>If you held YC liable for its user content it would be broadly alright because YC has very very good moderation and for the most part bad stuff gets taken care of very quickly.
If you held YC liable for its user content, HN would (and quickly) no longer allow user comments.
Why? Because YC doesn't want the liability. Doing so would likely kill off most sites that allow user-generated content or, at the very least, cause them to stop accepting such content.
Ironically, the folks who would have the best ability to fight the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of lawsuits filed every week would be the ones that have the deepest pockets (Alphabet, Meta).
Everyone else would likely just fold unless they had a few million in cash they can use for frivolous lawsuits.
And that's the point. Section 230 forces plaintiffs to sue the authors of such content, not those who host that content.
There's a lot of nuance with that, as the algorithmic feeds and showing content (allegedly) based on previous user interactions could be argued to be "authorship" of a sort.
The arguments on both sides are nuanced and complex -- based on ideas about freedom of expression and private property rights.
Personally, I think that, on the whole, Section 230 does more good than harm. But I also believe there is room for disagreement among rational, good faith interlocutors.
If you held YC liable for its user content, HN would (and quickly) no longer allow user comments.
Why? Because YC doesn't want the liability. Doing so would likely kill off most sites that allow user-generated content or, at the very least, cause them to stop accepting such content.
Ironically, the folks who would have the best ability to fight the dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of lawsuits filed every week would be the ones that have the deepest pockets (Alphabet, Meta).
Everyone else would likely just fold unless they had a few million in cash they can use for frivolous lawsuits.
And that's the point. Section 230 forces plaintiffs to sue the authors of such content, not those who host that content.
There's a lot of nuance with that, as the algorithmic feeds and showing content (allegedly) based on previous user interactions could be argued to be "authorship" of a sort.
The arguments on both sides are nuanced and complex -- based on ideas about freedom of expression and private property rights.
Personally, I think that, on the whole, Section 230 does more good than harm. But I also believe there is room for disagreement among rational, good faith interlocutors.