Facebook demoting political groups shows the importance of Section 230

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As I covered yesterday, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is under attack from both the left and right. Having abandoned even the pretense of support for market competition and free enterprise, authoritarian populists in Congress like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz want more power to force online platforms to do their bidding, promoting content they like and censoring content they don’t. Many on the left want to see platforms held to greater account for amplifying and promoting radicalizing racist propaganda, disinformation, and helping the capitol rioters organize their attack.

In response to political pressure from both sides, Facebook recently announced plans to stop recommending political groups of any persuasion to users and limit the amount of political content in users’ feeds.

To me, this is a perfect microcosm of how regulation actually tends to work in practice. A problem is identified. A solution is proffered. The media portrays the fight as being between everyday citizens and “Big Business,” who need to be “reined in” by Congress.

Meanwhile, lobbyists work hard with Senate staffers (who actually write the laws and most of whom go on to become lobbyists themselves) to ensure that whatever ends up actually getting passed is at most a mere annoyance to large, incumbent players but an absolute nightmare for the little guys.

You saw it with 2257 requirements and obscenity prosecutions, which wiped out small, ethical American porn producers and set up a foreign company, Mindgeek, to utterly dominate the online porn marketplace.

You saw it with AB5, which was supposed to force companies like Uber and Instacart to stop abusing their gig workers. Instead, the companies got together and passed Prop 22, which, I shit you not, exempted large, VC-backed app-based transportation and delivery companies from AB5 requirements. You know who’s not exempted? Their competitors.

Removing Section 230 will not force Facebook to be accountable to the will of the people. Quite the opposite. With multiple former government officials (including the author of the Patriot Act) on staff, Facebook will simply effectively lobby to write the rules about what platforms are allowed to do. It’s a symbiotic relationship for Facebook. They want to be able to point the finger at government when they do unpopular things. “Don’t like this? Change the laws!” But they know they’re ultimately in control of what passes because regulators both have no idea what they’re doing and want a job at Facebook when they’re done regulating. Plus, normal people don’t have the time or energy to track and call their representatives about each and every regulation on what’s allowed and what’s not online.

And the politicians love it. It’s more power for them. And more ability to claim to be “doing something” about the problems with online platforms.

Removing Section 230 won’t hurt Facebook. It’ll hurt everyone who isn’t Facebook. Everyone else will have to play by the rules Facebook sets or face jail time. Just keeping up with the regulations alone will be a full-time job. And you know it’ll be complicated because regulatory complexity itself is a competitive advantage for incumbents. Facebook can easily hire dozens of lawyers to ensure regulatory compliance. Your local sex educator can’t.

We saw this with FOSTA, the last successful erosion of Section 230. Who was silenced? Google, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, etc. were all just fine. It was their users who were silenced. These companies simply deleted their content and accounts without warning.

Yes, Section 230 allows platforms to make their own decisions about how to moderate their content (as long as it’s not related to sex, thanks to FOSTA). Yes, platforms are making very bad decisions about what to moderate and how. But no, removing or further eroding Section 230 will not disempower big platforms. It will not empower citizens. It will only give government and corporations more power to censor unpopular views, crush competitors through regulatory complexity and regulatory capture, and widen the revolving door between Big Tech and government regulators.