There is a firm consensus among conservatives that some form of regulation needs to be instituted to rein in Big Tech. Social media companies have acted with impunity to put conservatives and right-wingers out of the digital public square through content warnings, suspensions, and generally unfair enforcement of policies. Big Tech censorship is the preeminent threat to Americans’ Natural Right to Freedom of Speech, and a solution needs to be found to secure the rights of conservatives to speak in the digital public square.
Steven Crowder has articulated the best perspective on this— that Congress or the FCC should compel social media companies to declare whether they are publishers or platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, and regulate them accordingly— multiple times, but I don’t think he’s actually taken this argument to its logical conclusion.
The government shouldn’t need to compel social media companies to declare themselves one or the other. By their own admission, and by the definition set forth by Section 230, social media companies are platforms, or at the very least, they aren’t publishers.
The text of Section 230 states: “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” The law defines an “information content provider” as “any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.” In plain English, this is anyone who creates information: users. An “interactive computer service” is defined as “any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server.” In plain English, this is a website that hosts content from a large group of people: a platform. To put it simply, if a website hosts content from users, it is not the publisher of that content. So Twitter and Facebook, et. al., are not publishers or speakers. Their users are.
If the platforms themselves are not to be treated as publishers, then it follows that they shouldn’t be treated as having the rights of publishers. It would necessarily follow, then, that they cannot curate content, especially on a partisan basis. Which presents quite a conundrum for social media terms of service. Standards like “hate speech” are overtly partisan. Only one side of the aisle believes in hate speech. Tim Pool articulated this in a 2019 debate on Joe Rogan’s podcast. So too are Trump supporters’ legitimate claims of election irregularities and fraud. Only one side has insisted for months that voter irregularities cost President Trump the election, and only one side has been insisting that the election was entirely on the up-and-up, Trump lost every court challenge, and his supporters are sore losers domestic terrorists. Banning people for discussing election fraud or “misgendering” a transgender person is overtly partisan curation of content, which is a gross violation of Section 230’s distinction. But they continue to act with impunity anyway because the government refuses to step in. Republican leadership refused to crack down on Big Tech during the Trump administration, and still refuse to do anything now, because (for some unknown reason) they still listen to David French. They operate under two converging inanities: the historically ignorant and morally reprehensible laissez-faire idea that Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. are private companies that can do whatever they want, and the blind paranoia that the Democrats will use the legal precedents to consolidate their power. Both these premises are nonsense. Republicans, you have a moral duty to protect the American people’s Natural Right to Free Speech. Furthermore, taking action to secure the people’s Natural Rights within the people means that the Democrats can’t simply take them back. Conservatives hate entitlements because they are “impossible to take back.” The same attitude should apply to Freedom of Speech.
Our Natural Rights need to be defended from private and public threats. Republicans, it’s time you start doing what needs to be done to defend them.