Some sensible Section 230 reforms vs a 'disruptor' troll (and other noobs on Twitter)

Reforming Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act has given companies on the Internet and content providers both a variety of very solid protections against content lawsuits.

But, in recent years, on both left and right, there's been fears that social media behemoths have been stretching these protections too far.

At Nieman Lab, two co-authors have an excellent piece on both WHY Section 230 needs some reforms and WHAT they should be.

The troll? This guy on Twitter. I'm not a Twitter expert to know if he has some way of hiding his post-2014 tweets or if he actually does only replies. The fact that he lists ZERO followers means that he's a pontificator type, IMO.

As for his trollery? It's the claim that social media are "disruptors." As in one of those Silicon Valley/New Media BSers.

He claimed that FB/Twitter were just distributors. He repeatedly refused to engage with the idea that between making editorial decisions (that's essentially what they are), whether between the use of algorithms on who gets to see what AND on the human tweakings of said algorithms, or the use of human content moderation panels, etc, especially when combined with monetarization decisions off this, MIGHT not just move them beyond distributors.

At one point, he cited an old federal civil case about bookstores. I said it was a crappy analogy, because the case didn't involve a bookstore either adding pages to, or deleting pages from, the books that had been sold to it, then still selling them. (I didn't think to add, re the algorithm issue, that the bookstore case also didn't involve a bookstore placing limits on certain parts of the store and who could visit.) 

(Update: A Twitter account called "Section 230," whose best part about it is using a sign for NM Highway 230 as its icon, and which admits to "lots of canned responses," has refused to engage with my bookstore analogy, instead citing a variant of the troll's analogy. I eventually told him "where to go" and muted the conversation. Said account has also refused to engage with the monetization issue and whether that doesn't make them "publishers.")

He also repeatedly claimed that the authors of the Nieman Lab piece, a journalism prof and an adjunct law prof, didn't know what they were talking about. (Update: Multiple people on Twitter have made similar claims.)

I told him that I thought he was not only engaging in handwaving with his disruptor claims, but was engaging in "Section 230 originalism" that I found no more compelling than constitutional law originalism. As for analogies? I said that social media didn't exist in 1996. And, full-blown versions of algorithms and content moderation panels took years to develop after FB and Twitter launches.

I finally went Godwin's Law on him and told him Hitler was also a disruptor then muted the conversation.

As for the original claims? The HOW is probably not the final word. But the THAT, in some sense of building on FOSTA/SESTA ideas in 2018, is solid. The one argument against the authors might be the same that EFF raised against FOSTA/SESTA, that "Fair Housing Council" ruling meant that websites willingly abetting sex trafficking were already outside of Section 230.

Per the authors, though, the monetization factor of the issues they raise with social media could be seen as playing out the same — they're no longer Good Samaritans. However, what they're getting at is "triggers" for when they're outside that zone. Re FOSTA/SESTA, at least some groups in original opposition dropped their opposition after a number of its terms were better defined.

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UPDATES, April 2, 2026

First, content issues are entirely separate from age and age verification issues. Anybody who raises that as a cost issue for smaller social media is going down the red herring route.

Second, social media, or a certain type of social media in particular, and one company above all, ARE held responsible for content in a certain way. Specifically, I'm talking about copyright, and the issue of music video, and of course, the top company being YouTube. If we can have YouTube held liable for copyright violations if they don't accept takedown notices, there's no reason we can't call social media the digital equivalent of publishers on liability for libel.

The Denton Record Chronicle is kind of like a CNHI paper

 And, no that's not good.

I blogged early last fall about the announcement that, no paper, NPR radio station KERA had an agreement to take over the Denton paper. (Since then, KERA has also taken over operations of Dallas' classical radio station, WRR, and is looking more and more like a growing behemoth in terms of legacy media today. Last Saturday's Dallas Snooze was below 15 percent adhole even counting obits as ads. I didn't even look at the StartleGram.)

And, speaking of adhole and CNHI? Let's jump into both.

When COVID hit, the Wrecked Chronic pivoted quickly to semiweekly in print, then to weekly after that. Bad moves, IMO. I don't know what the adhole was then, but, this was still after Patterson had clawed it back from the Snooze, had decided not to circ further north (I am not sure if they did or not pre-Snooze acquisition more than 15 years ago) and other things.

OK. First weekend of January is kind of slow, yes.

Still.

22 pages, 38 percent adhole IF you count the obits. Well, a page and a half of obits piled up with the post New Year's death surge (anecdotal, but other editors have seen this), and if you subtract that, it was below 25 percent.

The CNHI part? When CNHI cut its print papers from daily to nondaily after COVID, it kept running all six days a week of crosswords, comics, etc. WHY? No other newspaper chain is buying your papers individually off your hands, or CNHI as a chain off RSA's hands, at your inflated ask. You're just wasting paper and whatever you're still paying to syndication companies.

Well, the DRC does similar.

Except worse in a way.

They have two daily crosswords, not just one. The other puzzles like the Jumble, etc.

(Forgot to check if either paper still runs a week's work of print horoscopes, Wouldn't that be the beat-all of shit-ass stupidity? "If you're a Pisces today, you should take note of asking yourself why you're reading a three-day out-of-date horoscope and adjust accordingly.")

Anyway, they do NOT run all six days worth of comics! They only run part of the week's comics. WHY?

And, per the part about KERA having an agreement, at least, to take you over, you don't have to goose anything anymore.

Seriously. They could have whacked that paper to 18 pages (one page was a full-page house ad cuz you can't print odd numbers of pages) and been fine.

Now, it would be interesting to be asked to be publisher there, if Patterson doesn't stay around after the takeover is finalized.

I'd work on:

1. Moving it back to semiweekly in print, while killing the comics, one of the two crosswords and some other syndicated material;
2. Circulation north of Denton — there's room for it;
   
3. More local columnists, as well as bumping up paid in-house editorial staff, on sports as well as news;
   
4. Beefing special sections.

That's a minimum. 

I surely won't get that chance.

The 2022 year in review

 Here's the top 10 posts from the last year, by readership, as not all were from last year.

1. An insider in Decatur. I don't know why this took off so much, but it did, even though it's only six weeks old. And, it took off in the first week. Dunno if it was "Decatur" being mentioned by name, or TPA, or what.

2. Lee Zion says "have my paper." This is my skeptical take on the owner-publisher of a weekly paper in Minnesota who decided he had to go fight for Ukraine. It's skeptical about why he thought he had to fight, his claims to 100-hour work weeks, and other things.

Related was No. 9: "So Lee Zion got somebody to take his paper off his hands." Sadly, the big names in the world of media criticism have never looked at this issue.

3. "More fun with the Gainesville Register." Just one of several looks at a nearby CNHI newspaper, as was No. 6, "Another CNHI fail in Gainesville."

4. "US media misinformation about Russia-Ukraine media censorship." This was my callout of folks like the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation for, during Sunshine Week, attacking ONLY Russia and NOT Ukraine as well for media censorship. I don't know whether the problem was more misinformation out of ignorance, willfull party-line warmongering or what, but it was bad.

5. "Take a pass on Wick Communications." Four years old, but, probably just as relevant today about a small chain running itself on the cheap.

7. "A new newspaper player in Texas," used the word "newspaper" loosely, as I looked at the dreck Cherry Road Media puts out and speculated about ulterior and ultimate motives.

8. "Don't apply at Hearst" looked at the shithole that the Beaumont paper has become as well as the jump-through-hoops bullshit of the hiring process.

10. "KERA to buy dead carcass of  Denton Record Chronicle." I hope the public radio station can pull off the revitalization, but I'm not holding my breath. That said, by being part of an NPR and PBS team, the paper's lagging financials can be swept under the rug for a while if they don't show much improvement. (And I doubt they will.)