I've always wondered why that's not already the case. When some child porn ends up on Pornhub, for example, I don't see how the entire company isn't shut down instantly and the owners arrested for distributing it. I don't see why they're able to hide behind the fact that 'it wasn't us, it was our users' any more than a newspaper can claim that it wasn't them it was one of their journalists.
This all stems from the 90's.
Basically old libel laws decided that you're either a distributor or a publisher. A book shop is a distributor, so you can't sue them for stuff appearing in the books they sell. A newspaper is a publisher, they are liable.
In the 1990s The US govt passed an act called the communicatrions decency act that, after a few challenges at the supreme court essentially laid out that internet service providers, forums and social media sites are distributors as long as they don't start behaving like a publisher by editorialising content.
If you want to know more there's a good podcast on it here.
OA390: Trump’s War on Twitter (A Deep Dive on Section 230)
Today’s episode breaks down the latest temper tantrum and accompanying executive order by our game show host president attacking social media platforms for having the temerity to engage in fa…
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