Section 230 - Solving the Gordian Knot

Everyone knows how huge and complex the internet is and how it has become entangled with virtually everything that defines modern society in the developed world. And along with this complexity and its tentacles reaching into all aspects of daily life, it has become a modern-day Gordian Knot. The knotty-ness comes from the difficulties that those seeking to solve it have encountered in their efforts to resolve the many problems that have come with the many advantages the internet has wrought. There is no disputing the internet brought a great many benefits; but that along with its highly desired benefits also came a set of problems is neither surprising nor intractable. There may be no way to introduce new technologies or means to performing some tasks without also introducing some related issues and problems. But this problematic side of technical advances is just another instance of finding a solution to the new problem. Learning to grow crops rather than hunting for them in their natural habitat was an advancement but it brought with it the problems of preventing ranging herbivores or insects from eating it. So it is with the useful tools provided by the internet. There too you need to protect yourself from the predators and infestations that pervade many internet environs.

Clearly some of the abusive and malignant problems enabled by Tech (big or otherwise) are harder than others to contend with, but that does not mean even the hardest of these problems is actually all that difficult to resolve. Just a cursory look at the various ills the internet has enabled include the old standards: spam, phishing, hackers, and identity theft; and who can forget viruses that use to be the plague we all worried about before COVID-19. Adding to this list are the culturally and politically charged problems: hate-speech & anonymous threats, ‘fake-news’, misinformation campaigns (foreign & domestic varieties), political interference by foreign entities, domestic terrorism recruitment & organizing efforts, and conspiracy theory propagation.  Now these problems have persisted for decades and constantly evolved with the internet; and new technologies are adding to the problems that can be created, “deep-fakes” for example. Not everything about all the problems has been bad, they have provided the justification for numerous companies & services to arise to deal with them. So, there is a silver lining for some in the dark cloud of internet scourges, but at a cost.

Of course, as we have integrated the internet more and more into our lives and society, the extent to which these ills have manifested themselves as actual significant risks to our society and nation have grown. As the technologies have expanded and increased the value that its tools/capabilities can provide has increased, but then those tools/capabilities have likewise also been used to ill-effect.

The Big Tech companies are not unaware of these problems. They lobbied aggressively for the Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to ‘protect’ themselves from the ‘problems’ emerging as issues a quarter of a century ago. By being indemnified and protected against liability from these risks, abuses, and dangerous actions operating via their systems and services, the internet technology companies have eliminated the risks to themselves and mostly removed the incentives to do anything to protect their users or clients. So, the predictable happened. Those who would take advantage of openings, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities learned how to do so. Additionally, some of the features that platforms provided even aided and enhanced the abilities for abusers to abuse.

Section 230 represents one of the areas of contention that the Big Tech companies, politicians, legislators, regulators, platform clients and users will disagree about what or even if anything needs to be done to resolve any of the issues/problems. The Big Tech companies will seize on arguments that support or help them prevent or reduce taking on responsibilities which will be of course the exact opposite of what politicians, legislators, and regulators will be seeking. And there will be other interest groups that will be advocating for whatever hot-button items they want or are afraid of losing. These different and conflicting interests will make coming to grip with the problems quite difficult. The difficulty does not originate from the problems being inherently difficult or complex, but that those involved are not able to see the problems for what they are and represent. No one involved is looking at ways to see the problems that simply change assumptions about what the problems require to be solved.

There’s an argument Big Tech uses which presumes that dealing with hate-speech, ‘fake-news’, misinformation, and other content issues requires that they engage in censorship or content moderation. If this were true, then Big Tech would be right that they need to be protected from some or all liabilities; but it is not true. There are solutions that enable hate-speech to be managed without the technology companies having to take on that roll. There are solutions to dealing with misinformation that do not require censorship or moderation. “Fake news” is easily handled, and no one (not even Big Tech) needs to be engaged in fact-checking, validating, or assessing content. Name a problem and the ‘red-herring’ obstacle can be dispensed with leaving Big Tech without a liability issue or risk.

It is hard to say why Big Tech has not seen the solutions to any of these issues, but it could just be in assumptions that they made about what any solution required. They imposed a ‘tunnel-vision’ constraint on their innovative and expert problem-solvers. The same may apply to politicians, legislators, regulators, and other interested parties. They may only be looking at a solution or solutions that conform to some assumptions they made about what is necessary and required of a solution. Destroy the assumption(s) and the space of solutions may open to a vastly wider number of options.

The key to revising Section 230 is in solving the Gordian Knot of assumptions that block access to all the solutions that makes it much easier. The reasons to look at the problems afresh and without fear are many. Among the best is that there are better solutions which enhance Big Tech’s businesses, the services that they provide to their users and clients, and which eliminates some or all of the risks that politicians, legislators, and regulators would likely impose in their uninformed zeal to “do what they think is right” to redress the various problems.

All that is lacking is a leader in one of the Big Tech companies that can see opportunities where today they are struggling to find a path forward that avoid the predation of those who “are here to help.”