Understanding the Controversial Section 230
Since the inception of the internet, governments have been struggling to keep up. Once they finally manage to put in place a piece of legislation, it is often already outdated due to how fast tech and the internet are evolving. There is one internet law in particular that is very relevant for adult companies, and any platform that accepts third party content. This is the controversial section 230, passed in 1996. There are also similar legislation that exist in the EU/UK.
What is section 230?
Section 230 essentially means that a site cannot be regarded as the publisher for third-party content. In turn, this protects the sites from lawsuits, in the event that someone uploads illegal or harmful content. Section 230 is particularly important for adult sites and social media platforms where people are directly uploading content themselves. Other than unfair site scrutiny for third-party content, one can also claim that section 230 helps to protect ‘free speech’.
How is this relevant to porn?
A lot of adult entertainment sites' business model works on third party content, such as tube or fan sites. When you open a site up to the world, especially with adult material, harmful or illegal content is inevitably going to be uploaded or attempted to. Therefore, section 230 is important for some adult sites, as it means that they are legally not responsible for that third-party content. But this is not to say that there have not been any issues in its interpretation.
Why is it controversial?
Recently in the United States, section 230 has come under scrutiny due to claims of ‘big tech abuse’ and it is currently under review for possible repeal or reform. When section 230 first came into effect, it was to help protect small companies and enable them to grow. But, now we know more about these platforms, and their positive/negative effects and so in turn, some form of review/reform needs to be put into place.
Critics of section 230 have argued that the broadness of the legislation has led to big companies to inflict harm on their users. A light has also further been shined on section 230, not necessarily due to just illegal content but also due to the increase in ‘fake news’, leading politicians to claim that big tech companies are knowingly allowing false and harmful information to stay up, and should be held accountable for this.
What should happen?
Adult sites and social media platforms do need some protections in terms of liability when it comes to third party content, as it is inevitable as a third party platform to not have some instances of harmful or illegal content. However, adult/social media sites should be held more accountable for their moderation processes, and their takedown times of harmful and illegal content. We will never be able to completely stop harmful content but companies can improve their safety standards and more research needs to be put into how to modernize moderation with combining AI and the human side. Lastly, governments need to become better at responding to tech changes and advancements, especially when it comes to legislation. Section 230 is the perfect example of this, as it is an old piece of legislation that is not managing to keep up with the ever changing online world.