to hate, explained a law professor at the
Speaker 1: University of Maryland named Danielle Citron, and researcher Ben Wits
Speaker 1: from the Brookings Institution suggests that two thirty should be
Speaker 1: amended so that the platforms receive immunity only if they
Speaker 1: ensure quote reasonable steps to prevent or address unlawful uses
Speaker 1: of its services end quote, leaving a lot of that
Speaker 1: language up for interpretation in the courts. So the idea
Speaker 1: being that you should be fine, you should be immune
Speaker 1: as long as you can prove that whenever bad stuff
Speaker 1: is happening on your platform, you're doing your best to
Speaker 1: stop it. Um So, in cases where a platform was notified, hey,
Speaker 1: some other user has published my private information on your
Speaker 1: platform without my permission. Take it down, they would actually
Speaker 1: go and take it down right now. Section to applies
Speaker 1: to those companies, whether they take anything down or not,
Speaker 1: and that has led to some pretty tragic circumstances in
Speaker 1: the lives of people who have been affected by malicious
Speaker 1: users of various services out there. Now, as I said,
Speaker 1: this is a complicated subject. There is a real need
Speaker 1: to protect freedom of speech because without it, if companies
Speaker 1: can be held liable for everything that users right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna see a disappearance of all of those things that
Speaker 1: we take for granted. Now, I mean, social networks would
Speaker 1: be totally different. We wouldn't be able to leave reviews
Speaker 1: because any company that didn't like a review could end
Speaker 1: up suing the marketplace for hosting that review. It would
Speaker 1: be a huge mess. So we do need something there.
Speaker 1: At the same time, we have to address that the
Speaker 1: rules as they state right now do disproportionately affect vulnerable
Speaker 1: populations in a negative way. And we need to fix that,
Speaker 1: and we've got to figure out how to give more
Speaker 1: incentives for platforms to take an active role in moderating
Speaker 1: the content that appear on those platforms. And to me,
Speaker 1: that's that's a tough tough nut to crack because there's
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of financial incentive to do it unless,
Speaker 1: as we've seen in there's a thread of people leaving
Speaker 1: those platforms. Otherwise there's more of a financial incentive to
Speaker 1: keep it up there. So it's a complicated situation. But
Speaker 1: I hope that this helps you have an understanding of
Speaker 1: what section to thirty is, what it was intended to do,
Speaker 1: and what it actually has done, because, as we know,
Speaker 1: often we will create a construct planning for it to
Speaker 1: do one thing, only to see it go off and
Speaker 1: rampage through the village and you know, throw a little
Speaker 1: girl in the river. That's a Frankenstein reference, although I
Speaker 1: think it might have been a little boy in the book.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I haven't writen a long time. Anyway.
Speaker 1: That wraps up this discussion of section to thirty on
Speaker 1: tech stuff. Hope you guys learn something. I hope you
Speaker 1: have heard my dog shaking his head in the background.
Speaker 1: If you have any suggestions for future topics of tech stuff,
Speaker 1: reach out to me. You can do so on Twitter,
Speaker 1: where unless they start moderating your comments, I'll see it
Speaker 1: and they handle for that is text stuff H s W.
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Y. Text Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.