I don't understand the argument here. It's not injurious to them to moderate content because they have §230. §230 isn't there to protect online publishers from the court of public opinion; that's impossible. It's there to protect them from libel lawsuits.

If §230 went away, and Facebook continued moderating, they would be liable if anyone posted defamatory content to Facebook -- something which surely happens on a constant basis.

no - the reason that 230 exists is because it was argued effectively that the task of moderating content was too great, to the point that it be an undue burden to internet companies.

If that is not currently the case and these companies can effectively moderate the content on their networks without driving themselves out of business with the cost, well, they don't have the justification for 230's exemption anymore.

You appear to hold some very idiosyncratic beliefs about section 230. It does not provide immunity or any other benefit to a publisher that doesn't perform moderation. Such a publisher was already immune under preexisting law.

It provides immunity to publishers who (1) publish user-generated content, and (2) perform moderation on some of that content. They are free to do their moderation without being required to moderate everything posted to their site.

It's still quite obviously true that Facebook is not able to moderate everything posted to its website. What are you trying to say?

>It provides immunity to publishers who (1) publish user-generated content, and (2) perform moderation on some of that content. They are free to do their moderation without being required to moderate everything posted to their site.

It doesn't. It outlines that internet companies ARE NOT PUBLISHERS. As a result, they aren't liable for the things that people or other companies publish on their platforms.

>It does not provide immunity or any other benefit to a publisher that doesn't perform moderation. Such a publisher was already immune under preexisting law.

They weren't immune under preexisting law, they were actually liable as they could be treated as the publisher of any content on their platform. The reason the exception was carved out was because it was considered detrimental to the development of the internet and the free spread of ideas on the internet if websites were forced to moderate content completely.

It's actually a very interesting exception, too, because in effect this means companies like facebook are not held liable for publishing things on their platform, just so long as they didn't create the things they publish. It also provides them immunity to perform any kind of moderation they like.

The problem is that this exception was built for the prior internet. It depended on and was intended to build up the idea of personal control over content, where a person could decide what content they did and did not want to see online. That's why they were required to have a message telling users they can get parental controls and blockers.

>It's still quite obviously true that Facebook is not able to moderate everything posted to its website. What are you trying to say?

That's not obvious. I run ads on Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other platforms; there is moderation before publishing for every ad I post. It's not perfect and often has problems, but it exists and it's expanding.