The internet sucks, and Congress might make it worse

The law Section 230 is maybe the invisible force that governs everything in our lives. With a California court ruling against Meta, what are we to do? How responsible should social media companies be for the content posted on them? Brian Reed joins us to discuss Section 230 and its implications, both past and present. Our guest Brian Reed is the host of Question Everything. Check it out anywhere you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 0:29Ryan Broderick?

  We're today talking about something that I think, you know, will be coming up at a lot of Christmas parties, a lot of families around the dinner table this year, talking about section 230. So I would love to hear your like one line sentence for why the average person should be aware of section 230.

• 0:53Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, boy.

• 1:11Speaker 02

  Section 230 is the invisible force that governs everything that happens basically on the internet, which is to say essentially everything that happens in our lives.

• 1:21Ryan Broderick?

  I would, I would tend to agree with you there. Yes. In fact, I was literally describing that that opening was kind of a joke, but I was at a party last night and I was actually describing section 230 because.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  How'd you do it? How'd you do it?

• 1:32Ryan Broderick?

  This guy was talking about Roblox and he was basically saying that like his son had a Roblox account for many years and the Roblox account was named after this, his son's friend as like a joke, but the son's friend's initials, which are C and P. So he had a Roblox account called like CP money or something.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:56Ryan Broderick?

  Which was flagged by Roblox as possibly being connected to child pornography.

• 2:03Ryan Broderick?

  And he was frustrated that Roblox decided to just nuke the account without really looking at it. And I tried to explain to him after several drinks that because of section 230, and we can get into deeper about it, and you can maybe tell me if I'm, I even explained it wrong. Because of section 230, it's easier and safer for a large platform to large scale nuke a pocket of what may be objectionable material than actually being aware of that objectionable material on their platform.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  No, it's the opposite. I think, say it again, say it again.

• 2:40Ryan Broderick?

  Did I say it wrong?

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Maybe. See, this is, it's a very paradoxical law. It's a very paradoxical law. So, yeah.

• 2:45Ryan Broderick?

  You know what? We'll save it for the meat of the episode because I had several glasses of wine and I may have told him the opposite, but we'll find all that out in just a second. My name is Ryan Broderick. With me as always is my producer, Grant Irving. He is federally mandated to be on this show as sort of my caretaker. So I want to thank him for that. And joining us this week for a very special edition of our show is the host of Question Everything, which it turns out is not a Q and on podcast. Brian Reed, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  I'm good. Thanks for having me.

• 3:14Ryan Broderick?

  So this is a special episode because we typically start with like an argument that I want to make to the guests and then see if I can manipulate and confuse and bewilder them into agreeing with me. But this time you have an argument that you would like to make on the show. Outline it for us before we get deeper in. So what, what is your problem with section 230? What, what do you think should happen here?

• 3:35Speaker 02

  My problem with section 230 is that it removes any reasonable like accountable way to get accountability from some of the most powerful companies and internet platforms that like are part of all of our lives, our democracy. It's made it so that it is almost impossible in most cases to sue them for stuff that happens on their platforms, which is, you know, bad for the people who might be harmed by something that happens there as individuals. But it's also just made it bad for all of us. It's made, you know, like there's no real deterrent for them to stop bad behavior. Also because there's not that many regulations in our country for these platforms either. Like the two ways that you would really, you know, get them to behave better.

• 4:18Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Outside of like goodwill and like, you know, market pressures are regulations or lawsuits, you know, like real liability that could hurt their bottom line. And without that, I just think like I've come to think that like, It's what's allowed like the internet to get so warped and kind of nasty. And for all of our experiences to just feel kind of, I don't know, but I'm not going to speak for everybody. But certainly me and like, I think lots of people feel like a little bit just like overwhelmed and helpless. And like, is this really a net benefit now or not? And I think that section 230 is a big part of that.

• 4:52Ryan Broderick?

  So before we get into how we ended up with section 230, and to possibly help me the next time I have several glasses of wine and have to explain it to somebody, can you define what section 230 is?

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Yes, it has two major parts, but people often only know about the first one. So the first part makes it so that any like internet service provider essentially like, but that could be like a company operating a website. It could be Facebook, it could be Wikipedia, is not treated as the publisher or speaker of stuff that's posted on their platform or site. So by another person. So, you know, if I post something on Facebook, Facebook is not liable, can't be sued for what I post on Facebook. And if I call someone a murderer and they're not a murderer, they can sue me for defamation, but they can't sue Facebook. Even if Facebook like amplifies that post. So that's the part one.

• 5:48Speaker 02

  Part two in the law says that these sites are sites, platforms, apps, social media services, are free to moderate however they want. And that doesn't, and they still get this, this immunity from being sued. So it like enshrines their ability to decide if they want to block certain users, if they want to have certain content they don't allow, which like technically they're allowed to do under the first amendment still. But this just like gives them like an extra protection, basically. And I think that's, that's the part of it that a lot of people forget often.

• 6:24Ryan Broderick?

  So what's your problem with that?

• 6:27Speaker 02

  I don't have a problem with number two, honestly, because number two is like a First Amendment right. There's a reason that's in.

• 6:33Ryan Broderick?

  I have, I think number, I think part one is the part where I'm like, if we did anything to that, the entire internet, well, I guess we, we'd have to like decide what a service provider is in that instance. But like, yeah. So what's your problem with part one?

• 6:51Speaker 02

  I think part one should be changed. I think that, yes, part one made sense. Like, you know, this law was passed in 96. So imagine the internet of those days.

• 7:01Ryan Broderick?

  Exactly the same as now. Right?

• 7:03Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly. It's identical. The cases that kind of like surround, oh.

• 7:06Ryan Broderick?

  It's okay. He'll, he'll pop in and out.

• 7:09Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 7:09Ryan Broderick?

  I was, I was grabbing a tissue. I'm sorry. We want to see you blow your nose on camera. Great.

• 7:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's very delicate of you.

• 7:16Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  The cases, the cases that were happening.

• 7:20Ryan Broderick?

  We're keeping that entire interaction in. You're very delicate blowing of your nose. Oh yeah. So what is your problem with part one of section 230?

• 7:26Speaker 02

  So like, yeah, when it was passed, like the cases that were happening, you know, were against like prodigy CompuServe AOL. And they had to do with people posting, you know, something on CompuServe about like a TV journalist saying he'd gotten fired. And he was like, I didn't get fired. That's defamatory. And he sued CompuServe, you know, just for someone having posted this thing with prodigy, like someone posted and said that the Wolf of Wall Street firm, the, the firm that that movie's based on was involved in fraud. And they were like, that's bullshit. And they sued, it was an anonymous poster. They sued prodigy. Those are the types of cases that were happening. But if you think about the internet of today, where platforms are using very powerful machine

• 8:10Speaker 02

  learning models to choose content to amplify based on engagement metrics and, and the type of content that's in those posts that they're amplifying to rake in tons of profit. And they can do that without having to incorporate, like think about the liability at all of what they're doing. That's where I think it should be changed. Basically that we have to come up with changes that account for the way the internet is today.

• 8:37Ryan Broderick?

  Well, let's start with Prodigy here because you mentioned it and that's kind of where our story begins. So in 1995, Prodigy is one of the biggest forum hosting sites on the web and it's sued for defamation, which was posted anonymously on one of their forums. They said they had nothing to do with the message. Court finds them liable because they are supposed to be censoring illegal harmful material. In 1996, Congress passes the Communications Decency Act as part of the larger telecommunications act. And section 230 is proposed by Representatives Chris Cox and Ron Wyden, who's now a senator, because of the Prodigy case. But the Community Decency Act, now mostly unconstitutional, was designed to punish internet pornography

• 9:22Ryan Broderick?

  after a moral panic, our favorite kind of thing on this show a previous year. So 1995, 1996 is when the CDA, the Communications Decency Act, was initially considered and then passed. And it leads to the first major online protest organized by John Perry Barlow, founder of Wired and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. And Grant has a really good image that he's going to pull up for us of what these protests look like.

• 9:48Speaker 02

  I don't think I've seen this. Show me.

• 9:50Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, it's from the Internet Day of Protest across major US cities. And so we've got, we've got this one right here. This is like a, like a text based website that says, "Join hundreds of thousands of other internet users in 48 hours of protest after President Clinton signs the bill that will censor the internet." And it's got like a whole bunch of sort of like cute, like old internet resources. You can like click on to like, find out what's going on. I love this stuff. And

• 10:18Speaker 03

  So Brian, you don't think this represents the internet today?

• 10:21Ryan Broderick?

  You don't, you don't think this HTML1 website represents?

• 10:26Speaker 02

  Remember that curse, like the, what do you call the slide bar on the side? Like that big, oh man.

• 10:31Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Blocky thing?

• 10:31Ryan Broderick?

  The blocky, the Netscape cursor, yeah.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 10:36Ryan Broderick?

  So, but I do think that this points to something that I will always sort of rankle over, which is like, I agree with moderating large corporate algorithmic driven platforms that control our whole planet, sure. But I do become extremely uncomfortable at the idea of anything that could also impact like the average internet user's ability to speak freely online. When this happens, of course, like in February 96, hundreds of websites go dark, they changed their UI and protests, about 5% of the internet basically in the US was affected, which is wild.

• 11:16Speaker 02

  Just to be clear, they were doing this in response to the Communications Decency Act proposal, basically.

• 11:21Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, there was this guy like James Exxon, the Senator from Nebraska, who, you know, was railing against pornography on the internet. And he had a little blue book that he'd carry around the Senate with a bunch of porn that he'd printed out, like in black and white.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  And that he'd be like, I like, I ask any member who's interested to come by my desk and look at this disgusting pornography.

• 11:44Ryan Broderick?

  Come look at my porn folder. That's sick. That rules, actually.

• 11:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 11:48Ryan Broderick?

  Matt Gaetz was saying the same thing, and it got him in trouble. That's crazy.

• 11:51Speaker 02

  It reminded me of Gates. Yeah, for sure.

• 11:54Ryan Broderick?

  So.

• 11:55Speaker 02

  That's what he was using, like, push for these rules to basically like, it was something like, you know, it'd make it illegal, and you could even get jail time for posting something indecent on the internet that could be accessed by a child.

• 12:07Ryan Broderick?

  Interesting.

• 12:08Speaker 02

  Or a minor. So it was like, you know, it was just like very broad, essentially. And even Newt Gingrich in the House and a bunch of people in the House were like, this is unconstitutional.

• 12:16Ryan Broderick?

  When you've lost Newt Gingrich, you know that like, you've really hit like a, like, a self- death end. So in 1987, the ACLU sues Attorney General Janet Reno to block the CDA. The Supreme Court rules that it violates the First Amendment. Some parts of the law, though, like Section 230 remain. And so I do think it's interesting for this larger conversation that like, Section 230's origins do come from like, a weird freak in his porn folder being like, we need to block all sexual expression on the internet.

• 12:44Speaker 02

  Like every free speech fight in America, or, you know, major one it has to do with.

• 12:47Ryan Broderick?

  We are, we are a country upset. We just, Americans should not be allowed to look at their own genitalia. Like, I just, I think that we can. We can really just fix things really quickly if we get that in place.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  By is that the change to section 230 that you're looking for, Brian?

• 13:01Ryan Broderick?

  That's the thing. Yeah, it's it's just no, it's no.

• 13:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 13:04Ryan Broderick?

  Below the belt. That's all.

• 13:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what matters to me.

• 13:07Ryan Broderick?

  In November 97, section 230 is used in a Supreme Court ruling for the first time. Someone buys an AOL ad for T shirts with jokes about the.

• 13:17Ryan Broderick?

  So, yeah. Another thing that Americans are obsessed with beyond sharing pornography is making fun of like mass casualty events. So, yeah, a guy buys an AOL ad for T shirts.

• 13:31Speaker 02

  We have to bring listeners in on this. This is the jokes about the Oklahoma City bombing.

• 13:35Ryan Broderick?

  Guys, for those listening, yes, we have been doing this since we got the internet. There have been people making fun of mass casualty events since we had internet connections. So, yeah, he buys an ad for T shirts with jokes about the Oklahoma City bombing. The ad tells people to call a man for more information. The man has no idea and is clueless what his phone says. Incredibly good bit. Honestly.

• 13:57Speaker 02

  He was a dude who's like, he was like a real estate agent, maybe or something, a real estate broker. But he was just living in his parents' house in Seattle. He had no connection to Oklahoma City, like no connection to this at all.

• 14:07Ryan Broderick?

  Was he picked at random? Was it wasn't?

• 14:10Speaker 02

  I don't think they really know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But, you know, like people in Oklahoma City were pissed. I think some like local radio show hosts like, you know, talked about this and they're like, call this dude.

• 14:20Ryan Broderick?

  That's, you know? Yeah. So AOL takes the ads down at the the poor guy's request. He sues AOL for not posting our traction and the court rules that AOL isn't liable. So this this is the beginning of the the venue for user generated content is not legally considered a publisher. In the same way that if a newspaper had run a letter to the editor saying, call this guy for more information about the Oklahoma City bombing, they probably would have been liable. AOL in this case is not. And then basically like very little changes with the use of section 230 in the 2000s. People complain about it when they can't sue websites for what their users do. And a good example of this would be John Seigenthaler. Are you familiar with this name?

• 15:02Speaker 02

  It's not ringing a bell, but tell me, maybe I'll remember it.

• 15:04Ryan Broderick?

  He was a lawyer that worked for RFK senior in 2005. His Wikipedia page was updated to say he was a suspect in RFK's assassination.

• 15:11Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:12Ryan Broderick?

  He wrote an op ed in, yeah, in USA Today complaining about section 230 because it meant he couldn't sue Wikipedia. And like, I do think.

• 15:23Ryan Broderick?

  This is where I start to like kind of unravel around section 230 because essentially the backbone of all what we would now call social media, but let's say user generated content for simplicity's sake is possible because of this and social media has tons and tons and tons of problems, but I guess like if you were, maybe this is where we should say like, what would you like to change to section 230 concerning the liability of a service provider? Because I feel like the, the architecture of the internet would have to like change drastically to say like, if you like, yeah, I'm sort of stumped like, so what, what, what do you see here?

• 16:07Speaker 02

  All right. I can, let me say two things here. I'm currently exploring like there's all sorts of different reform proposals and they really run the gamut, you know, and there's different things you can do. I don't have a hundred percent like my favorite one yet, but like some options. You could say you don't get immunity when you're, you know, using very powerful algorithms, basically like that. There's some liability introduced for that. I was kind of into that idea, like when I kind of first started like really tuning into this. For instance, that is what the Facebook whistleblower Francis Haugen proposed in Congress when she came forward, but I've dug into it more and there are people I respect, including Francis Haugen now who are like, maybe that's not the best way to go about it. I just talked to her like a week ago and I

• 16:50Speaker 02

  don't know. I guess she changed her mind, but she didn't really say that either. But I do think that's a compelling idea worth considering. There's this idea that like we gave these, this industry and these companies, this really valuable thing and got nothing for it. So like, if you look at the text of section 230 and like the kind of legislative like history around it, it is labeled a good Samaritan provision, you know? So the idea that like a doctor's driving by someone who was in a car accident on the side of the road, goes to try to save their life and it doesn't work and they die, the doctor can't be held liable for malpractice because that would just like disincentivize them from even trying in the first place. And so this is a good Samaritan law. It's meant to be. And that's what that second part is.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  That second part is you guys like, you know, internet services, like we're giving you this.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  To encourage you to keep the internet clean, like keep bad stuff out there to kind of like treat the market well. And I think a lot of people make the argument, and I feel this, that like, they've not really lived up to the end of the bargain, and it didn't require it. And so you could structure things that actually do require certain behaviors, best practices, even just transparency is something a lot of people talk about. Like, you only get the immunity if you're really transparent about your algorithms, or if you give users choice about whether to opt into algorithmic or chronological timelines, things like that. So it's basically like, we gave them this giant thing that's so valuable, without requiring anything, just kind of hoping that with goodwill, they would do

• 18:23Speaker 02

  good stuff. So those are, those are different ways you could structure it. And there are other ideas as well. You know, like, there are some crazy cases. The Section 230 has been used to protect.

• 18:34Ryan Broderick?

  I have, I have a few here. Let me spin through a couple like greatest hits here before we, we go to break. So in 2008, a major ruling against Section 230 arrives. A court finds roommates.com isn't immune from getting sued for discrimination under Section 230 because it makes all their users say their race, etc. to sign up. Back in 2012, Backpage is able to cite Section 230 as a way to avoid lawsuits for prostitution and child sexual abuse material on their sites. And this goes back and forth for a while. It's one of the major reasons behind the proposal for FOSTA-CESTA. We did a whole episode about that. If you guys want to go into our archive and check that out, and we'll link in the show's notes. But basically, the, it's a FOSTA-CESTA, you can blame New

• 19:17Ryan Broderick?

  York Times, and you can listen to our episode about that. But 2013, because of the Backpage stuff, state attorney generals attempt to try to exempt Section 230 from applying to state level cases. This leads to a lot of backlash from like, the pro-tech community. And then between 2017 and 2020, Republicans start really beating the drum.

• 19:39Ryan Broderick?

  About Section 230 because it means that they can't sue websites when people say mean things about them online. And this includes people like Devin Nunes, Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, Trump signs an executive order trying to curtail Section 230 because Twitter keeps fact checking him. And then we start to see like a rise in another thing we've done episodes about, which is like heavily online mass shooters. And when that starts to kick off around 2018, 2019, Democrats start getting unhappy with Section 230 because it means there's no liability for platforms that allow hate speech. Facebook is found not liable that same year for Hamas using Messenger to coordinate attacks. And then that takes us into the 2020s,

• 20:20Ryan Broderick?

  where now like Project 2025 has like a whole thing about eliminating Section 230, which is why I start to feel very titchy about it because I-

• 20:30Speaker 02

  But that's why it's important to know about the two parts. I know what you mean. I went to the Heritage Foundation. I've talked to those guys about what they want to do. And-

• 20:37Ryan Broderick?

  Well, wait, I want to hear all about that. But first, a word from our sponsors, the Heritage-

• 20:46Speaker 03

  The Koch Brothers. The Koch Brothers still around.

• 20:50Ryan Broderick?

  Project 2026, coming to an internet near you.

• 20:56Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

• 21:27Ryan Broderick?

  What was it like talking to the Heritage Foundation about Section 230?

• 21:30Speaker 02

  That's why it's important to know about the two parts of the law. They are more focused on the second part of the law and wanting to change that. And now again, the second part of the law is the part that says platforms are protected. They can make whatever choices they want about how they want to moderate, what content they want to allow or not, if they want to deplatform somebody. All that stuff is protected in Section 230. That is just First Amendment law. Like, you don't need that protection, Section 230. These are, unless it's like a government-run Sure. ... social media platform. But these are private companies. It is their First Amendment right. If they see a bunch of, like, COVID disinformation on their site and they don't want to have blood on their hands that, like, people aren't taking a vaccine, they have a First Amendment

• 22:15Speaker 02

  right to say, like, "We don't want to promote that stuff or allow it on our platform." They're a private company. And that's what that enshrines. And when you talk to those guys, like, you get the sense that what they're going after is that because they, there's this, you know, narrative on the right that these platforms have, like, overly censored conservative speech. There's not evidence supporting that, frankly. No. But that's a very, you know, well, you know, highly believed narrative on the right. They want to be able to go after platforms for that reason, and they have different ways of doing it, and this is one of them. And so that, they're focused on that second part when you kind of dig into it with them. And that's why it's helpful to kind of know the nuances of the law, to see, like, what are people actually looking at changing?

• 22:54Speaker 02

  And that would be like a real First Amendment issue, you know, if that was weakened at all. 100%. The first part, if you think about it, is beyond the First Amendment. When you think about the protection it gives to companies, it's saying you can never have liability at all. You know, even like all of us getting incredibly robust First Amendment protections, we still are liable for certain types of prescribed speech, like Of course. ... defamatory stuff. And, and they are not. And so that's why I'm more comfortable looking at that part, because it is something extra that has been given to this industry that I think has not lived up to their end of the bargain on the Good Samaritan side, basically. So anyway, that's like the kind of distinction between, like, at least the Project 2025

• 23:39Speaker 02

  proposal. I also want to go back, like, you said something earlier that I think is interesting to think about. Something about how, like, Section 230 is the only reason we have, like, kind of the internet, the kind of, you know, wide-open, free-speech conducive internet that we have today. I want to go back to that Prodigy decision. That is the reason that it was passed.

• 23:59Ryan Broderick?

  I would put a caveat of like, it is the reason we have an internet in which every internet user does not have their own server and webpage. Basically, user-generated content as we understand it, I would sort of say is thanks to that Prodigy decision. Is that not, do you feel like that's not correct?

• 24:18Speaker 02

  It is, thanks to Section 230, but I want to take you back to that moment. Like I've, as I've kind of like thought about the history here and learned about it. So the Prodigy decision, basically Wolf of Wall Street firm in Long Island, somebody posts-

• 24:30Ryan Broderick?

  Who are not committing fraud, by the way.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  I actually think this, maybe they weren't, this claim of fraud.

• 24:37Speaker 02

  I think this one maybe, I don't know, I don't know exactly, but they claimed that this one was bullshit and it might have actually been. Somebody said they're involved in fraud on Money Talks forum on Prodigy. They and Danny Porus, the founder of the firm, who Jonah Hill possibly plays, you know, representative of in, in the movie, though he claims it's not true. They sue Prodigy for defamation. The judge looks at it and Prodigy says, like, there's been one other case like this about the internet. It happened like a few years earlier. It's CompuServe got sued for something similar. Somebody sued CompuServe for, you know, like hosting a post that they said was defamatory. And the judge in that case was like, CompuServe's not liable. You're like a newsstand. You don't know, you can't know all the posts that are on here.

• 25:21Speaker 02

  You know, you didn't know about this post and so you're not liable for what this person said. And they, they didn't allow CompuServe to be sued. And so Prodigy was like, same thing. We're like CompuServe, you know? Like, we're not liable for this, this post about the Wolf of Wall Street firm. And the judge looked at and said, actually, you are. And the reason you are is because Prodigy, unlike CompuServe, tried to be very family-friendly. They marketed it that way. They took a really strong hand with like moderation and banned content. And they had like, you know, terms of service and standards that they upheld. They put a lot of work and money into making like a nice place for families, for like people, the kids to do their homework and stuff. CompuServe did not do that. And he said, because you did this, you are responsible.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  And so it was this weird perverse incentive that was set up where it was like, "Oh, you're gonna go out of your way and spend a bunch of money to make like a nice internet, you know, for your users." Then you're responsible for it. Well, we're gonna make it easier to sue you, and if you just say fuck all, it'll be hard to sue you. So it was this really perverse incentive that did seem like a problem, right? Okay. But here's the thing, it was treated like a big problem. This is like very specifically why Cox and White had passed Section 230. Like, one of the big reasons was like, oh shit, like, especially with all these like, you know, Bible thumpers saying like, "We're worried about porn on the internet." Our best shot at fixing that is having companies be incentivized to police their own platforms for this stuff. And now we've got this like backwards incentive where why would they? If they're gonna get sued more easily.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  But, this was not a binding decision. This was like one trial court judge on Long Island. It was not a Supreme Court case, an appellate case. No other court had to abide by this at all. People paid attention to it, it mattered because it was like one of the first ones. And like, it was this new industry. And if you look back at this judge, his name's Justice Stuart Aine, he's a funky dude. Like, he had been censured, but allowed to remain on the bench. After he was doing a separate case, where he, like, from the bench, asked a lawyer, I believe, what his ethnicity was. The guy was like, "I'm Arab." Okay, yeah, I'm getting a picture. And he said to him from the bench, "You're our sworn enemies.

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Here's what I have to say for you." He gives him the middle finger from the bench and says, "What the fuck do you people want anyway?" Okay. This judge, in some random courtroom on Long Island, made this one decision that applied to Prodigy and the Wolf of Wall Street firm. And Congress took it and said, "Oh shit. Like, we're gonna have a totally messed up internet if we don't like respond to this." Right. And I just don't think that was a foregone conclusion. Had we not had Section 230... It is very possible there would have been other cases in this new industry that would have gone to other, you know, gone up the chain in different courts, you know, been reviewed. We have a very strong First Amendment and a different legal framework that isn't so absolutist,

• 28:18Speaker 02

  that is, that is in line with very strong First Amendment protections, could have taken place. But the internet was never given a chance to do that because Section 230 came in from this one dude.

• 28:27Ryan Broderick?

  Okay. So what you're saying is like Section 230 was like a knee jerk congressional response to like an insane judge on Long Island's decision.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Arguably.

• 28:36Ryan Broderick?

  Over on the Wolf of Wall Street, guys. And instead of taking the time to build out the legislative framework that something as complex as the internet would require, we just sort of slapped Section 230 on it and we're like, go with God.

• 28:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, or allowing it to just proceed through the courts, you know, like with other media that have happened and, and letting the courts kind of like apply the First Amendment to this new technology.

• 29:02Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  We had had two cases, CompuServe and Prodigy, that those are the only cases that had ever looked at liability of platforms for what other people post.

• 29:11Ryan Broderick?

  Okay, so let's, let's go deeper into this because like I am with you that Section 230 has problems. And the way that I always sort of approach it is like, okay, if you want an internet in which the average person does not need to own a server and know how to make a website, then they have to rely on other services to upload and distribute and transmit and communicate. So if Section 230, the first part, is changed to make providers more liable for what people are using their services for, how does that work?

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Why do we have to game it out for the companies? Like, I feel like this, this conversation always, it puts us in the position of having to make like kind of prescriptions for these companies. I don't totally know how it would work. It's a giant world and industry. And to me, it's about like shifting the incentives slightly and saying,

• 30:10Speaker 02

  Hey, company, you're actually going to have some risk here that you're going to have to think about in your business model. Maybe your business model will have to shift slightly, or your algorithm will have to shift slightly to prioritize other things than just engagement or outrage. Like, that's why I like Section 230 as a lever, because it's like a free-market solution, rather than like a bunch of regulations coming in and saying like, this is how you should do it. It's like, let's just like bring them closer in line with very strong first amendment protections that we all have, but that still have some risk involved.

• 30:43Ryan Broderick?

  So, okay, well, let me throw something at you, because like, I'm not disagreeing.

• 30:49Speaker 02

  You can disagree, it's fine.

• 30:50Ryan Broderick?

  No, no, but I'm not. But I have questions. And I agree with you that like, yeah, why are we doing the work? But at the same time, like, I would rather we figure it out, because I don't like how the corporations continue to figure this out, right? But my question with all of this is like, does Section 230 in its current form still have issues if we attack this problem with antitrust law? So like, the thing that you keep coming back to is, okay, we have these massive, like, the specific massive algorithmic platforms, there are like five or six that like determine how the internet works. They're bigger than they've ever been. The stat I always use is like, Facebook has more members than the Catholic Church. Like, it's, these are massive issues of scale.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  And one's coming in the future that we don't know about yet. New entrants, you know, like, this is the framework that we have moving forward to, you know?

• 31:41Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, I thought you were like, it's like, do you know about a new platform that's really big?

• 31:45Speaker 02

  Are you launching a platform?

• 31:47Ryan Broderick?

  Are you, are you, are you, are you soft launching a platform right now?

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Okay, so. Yeah, back social.

• 31:52Ryan Broderick?

  Here's my thing, like, instead of saying, okay, we need to basically change the architecture of the internet.

• 32:01Ryan Broderick?

  Why go about it that way when what we could do is like the my most radical take is like, why can't you cap users? We have laws in place for like, how many people can like be in a room? Like we have, we have laws in place for like, uh, well, we used to have laws in place for like, how big a company could be, or like how many movie studios it could own, or if that movie studio could own a fucking movie theater. We used to have those laws. So like, instead of saying, okay, we're gonna basically make it so that whatever I type into Discord, Discord is legally liable for, and however Discord wants to deal with that issue is up to them. The total accelerationist in me kind of loves that idea because it's like, see you later, social media, because it won't exist.

• 32:45Ryan Broderick?

  It's not possible. It's like, it's not possible for Facebook to exist. Oh, man, wait, I'm getting kind of getting kind of turned on by this idea. Actually, we should just flip the switch.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  You're red, pulling yourself?

• 32:56Ryan Broderick?

  No, possibly.

• 32:57Speaker 02

  There's, there's an argument, listen, like there, I've heard a couple of people make the argument, or like, at least do the thought experiment, like just totally repealing 230.

• 33:04Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  And, and that that's not the worst thing you could do. And I mean, you know, and like, the proposals to repeal it, like, there's a bipartisan proposal in the Senate right now, uh, to sunset 230 in two years. Like, I think those are ultimately, my understanding, like, from talking to people, that's a threat that basically would, you need to do that to like, force the companies to the table to come up with some kind of like compromise over, over how to limit it, you know? But anyway, there is an interesting world to imagine, if you do.

• 33:31Ryan Broderick?

  I mean, it is kind of fun to imagine like The Purge, but for lawsuits, like, just like, at midnight, second 230 is repealed and like, God help you, um, you know, Meta. But why go at it that way? When I feel like there are other regulatory levers to pull here that would still allow the average person with zero, like little to none, technical know-how to express themselves online, which is the thing that like, I always come back to whenever I get like, too down the rabbit hole with like, you know, internet woke scolds about like, what people should be saying online. I'm kind of like, well,

• 34:10Ryan Broderick?

  They should be able to maybe say, I don't know, I, I, I have that streak in me of like, you should be able to communicate however you want, because if you couldn't, like, a lot of the modern world would be different in bad ways, you know, like me too, Black Lives Matter, like these like massive movements that started with like somebody basically doing something like, I don't know a corporation would allow if they felt like they were legally liable for,

• 34:35Ryan Broderick?

  me too, in particular, I, I, the, the media movement basically could not happen without section 230.

• 34:40Speaker 02

  I think it's possible. Yeah, for sure. I hear you.

• 34:43Ryan Broderick?

  And, and you look at like, you, you mentioned the Warner Brothers being bought up right now. Now those laws are just at the whim of like appealing to your king where it seems like Paramount's gonna win because they're like, we'll kill woke for you. Like, I guess my, my fear is on the same line of like, you know, like you're just at the whims of an administration for like which, which like.

• 35:07Speaker 02

  If you, if you reform section 230, you're talking about?

• 35:11Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, i- i- if, if they're, if Ryan's.

• 35:13Speaker 02

  I see you're more at the whims. Like, I think the current case you're talking about shows that like, the regulations are more risky, because you're then giving a regulatory body that's run by the administration. They're using those regulatory bodies as sticks to get what they want out of these platforms, which dictators speech. These platforms are shadow banning stuff. They are taking down, you know, forums for speech at the behest of the current administration. I mean, Facebook took down Facebook group in, um, Chicago that people were using to track ICE because the administration asked them to. And there's no liability or recourse. It's happening now, you know?

• 35:46Ryan Broderick?

  So, so loop that back to section 230, though, because like, that's where I get kind of lost here. So like, do you think that section 230 allows the current administration to pressure, pressure Facebook to remove, like, let's say, an ICE Watch group in Chicago?

• 36:00Speaker 02

  No, I think it removes the public's ability to hold the platforms accountable.

• 36:05Ryan Broderick?

  Say more, because I'm curious.

• 36:06Speaker 02

  As they're doing that. But I think regulation, regu- I think like we're learning that like, regulatory regimes can be abused by administrations.

• 36:14Ryan Broderick?

  I see what you mean.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  That's happening with the FCC. Like, the FCC would probably be the one to do this, you know, or something like it, the regulations you're talking about.

• 36:22Ryan Broderick?

  Who I hate. No, I, I, I think it should be the, I think it should be the FTC.

• 36:27Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:28Ryan Broderick?

  Like, like, I personally hate.

• 36:30Speaker 02

  And listen, I'm not against, like, I don't like totally reject regulation, like, regulation as like an approach. I don't know, the more conversation I have with people, I'm coming around to it.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  There's just an elegance to me of like, it's just fairer. You know what I mean? Like, it's just fairer that these companies, and I do believe the First Amendment would hold in a way that would not shut down the internet as we know it. I actually think like the profit motive is so strong on a lot of these platforms and the First Amendment is so solid that there might be some changes, obviously, but I don't know. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that it would just like be a grenade in the internet. I don't, we don't know that. We've never had the internet without it. We don't know.

• 37:17Ryan Broderick?

  Are you from, so a dream guest of mine for Panic World is Elizabeth Warren.

• 37:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:22Ryan Broderick?

  Not because, I don't know if you've heard of her.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  I think I know her.

• 37:27Ryan Broderick?

  So I've always wanted to talk to Elizabeth Warren about one specific thing, which is her idea of a law that would not allow a marketplace to compete against its own vendors online.

• 37:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:39Ryan Broderick?

  And it.

• 37:40Speaker 02

  Break that, break that down for me, break that down for me.

• 37:42Ryan Broderick?

  So basically like Amazon couldn't sell Amazon basics on a marketplace that they also allow third-party vendors.

• 37:49Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:50Ryan Broderick?

  And then if you sort of extrapolate that logic across the web, it's a really fascinating way of thinking about platforms. So like, basically like if you were to moderate platforms and you were to define platforms, basically by our third-party businesses making money on that platform, then that platform itself cannot financially compete with those third-party vendors with its own goods and services. If you take it to sort of like, it's like most extreme idea, it's like. You could basically say like you can't have algorithmic recommendation systems at all.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  How does that, sorry, how does the marketplace idea lead to that?

• 38:29Ryan Broderick?

  Exactly. You could basically like, I mean, in a dream scenario, I would argue like, if I am running a business on Facebook and Facebook's algorithm is determining how my business is viewed by my customers, possible customers, I could sue them and be like, you're throttling my business, which they do all the time. And so you could actually like attack this from a free market standpoint by saying, these are unregulated marketplaces that are competing against their own vendors unfairly, and just smash the whole thing down that way.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  That's a cool idea. That's interesting. You think that would apply, that would apply like across the major platforms, like it could apply to like creators, businesses and stuff like that, possibly?

• 39:04Ryan Broderick?

  And it wouldn't hurt, let's say, the small message board that wants to bitch about how Apple products can't be modified. Or the, uh, the hobbyist community that's like modding video games and passing them back. Like the, the, the smaller communities that sort of make up the, the bulk of how like an average person might use the web.

• 39:23Speaker 02

  The choice of the platform in that instance would be either not putting their own products on their own platform and they could keep algorithmic boosting. Or getting rid of algorithms.

• 39:36Ryan Broderick?

  Or you could, you could, you could make it simpler where it's like, if you are going to be a marketplace in which people are like paying for advertising or selling goods and you're taking a cut of this or in any way, you are now a marketplace and you can't, you, you, you shouldn't be allowed to determine like how my fucking socks rank on Amazon compared to another vendor. And nor should you be able to sell your own socks at, at, at a cheaper price to compete with the ones that I'm selling. And so like you would basically financially kind of gut a lot of these companies that are engaging in what I think are pretty unfair practices.

• 40:08Speaker 02

  That's an interesting idea. Coming at it from that, that way. Is that like, so that's her proposal? Is there any other support behind that?

• 40:14Ryan Broderick?

  I'm kind of, I, I think I did like a better version of it, to be honest, but like, ah, yeah.

• 40:19Ryan Broderick?

  I think this simply, she had a basically a medium account, like when she was running for president a couple of years ago that like, she was just like kind of blogging on and being like, what if we attacked them as, you know, what, what if we went after marketplaces that competed against their own marketplace, right? But while you, while we both sit and ponder what could have been under a warm presidency, we're going to go to a word from our sponsors. Oh, what's this? Again, it's the Heritage Foundation.

• 40:44Speaker 00

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• 41:15Ryan Broderick?

  Okay, so you have brought some links today for us to discuss. And I would like to sort of to go through what you have brought for the class today.

• 41:23Speaker 02

  I think there's a lot of different ways you could come at like being critical of Section 230. There's like a lot of different doors of entry.

• 41:28Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 41:29Speaker 02

  You know, there's a lot of child safety stuff. Like it really does govern so many aspects of our lives, you know? Sexual assault, people getting harassed, like there's all these terrorism, like it is protected sites and companies from being sued for a lot of different types of cases. I'm a journalist, like I came at it like through the door of lies, kind of overwhelming us online.

• 41:52Ryan Broderick?

  Like missing misinformation is what you're saying?

• 41:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:55Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  Yeah. And like there were a couple like case studies that really helped me kind of like start thinking about it.

• 42:01Ryan Broderick?

  Okay.

• 42:02Speaker 02

  One being the lie about the Sandy Hook shooting.

• 42:05Ryan Broderick?

  Just to, just to catch people up, you're talking about Alex Jones and the idea of like crisis actors at Sandy Hook.

• 42:10Speaker 02

  Exactly. Like the claim that like Sandy Hook didn't happen, kids weren't killed, it was all actors. And like a ruse put on to try and like, you know, put, you know, put gun control in place. You know, it's an interesting case because basically the, you know, number of the families who, of the kids who were killed, who then were lied about by Alex Jones and called actors and like they were faking their kids' deaths, they sued him for defamation. He's the speaker of the content, so he was able to be sued. And I just started thinking like, okay, so you've got this control where they were able to sue him for defamation. That's a real deterrent against him saying those lies anymore. And other people like him saying those lies.

• 42:49Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 42:49Speaker 02

  You know, a billion dollar judgment. But really like. It's YouTube that's responsible for what happened to them. And, you know, I would argue like both the damage to them, but also the damage to us as a society. Like, there was some surveys shortly after the Sandy Hook shooting where like one in four Americans said the truth of the Sandy Hook shooting was being hidden. Maybe not like totally believed it was fake, but that they didn't trust like the story they were getting, basically. And, you know, I think there's an argument that like Sandy Hook was like the beginning of like our current misinformation age. Like, that was pretty early, 2012.

• 43:25Ryan Broderick?

  I often pinpoint 2012 as the sort of spread from Hurricane Sandy to Sandy Hook. The sort of beginning of the idea that people could lie on the internet and people would believe it in a, in a large scale way. So you get the shark in the highway and then a couple of months later, you get crisis actors at Sandy Hook. That's kind of how I think about it.

• 43:44Speaker 02

  Yeah. So it's been on my mind. And then I was, this summer, I was with a producer at the Iowa State Fair interviewing people. And, you know, in a couple hours, you know, we talked to maybe like two dozen people. My producer met somebody who was, who told him like, yeah, I believed Sandy Hook was a hoax for many, many years. And now I don't. I knew the impact the lie had on the victims' families. Like, many of them had to move. You know, they're dealing with the worst grief imaginable of their kid getting killed. And then on top of it, they're being harassed like both online and in person. You know, their lives are being ruined even further by this lie. So I knew about that, but I had never heard anybody who was on the other side of believing the lie, who could talk about just the toll it takes on you two.

• 44:25Ryan Broderick?

  So we did an episode like six, six months ago, probably almost now, where we had people call in and basically like sort of share the conspiracy theories that like their loved ones had fallen for. And we sort of kind of did like a pseudo call in show with it. And we, we've heard a lot of these stories. The most extreme one we heard was basically a young man whose dad moved their whole family to a compound in Texas, assuming that Y2K was about to happen because he had been sort of red pilled on early 90s message boards and ended up in, you know, a doomsday kind of cult situation. So how do you see Section 230 playing into this woman effectively like spending years not knowing, not, not thinking that Sandy Hook was real?

• 45:05Speaker 02

  I think that the...

• 45:09Speaker 02

  The Sandy Hook families, in addition to being able to sue Alex Jones for lying about them, should have been able to sue YouTube for algorithmically boosting those lies and actually, like, you know, making them take hold. So it's not that she has a cause of action.

• 45:22Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  It's like, I'm not talking about her being able to sue, but she's like the impact of like, when these lies spread. It's how we kind of explored it on our show, kind of what you're talking about with people calling in.

• 45:32Ryan Broderick?

  I'm with you. So Alex Jones is an interesting case because he is known, obviously, at his peak from being on YouTube. But he, he wasn't really dependent on platforms. Like, we've even done, we've done stuff about like his earliest, like, online presence where he was able to basically move his public access show onto a direct streaming setup and was, and has been running that consistently. Yeah, I think he still is in some capacity. So in this situation, like, do you also think that something like, let's say, CloudFlare

• 46:17Ryan Broderick?

  could be activated in this to be like, you have to take down his, his actual website for, for, for, because he's simul, like, everything he put on YouTube, he's simulcasting. So like, in this instance, do you think the Sandy Hook family should be able to say, "CloudFlare, I'm gonna sue you for hosting his site," assuming that they were?

• 46:35Speaker 02

  I lean more towards like reforms that focus on like, machine learning algorithms that are boosting content based on it being conspiratorial, you know, outrage inducing, engage, you know, engagement driven. You know, which, again, and I don't think, it's not like Section 230 some panacea. Most lies are constitutionally protected, and they should be. But there are some that are not. This is arguably one of them. It's defamatory. And those are often the most harmful, like the same as like the Dominion, you know, case against Fox, where Fox, you know, ended up settling this defamation case, you know, lying about these voting machines to like, spread conspiracies about the 2020 election. And, you know, it's a huge settlement. But again, like, none of the platforms that...

• 47:16Speaker 02

  Played a part in spreading that lie, have to think at all about the liability for doing that.

• 47:21Ryan Broderick?

  Okay. Yeah, I mean,

• 47:23Speaker 02

  I've exhausted you.

• 47:24Ryan Broderick?

  No, I'm with you when we're talking about algorithmic platforms. The thing that I sort of come up against is like, section 230, I agree, starts to sort of like break down when we're talking about something like YouTube, which is as much a platform as it is a publisher at this point. It has an in-house style that you have to hit, you know, it is, it is very active and it is very automated in the content that you're seeing. But I, I, I wanted to look this up just so I, I got the date right, but basically I interviewed the, um, the, the C, uh, did I interview them? I think I did. Oh, I, I talked to, I, I talked to a representative from CloudFlare in 2019,

• 48:08Ryan Broderick?

  after the El Paso shooting. And it was that, it was, it was the, the weekend, the night, whatever it was, when they decided to finally take down 8chan.

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 48:16Ryan Broderick?

  And it was like, it was a massive decision because it was the moment that like effectively like a hosting service was like, we are not going to host 8chan. It is, it, we've, it has hit the point here. And it, I remember like CloudFlare at the time was like extremely nervous about even doing this because it was considered so far beyond what they felt their role was, which was like infrastructure. And

• 48:44Ryan Broderick?

  it is hard to imagine any kind of regularly, regulation about liability on the internet that doesn't eventually get to something at the CloudFlare level. Like, I don't know how you would say, okay, YouTube hosting Alex Jones, they are liable for him in this defamation suit without then going, CloudFlare is also liable for hosting Alex, the simulcast of Alex Jones's livestream on his site. It opens up like a, a, an architectural problem in the internet that like, I am with you that these are problems, but I don't know how you, how, how you separate a platform like YouTube from a hosting.

• 49:26Ryan Broderick?

  Service like CloudFlare using section, using section 230.

• 49:30Speaker 02

  How does CloudFlare work exactly?

• 49:32Ryan Broderick?

  It's a hosting service. So like, for instance, garbage day, we are DNS records and stuff are all managed by CloudFlare. It's, it's infrastructure like we, it allows our URL to go to the database that has the server that has, you know, the website on it. It's that, it's that. So, and this is the stuff that I kind of love to think about because you start to, what you're talking about is like, there's a world where without section 230, once we get the Epstein emails, Google is now liable for effectively running a pedophile ring. Because he was using his vacation Gmail account to do so.

• 50:06Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. I hear you and I'm not saying I have like a clearance of this. It's a complicated thing like with like, you know, like,

• 50:11Ryan Broderick?

  No, no.

• 50:11Speaker 02

  There's no, there's no change. There's no change that like, doesn't have downsides and possibly like really problematic ones. I just kind of feel like the status quo is maybe idealized a little too much, you know, too.

• 50:24Ryan Broderick?

  Oh, a hundred percent.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  You know, too comfortable, but like the precedent before the internet, you know, they had to do with like, radio stations, like newsstands as like, you know, the law that had to do with distributors or hosts of content. You still had to know, you had to show prior knowledge of like what was in the speech that you were then being sued for. It's not just like you're suddenly like, if there's something defamatory on your, on your platform, you're automatically liable. There is, are still First Amendment protections for distributing speech that like, promoted the idea that we need to have forums that are able to distribute speech pretty widely.

• 51:05Ryan Broderick?

  Let's say radio, right? So like, if I have a radio, like, which is a totally different beast. It's broadcast signals regulated by the FCC. I have a radio call and show, someone calls in and they're like, the president is a pedophile. Or my neighbor did the Oklahoma City bombing, or my podcast producer Grant has fake muscles that he wears under his clothes while we record. I would, as the radio host, I assume be liable for airing that over the airwaves.

• 51:36Speaker 02

  Yes, that's different. I was responding to like your email kind of example.

• 51:40Ryan Broderick?

  But, but, yeah. Because the internet is sort of, you know, such a Russian nesting doll of different services and, and infrastructure and architecture that allows it to work. I think.

• 51:54Ryan Broderick?

  Defining what a service provider is, is like very important in this conversation.

• 51:59Speaker 02

  Yes, that's part of it. I hear you.

• 52:00Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, your other idea from Elizabeth Warren also reminded me of a proposal I heard from a First Amendment attorney who thinks Section 230 should change, where like the way the first part is written now, it says like you're not liable for information, like a platform's not liable for information provided by another user.

• 52:21Ryan Broderick?

  Sure.

• 52:21Speaker 02

  You could change that word to speech, because information has been read so broadly. So then you get cases like this one I wanted to mention, like, you know, where a guy in Wisconsin who basically goes on, I think it's called armslist.com to buy a gun, because he wouldn't have passed a background check in real life.

• 52:40Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 52:41Speaker 02

  And use the gun to kill his wife. And his wife's estate then sues Armslist for like facilitating this transaction, because it has all these kind of anonymity protections. Like, it's kind of there to allow this to happen without saying it.

• 52:55Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 52:55Speaker 02

  And they're able to throw up Section 230 and not have any liability. Is that speech, exactly? Is that like a free speech protection? And is that like something we're willing to say, like, we have to have that in order to have free speech on the internet? I do think like we have to really think about these counterexamples, you know, and how they're, how Section 230 is like allowing them to proliferate, too. Like, if someone put up a poster, like on a telephone pole in your neighborhood, saying like, I have like a gun market in my backyard, like, come grab a gun, would we think of that as like a speech issue?

• 53:30Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, it's like, I want you to stick your hand through this glory hole, and I'm gonna get with money, and I'll give you a gun in exchange, and I won't know who you are. Like, come by at 5:00. Yeah, I know what you mean. And that, I think you're right. I think the skeleton key for a lot of those circles that we've been going around in delightfully, so I must say, this episode, have been about like, since Section 230 launched in the mid to late 90s, it has been, I think...

• 53:58Ryan Broderick?

  Very advantageous of the corporations to effectively flatten the marketplace and speech into the same thing. Like, they want us to have this sort of confusing issue. And you're right, like, buying a gun anonymously on the internet and saying, like, I don't like this K-pop band should not be legally considered the same thing.

• 54:24Speaker 02

  But it is. Like, it is on Earth. Yeah.

• 54:27Ryan Broderick?

  And there was a flip in how the internet functioned, probably, you know, as you said, around the early 2010s, in which everything became speech. And so, everything is sort of being filtered through a free speech law that, as you said, also goes above and beyond what even the First Amendment allows. And it's funny, like, a lot of what you're talking about, the sort of like, okay, this bad thing is made possible by the same thing that allows this good thing. We had a similar kind of, like, circular conversation around Fasta Sesta in our episode about how the online networks that allow, like, malicious and dangerous

• 55:12Ryan Broderick?

  content to be spread also allow an LGBT teenager in an area where they can't be out to explore and understand their sexuality. The same technology that allows Nick Fuentes and, you know, a bunch of, like, Gen Z fascists to communicate also allows anti-fascists and, you know, activists to do the same, or Black Americans to document police violence. Like, these things are very tied together in this very confusing way.

• 55:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. And then, like, when you talk to people who are really into Section 230, they're just like, this is humanity, and it's reflected on the internet.

• 55:50Ryan Broderick?

  Right.

• 55:50Speaker 02

  And I hear that. But our current internet is not just that. It's not just like some open kind of stage on which humanity is like casting about. It's being curated by very powerful algorithms.

• 56:03Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  With no accountability. And, you know, I, I, I agree with you that like, maybe section 230 is not your preferred way of dealing with that.

• 56:11Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  But I think it's gotta be part of it. The same way that like, free speech is like a, you know, a civil liberties, personal issue. I think the Sandy Hook families not being, being able to sue for any accountability of these platforms is also an issue. You know, like at least try to make a case. They can't even get into court because it's like this shield that just goes up to make a case, you know? Where the first amendment would still apply.

• 56:33Ryan Broderick?

  I know what you mean. I mean, I've often thought about like applying food safety regulations to the internet or like platforms over like basically like if a platform had over a certain amount of users based in the U.S. It would be like regulated in a way where like they would be nutritional quote unquote info for algorithms. And that they would be legally liable for like content that like reached a certain threshold. Like I, I think there are a lot of ways to do this.

• 57:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I think actually, I think like, even if that's the route you end up going, section 230 is a way you probably get that possibly.

• 57:11Ryan Broderick?

  I think.

• 57:11Speaker 02

  You know, it's a stick to get them to the table.

• 57:13Ryan Broderick?

  Or you even say like section 230 doesn't apply to like platforms of a certain size or shape or scale, you know, like.

• 57:20Speaker 02

  Right.

• 57:21Ryan Broderick?

  Or, or makeup, you know, like we, we, we talk about this a ton where it's like.

• 57:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:25Ryan Broderick?

  There are entertainment platforms now, YouTube, Tik Tok, Instagram reels specifically, that I would not classify as social media anymore. I would, I would actually put them closer to something like Netflix, which I think need totally different regulations than something like X or something like Blue Sky, which are text based and largely user generated. So all of this is to say, I think the verdict is.

• 57:48Speaker 02

  Clear answers.

• 57:49Ryan Broderick?

  I'm with you and I have so many more questions than we can fit into a single podcast episode.

• 57:55Speaker 03

  It's like you questioned everything.

• 57:57Ryan Broderick?

  Uh, it's like I've questioned everything. Um, Grant, do you have any, do you have any questions before we send our lovely guest home today?

• 58:05Speaker 03

  I do, and I just want to make clear that I was trying to interrupt you to say that, I mean, like. Just throw off my flow and to, to, yeah, I know. It was, and it was just to say, I think it's too hard to buy a gun in this country. So I think a website like this is necessary. Oh, you're trying to interrupt me for a bit. You're trying to interrupt me. I was only, only to make a really dumb.

• 58:23Speaker 02

  We've got some, it's like the first and second amendment. They're right here, you know?

• 58:26Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 58:27Speaker 02

  This is where they intersect.

• 58:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  And second to 30.

• 58:31Speaker 03

  I have some, I have some serious ones. The first is just like, I think our skinny talk episode, an episode about eating disorder influencers that we did a couple of months back was when I felt like something has to be done. This isn't just a random phenomena. Like, and we, we talked about in that episode, eating disorder content is like always going to exist. That is always going to be, you know, and people can seek it out, but like, how much it's fed to people is a dramatic difference. And like, we had an internet before that it was harder to find and it was able to be combated. And we've like lost that capability and like, we cannot throw our hands up about that the way that we have about like,

• 59:15Speaker 03

  doing nothing about school shootings.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. Amen. And then the question is like, do you approach it from a regulatory situation? And how do you do that? Cause that's where I get tripped up on the regulation side where it's like, are we, are we creating an agency that like, determines what speech is harmful, what categories of speech is harmful? That's where, you know, like I'm a little, that's where I get worried on that side. And I'm more comfortable with people who are harmed, making a case in court, liability being established and like the, the kind of the market kind of pushing, you know, in different ways for that content to be addressed. But maybe there's something about the regulations that I'm not seeing, you know?

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Uh, I, I think EJ Dixon in that episode said that when she reached out to Tik Tok for comment, um, they were like, well, we just kept showing it to people who want to see this. Right. And like, that is like, not an answer when like, so like, Giving a 12 year old girl trip tricks on like how to not eat is like, it's like that can't be, that can't be like the shrug emoji of it.

• 1:00:14Speaker 02

  Even if they claim they don't control the algorithm and it's not like content based, they ultimately had knowledge of how it was operating.

• 1:00:20Ryan Broderick?

  And like, you know, we haven't even talked about AI at all in the context of this episode. But like, I think in a lot of ways, the way you regulate AI is actually by regulating algorithmic social media first because like it will impact it. And I do think, so, okay, like these platforms want to say like, online commerce is the same as online speech is the same as everything else. Okay. Well, then like if TikTok, let's say, if I have, TikTok runs TikTok shop and that integrates into TikTok's for you page, which is run by an algorithm that determines if I want to watch a man chug Metamucil and listen to Limp Bizkit, highly recommend that account, by the way, it's called Drinking Metamucil to Music and it rules.

• 1:01:01Speaker 03

  I did it all for the Metamucil.

• 1:01:03Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah, it's great. So if you want to watch that, okay, but there's also something in there that determines how many like ads for water picks it wants to show me because it really wants me to buy a water pick right now.

• 1:01:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Ryan Broderick?

  If I was a water pick company, I would be fucking, I should be fucking furious that my water pick is like not being, you know, treated as seriously in the algorithm as maybe TikTok's eventual knockoff of my water pick. And so to me, like that's, that's unfair market practices. And if you basically just said like, you can't have them, you can't have an algorithmic marketplace on the internet. It has to be either chronological or search based. I mean, it might break the platforms. I mean, I've, I've, I've gone back and forth with Google about this for years where it's like, they're just like, we can't show raw search. It's not, it, it, we, no one would use it. It's like, well, okay. All right, well then. Die. I don't know.

• 1:02:01Ryan Broderick?

  Perish. Like, I don't know what to tell you.

• 1:02:03Speaker 02

  No, I think it's, I also think, yeah, like a lot of these debates get into like a lot of overprotection of the existing business models where I'm like, maybe they shouldn't exist as business models right now. You know?

• 1:02:13Ryan Broderick?

  Yeah. We can't show people what they're actually searching for because without page rank, it would look crazy. All right, die. I don't care. Like, whatever. Like, I-

• 1:02:20Speaker 02

  Or dude, we just did this, you know, like, we just covered like the reporting from Reuters, like, about the scams on Meta. If you follow all that, like, just, it's a, you know, their own internal, like, documents show that they estimate their meta platforms are involved in a third of all successful scams in America. They're like a pillar. It's like a 10% of their revenue last year, they estimated, would be from scam ads. It has to be like 95% certain that it's a scam for them to take it down.

• 1:02:49Ryan Broderick?

  Insane.

• 1:02:50Speaker 02

  And you can't sue them.

• 1:02:51Speaker 03

  I have, I have one. I think we need to talk about porn. If we're talking about these different processes of, of pulling back, the first thing that comes up is, oh, so like, we would make porn illegal on the internet?

• 1:03:08Ryan Broderick?

  I don't think, I don't see that as being the case, though.

• 1:03:12Ryan Broderick?

  Like, I don't think, I mean, tell me if you're, I'm wrong, but I don't think repealing Section 230 would make porn illegal. What it would make, it would, it would actually probably trigger a lot more cases like the Pornhub apocalypse from a couple of years ago, when like, basically, there was a massive, massive emptying out of non-verified pornography, which like, didn't fix those problems. But if Pornhub was legally liable for the content on Pornhub, I mean, it probably couldn't exist. Like, there's no way. You, there's an argument you made that it would actually make viewing pornography a lot safer. Uh, probably harder, but a lot safer. Um, the stories like, girls do porn, or-

• 1:03:50Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:03:51Ryan Broderick?

  The, like, millions and millions of images of non-consensual sexual material, like, uploaded to Pornhub every second. Like, that would be a lot easier to litigate, because you could just be like, you're liable for this.

• 1:04:01Speaker 02

  No, I think that's right. Yeah.

• 1:04:03Ryan Broderick?

  I think in a weird way, like, the repealing of Section 230 would make the consumption of online pornography a lot safer, but a lot more complicated, because it would be a greater risk to host.

• 1:04:13Speaker 02

  But I think it could also drive it, again, to more specialized sites, or like, nicher sites that really focus on a thing, that they're willing to take the risks. I don't know. I think it could shake the market out in different ways. But again, we don't know, because we've never-

• 1:04:23Ryan Broderick?

  Right. You know, that's an interesting, that's an interesting one to consider, where it's like- Furry inflation sites, they're like, this is worth it for us. Like us foot guys, like we're, we're, we're willing to roll the dice on this one, but like normal pornography, I'm sorry, I shouldn't say normal, but more mainstream pornography might, might be harder to find. Yeah. Right. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to continue to contemplate that, but I want to thank you for coming on the show. I ask all of our guests this, where can people follow you on the internet?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Uh, you can follow me, what do I want to say here?

• 1:04:53Ryan Broderick?

  When they finally repeal Z230 and anyone wants to yell at you, where can they do that?

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  On a major social media platform, Instagram, at Bright H. Reed. Uh, and our podcast, Question Everything. Go listen to that.

• 1:05:05Ryan Broderick?

  It's a great show and I want to thank you for coming on.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Apple, Spotify.

• 1:05:07Ryan Broderick?

  This was super fun. Um, and yeah, thank you again. This was great.

• 1:05:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Thanks for justing with me on it. I appreciate it. You guys are very smart. I appreciate it.

• 1:05:13Ryan Broderick?

  Panic World is a production of Courier. It is written and produced by Grant Irving and hosted by me, Ryan Broderick. Josh Fielstedt is our production coordinator and our amazing researcher is Adam Bumis. From Courier is Shane Verkest, who edits our video episodes along with our producer, Devin Maroney, and National Managing Director and Executive Producer, Kevin Dreyfus. R.C. DeMezzo is their VP of Brand and Social. Charlotte Robinson is their Deputy Director of Brand and Social. Mary Ann Kuga is their Director of Marketing. YouTube and Podcast Growth Marketer, Samantha Hallows. And Tracy Kaplan is the Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution. If you want to sponsor the show or give us products to sell, she's the one to talk to. You can email her at [email protected]. Be

• 1:05:58Ryan Broderick?

  sure to check out the Panic World YouTube channel, which you can find at youtube.com/atpanicworldpod. And please give us some nice ratings on podcast apps and leave a funny review. Lastly, here's my advice for you. Chill out and touch grass while you still can.