On Sun, Jan 10, 2021 at 8:13 PM John Levine <johnl@iecc.com> wrote:
In article <CAP-guGXi6wrRpCMu9CBC-GN+qB9GvRG9pvbNp+e7DTvo66KMzA@mail.gmail.com> you write:
With private organizations it gets much more complicated. No organization is compelled to publish anything. But then section 230 of the DMCA comes in and says: if you exercise editorial control over what's published then you are liable for any unlawful material which is published. ...
Sigh. This is false. 100% false. It is the exact opposite of what 47 USC 230 really says. Also, it's the CDA, not the DMCA.
Hi John, I conflated some of the DMCA safe harbor stuff with the CDA publisher stuff. My bad. I stand by the gist of what I said which, while imprecise, is consistent with what you posted. The common law precedent is that publishers are liable for what they publish. Section 230 carves out the rules for when an online service is not a publisher (which is decidedly not "always"), and while I don't have the cases on the tip of my tongue, there have been some real post-CDA head scratchers where a court decided that an online service exercised sufficient control of the content to have made itself a publisher. That said, I encourage folks to refer to your message for the excellent quotes and references. Regards, Bill Herrin -- Hire me! https://bill.herrin.us/resume/