Probably because there's too much of an inferential gap between anarchy-libertarians (who have discussed this extensively) and the rest of the hn userbase (who seem to have forgotten that section 230 of the CDA has been criticized for allowing companies to legally select which viewpoints to promote while shielding them from liability for promoting harmful messages).
There's also the notion that in a free society, companies shouldn't have the freedom to discriminate on the basis of someone's politics. People who oppose discrimination on the basis of certain protected categories have the opportunity to explain why political views are not one of those categories.
So yes there's a discussion to be had but its not easy to get off the ground floor on politically charged issues unless people have a well grounded and mutual understanding of the basics and demonstrate that understanding.
> allowing companies to legally select which viewpoints to promote while shielding them from liability for promoting harmful messages
This is a spurious criticism. Websites are already liable for any illegal content they host if they don't make a good-faith effort to have it removed quickly. Fake news isn't illegal, this isn't something that would be improved by rescinding section 230.
> There's also the notion that in a free society, companies shouldn't have the freedom to discriminate on the basis of someone's politics
This has no practical meaning because literally anything can be framed as political issue. For example, the efficacy of masks and vaccines.
> People who oppose discrimination on the basis of certain protected categories have the opportunity to explain why political views are not one of those categories.
Protected classes are the few exceptions to the rule, the burden is on you to explain why politics should be added to the list.
> This is a spurious criticism. Websites are already liable for any illegal content they host if they don't make a good-faith effort to have it removed quickly. Fake news isn't illegal, this isn't something that would be improved by rescinding section 230.
I'm not suggesting that all harmful content is illegal. I'm saying they can choose to spread baseless conspiracy theories when it benefits them with no legal consequence, but they can remove anything they like because they don't want to promote it while calling it a baseless conspiracy theory, also with no consequence. This is an extremely influential position that is created by law and gives them extraordinary latitude at shaping perceptions.
> This has no practical meaning because literally anything can be framed as political issue. For example, the efficacy of masks and vaccines.
Well those are political issues. I agree that "literally anything" can be framed as political, I don't agree that my criticism lacks practical meaning as a result. We don't like people discriminating on the basis of certain categories. I think political opinions are one of the categories. You may not, we can discuss this.
> Protected classes are the few exceptions to the rule, the burden is on you to explain why politics should be added to the list.
Gladly. Its unfair for people to discriminate on the basis of race, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, religion. Because we think that all of those are aspects of being human that people shouldn't be punished for by refusal to hire or sell to. Political leanings are often matters of conscience, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or sex. Political freedom involves the freedom to hold unpopular opinions. Permitting someone to discriminate their provision of services on the basis of someone's gay marriage is just as offensive as permitting them to discriminate on the basis of someone's support for the legality of gay marriage.
> I'm saying they can choose to spread baseless conspiracy theories when it benefits them with no legal consequence
This is akin to you saying "they choose to spread cat pictures when it benefits them with no legal consequences". Conspiracy theories, like cat pictures, are perfectly legal, there's no reason why there should be legal consequences for allowing them on the site.
> they can remove anything they like because they don't want to promote it while calling it a baseless conspiracy theory, also with no consequence
Yes, when you own a website you can pick and choose what appears on the site, that's just how property rights work. If I decide I want to create a social network that adheres to a policy of explicit partisan bias I should have that right, the users will decide if that is something they want to use.
> This is an extremely influential position that is created by law and gives them extraordinary latitude at shaping perceptions.
You can't legislate influence, it's not something that anybody owns, it's freely given by individual users and can be trivially revoked at any time. This dynamic is exactly the reason why YouTube is so sensitive to social issues, their influence among target demographics will suffer if they fail to appease certain values. Consider the recent collapse of Fox News' influence as another example of this effect on the opposite side of the spectrum.
> Well those are political issues. I agree that "literally anything" can be framed as political, I don't agree that my criticism lacks practical meaning as a result*
Yet they're not inherently political, the efficacy of masks and vaccines are well established from a medical perspective. The reason why it lacks practical meaning is because there is no agreed upon definition for what meets the standard of political.
> race, sex, gender, marital status, sexual orientation, religion.
The protected classes are discrete personal qualities of the individual, "political leaning" is an abstract idea without clear boundaries. You might as well say "I'm against discrimination of people based on their ideas", the concept is just too nebulous to be meaningful.
> This is akin to you saying "they choose to spread cat pictures when it benefits them with no legal consequences". Conspiracy theories, like cat pictures, are perfectly legal, there's no reason why there should be legal consequences for allowing them on the site.
The problem is the undue influence created by the juxtaposition of the circumstances that you have chosen to respond to separately.
> Yes, when you own a website you can pick and choose what appears on the site, that's just how property rights work.
What if the ISP decides not to serve your website to people who want to visit it? Is that also how property rights work? What if the electric company decides not to sell you electricity? Is that how property rights work?
> You can't legislate influence, it's not something that anybody owns, it's freely given by individual users and can be trivially revoked at any time. This dynamic is exactly the reason why YouTube is so sensitive to social issues, their influence among target demographics will suffer if they fail to appease certain values. Consider the recent collapse of Fox News' influence as another example of this effect on the opposite side of the spectrum.
You can absolutely consider whether you're creating circumstances that put a small number of people in positions of disproportionate influence when you write legislation to regulate what they are and are not liable for.
> Yet they're not inherently political, the efficacy of masks and vaccines are well established from a medical perspective.
Medicine is also political and the efficacy of vaccines is not a thing that is established once and for all, each vaccine has to be tested to determine its effectiveness and those tests, how they are performed, and their outcomes are all inherently political. For example, see the allegations against Merck that they lied about the effectiveness of their MMR vaccine.
The effectiveness and allocation of masks is also political, look to earlier this year when the CDC recommended against wearing of masks by the general public.
> The reason why it lacks practical meaning is because there is no agreed upon definition for what meets the standard of political.
Thats not a barrier to practical meaning, it just means that anything could be found to be political. For example, two people could bring similar actions in court and one be rejected because there was no evidence that it was in fact political, whereas the other could be accepted because there was evidence that it was in fact political.
> The protected classes are discrete personal qualities of the individual, "political leaning" is an abstract idea without clear boundaries. You might as well say "I'm against discrimination of people based on their ideas", the concept is just too nebulous to be meaningful.
I am against discrimination of people based on their ideas, and I suppose we'll have to disagree and the meaningfulness of this concept.
I think my earlier example is clear:
>> Permitting someone to discriminate their provision of services on the basis of someone's gay marriage is just as offensive as permitting them to discriminate on the basis of someone's support for the legality of gay marriage.
The fact that people could conceivably disagree on whether a given issue is political and therefore disagree about whether it is a prohibited basis upon which to discriminate is immaterial. Discrimination suits already deal with this issue.
When we talk about a "free" society, we are talking about government intervention. We don't mean that every radio station has to play my song, every tv station has to play my show, and every billboard has to show my message.
You would think that with such a right-wing userbase, the aspect of Youtube's private property would emerge in the conversation. But that's not the issue, instead, the "CeNsOrShIp" crowd is more concerned about having white supremacist ideas widely marginalized in polite society.
> When we talk about a "free" society, we are talking about government intervention.
I'm not sure how to respond to this without venturing into semantics. When we talk about a free society, we are talking about the freedom of the people who make up that society to pursue their own interests and livelihood without oppression or undue interference. It doesn't make it ok to aggress upon or oppress people if you somehow define the perpetrator of that aggression or oppression to be "not government."
> We don't mean that every radio station has to play my song, every tv station has to play my show, and every billboard has to show my message.
However we do mean that everyone have access to the airwaves and that everyone have access to telecom infrastructure and other utilities. The reason section 230 of the CDA is at issue here is that companies like youtube are legally protected from liability for content that they display, but there are no legal consequences for their refusal to show any content. This creates the conditions for them to unaccountably promote one side of an issue to the exclusion of another. It doesn't take much imagination to see how this could be a bad thing.
> You would think that with such a right-wing userbase,
The userbase here is not right-wing.
> the aspect of Youtube's private property would emerge in the conversation.
Its been brought up numerous times. Almost every time section 230 reform is mentioned, in fact. Which is good because these issues need to be hashed out.
> But that's not the issue, instead, the "CeNsOrShIp" crowd is more concerned about having white supremacist ideas widely marginalized in polite society.
Poisoning the well doesn't advance the conversation, rather the opposite.
