President Trump's new executive order on Big Tech companies ought to serve as a wakeup call.
offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse. It is the policy of the United States.to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received.
offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse.... It is the policy of the United States...to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received." Working towards that policy, the CDA exempted providers of"interactive computer services" from liability for restricting the availability of"material that the provider or user considers to be, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing or otherwise objectionable." The courts interpreted that exemption as broadly as imaginable. The"otherwise objectionable" clause became a catch-all, enabling Internet companies to escape any and all liability for anything posted on their sites. The CDA's motivation was far narrower. It was indeed about decency. Early Internet sites permitted any user to post anything. When some conscientious sites began removing pornography, they found themselves facing defamation suits. The theory was that anyone capable of pulling pornography is subject to liability as an editor or publisher. Section 230 arose to let people remove harmful material without assuming a publisher's liability. Good intentions aside, the CDA ensured that Internet companies have no incentive to curate postings responsibly. To the contrary, their incentive is to cater to their own tastes, whims and preferences. It's hard to underestimate the danger of motivating giants like Twitter, Facebook and Google to filter information to suit the personal, political or monetary interests of whoever gets to do the filtering.The CDA exemption built upon an incentive system that was already pointing in a dangerous direction. In the landmark 1964 case of, the Supreme Court ruled that to win a defamation suit, a public figure must prove that a media outlet acted with"actual malice—that is, with knowledge that [the reported material] was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not." While this unshackling of the press has had many positive effects, it does not work in the service of truth. A member of the press who hears a nasty rumor about a public figure has an incentive to be the first to report it—not to investigate its truth. We thus have the press and the social media we deserve. First we told the press to exert only enough effort verifying facts to avoid being found provably reckless. Then we told the social media giants they didn't even have to do that. Every incentive we've handed them has motivated them to shape public discourse to suit their own tastes. Well, surprise! That's precisely what they've done. President Trump's new EO is a wakeup call. It tinkers at the edges of the incentive system, but it can't really get to the heart of the matter. That task falls to Congress and the courts. At the end of the day, though, if America wants the responsible, trustworthy press it needs to remain a vibrant free society, it will have to get the incentive structures right. Until then, don't be surprised to learn that truth has very little value to America's free press.
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