Encyclopedia Dramatica:Article of the Now/February 19, 2023

Section 230

"Section 230" is the name given to a piece of the so-called "Communications Decency Act" ("CDA"),which allows websites and forums/message boards/chans to exist as they currently do. In recent years, neo-conservatives, conspiracy theorists, and "Free speech activist" types have argued for completely repealing this section of the CDA law in order to "stop censorship" of their voices by "Big Tech", mainly due to section (c)(2) allowing it. What those boomers fail to understand, is that replealing this entire part of the CDA would in fact, backfire and result in even moar censorship of "Dissenting voices".

"Section 230" allows sites such as 4chan, Twatter, and your beloved Encyclopedia Dramatica to exist without being shut down by constant empty-handed yet suddenly-liable-for-user-actions lolsuits. Basically, if an user of a site, (rather than a site owner) posts something that could get the site owner in any kind of deep shit, the site owner is not the one who is responsible for the users' actions. Obviously, the exception to this is sites that exist specifically to break the law, i.e. CP and Drug Market-type sites. For example, if an user of Wikipedia uploads something very illegal to the Wikipedia site, Jimbo Wales cannot be sued for the uploading users' personal actions, (although, obviously the illegal content is removed by site owners.)

Take into mind, all the dank fresh memes you see on sites like KnowYourMeme and le Plebbit or even on apps like Instagram or Amino. Section 230 protects these sites from having to automatically shut down, in the sad case that some luser would try to DMCA the memes (ala Pepe the Frog's creator) or sue for "copyright damages". The blame is then shifted onto the user who technically had uploaded the meme or "user-generated content". But without Section 230 in the CDA law, the sites will get fucked over instead!!

(( WHY SECTION 230 IS GOOD ))

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