Here is the law:
"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."
The person who uploads content -- not the social media platform -- is responsible for that content.
That section of the law makes possible sites like Facebook, YouTube, X, Instagram, TikTok, Next Door, Reddit, Threads, Truth Social, and all the others.
Fortune Magazine, 1996. Senators Ron Wyden and Christopher Cox at a press conference explaining why they wrote the Section 230 provision.
We think of Facebook and the many other platforms as spaces for anyone to share information on politics, how to prune peach trees, and a grandchild's birthday party. Section 230 allows free speech, but "free speech" is complicated. Citizens have free speech most clearly in public places, for example parks, public plazas, and sidewalks.
Private businesses are a gray area. Some businesses are considered "common carriers," i.e. natural monopoly utilities where all customers must be treated equally. A telephone company or garbage service cannot refuse to serve Democrats, even if its owner is a Republican. The gray gets darker in the arena of privately-owned shopping malls and parking lots in front of grocery stores. They are quasi-public squares. Property owners have more control over what and how political activity is conducted.
The world is feeling its way as regards social media platforms.
Both Florida and Texas passed laws prohibiting social media companies that do business in their state from censoring political content. They asserted that conservative voices are discriminated against by social media companies. This grievance comes out of the decision by Facebook and Twitter (in its pre-Musk ownership days) to ban Trump after the January 6 insurrection. The companies found he was inciting violence. Then, during the height of the Covid pandemic, the sites banned posts of what they considered dangerous misinformation on vaccinations. These bans fit a GOP/Fox narrative of victimhood and outrage: The liberal media is ganging up with the liberal social media.
A case wound its way through the courts and was argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court yesterday.
Social media companies are not unmanaged free-for-alls of content. They block posts they consider dangerous or offensive. They also shape the content any one viewer sees. Their advertising models are so powerful because they personalize ads. If you idly search for a local carpet-cleaning service, for the next days or weeks you get ads from carpet cleaning services, oriental rug re-sellers, and realtors inquiring if you wish to list your home. (Realtors apparently learned that homeowners decide to clean their carpets professionally before putting their homes up for sale. The social media company realizes you are going to sell your home before you do.)
Social media companies are arguably public gathering spaces with monopoly power, and should be treated like a common carrier. Since they are absolved of liability for what is uploaded, they should take all comers. That is the Texas and Florida argument.
Questions from Supreme Court justices in the four hours of oral argument suggest that the justices are skeptical of that argument. The justices' questions made the distinction between private and public and they seemed to validate social media companies' desire to curate their own spaces.
I am happy to read that.
I curate the comment section of my blog. Were I to leave it unmoderated it would fill with spam links to malware and obscene troll posts. Social media platforms found that there is a form of "Gresham's Law" at work. Bad content drives out good content. Left alone, social media sites are prey to Russia malware and propaganda, conspiracy theories, and offensive content. Who decides what is offensive? The people who own the site. They are the ones creating an overall experience that will draw people to their businesses.
There is a free-enterprise remedy for people who think themselves unfairly censored. Trump tried it. He started his own site, Truth Social, where he is free TO WRITE MANIC THINGS AND THREATEN VIOLENCE using capital letters. Another remedy is the one taken by Elon Musk. He bought Twitter and changed its policies and renamed it X. Trump is back in, and now liberal tweets are sometimes blocked. X is now more snarky, hostile, and toxic than ever, but there is an audience for that.
Sites that allow the public to upload material need to be able to protect themselves. There are a lot of crazy, dangerous, and malicious people out there.
Agreed. Private companies do not censor. They curate, edit, choose, publish or not publish, etc. Governments do (or do not) censor. The First Amendment is quite clear that "Congress shall make no law...." Except in the case of monopolies--as you point out--private companies are in charge of their words.
That said, I think that the platforms ought to be held responsible for harm that they help cause.
The public seems quite confused about what censorship is.
For a time it seemed that the U.S. Supreme Court would rule that, as quasi public spaces, shopping centers couldn't ban First Amendment activities on their property outside the buildings (Amalgamated Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza (1968). Unfortunately, the jurisprudence took a different turn as more conservative justices were appointed to the high court, but it did declare in Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins (1980) that states could independently protect free speech at shopping centers. To my knowledge, only New Jersey and California have done so.