Since their inception, all social networks have been protected under US Law by a disposition called Section 230. Quartz’s update Section 230 provides quite a comprehensive coverage of the issue. Basically, social networks operate under a status of content distributors, not publishers thus not taking any responsibility in the content itself – thus preventing any lawsuit based on content. While this contributed immensely to their development, as they have grown we can observe that this cannot apply any longer, and social networks have had to take measures by themselves to monitor and regulate their content.
There are many voices now to reconsider whether this section should continue to apply to the major internet content providers. Section 230 states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” In reality, social networks are not just distributing, they also produce some content, and decide routinely which content to put first and visible, which in itself is a gesture almost akin to producing a meta-content. Because of their ubiquity, they need to regulate the content they show. De facto, the amount of content regulation they enforce nowadays proves they can’t be satisfied to be just distributors, they are inching closer to being publishers, that have to have an eye on the content they broadcast.
It won’t be easy to change it: “Curiously, some Big Tech companies have come around to support efforts to weaken Section 230. Facebook and Google, for example, were early supporters of the bill that eventually became FOSTA and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called for more reform. These small concessions could head off more onerous regulation down the road. But the more cynical read is that the biggest Big Tech companies would gain an advantage over smaller competitors who lack the resources to navigate the legal morass that would follow the repeal of Section 230.“
It will be quite interesting to watch this change unfold in the next few months, and what impact this will have on social network content and governance. At least the legislator understands large social networks cannot be considered as neutral distributors, and some liability will be enforced on the content in the near future.
