> First, there is the difficulty of vetting content from a very large number of users.

But they do, and often with political overtones, thus claiming 230 doesn’t make sense. As soon as they “fact check,” they have become an arbiter of truth and thus a publisher. The complaint that “it’s hard to hold them to 230 because of scale” really isn’t our problem. If they can’t keep control of their own platform, that doesn’t give them a free pass. Either they are neutral and enjoy 230 protection or they aren’t neutral and thus get treated like a publisher. Hiding behind “community standards” that are opaquely and inconsistently applied seems to be their strategy. But how can a private, Facebook group be violating standards they didn’t create? The community should set the standards, not Facebook, at least with closed groups. But that’s not how it works, thus Facebook is applying their own standards, which, makes them a publisher because those standards are arbitrary and not documented.

Either you take an editorial stance (which they have,) and surrender 230 protection, or they don’t and keep the 230 exemption.

The problem I have with Facebook isn’t that they take action against targeted harassment or purely illegal content (child porn, etc.,) it’s that they take action against ideas they disagree with. For example, posting an opinion article about election fraud and gets flagged/tagged/suppressed despite it being literally an opinion.. at that point, by labeling content as “wrong,” they’ve taken an editorial stance. Even something like fact checking is editorial — you are decorating content because of the ideas expressed and such decoration isn’t evenly applied, it’s applied based on a particular viewpoint, which again, is editorial. They are, both directly and indirectly, taking sides on an issue under the guise of “preventing misinformation.” However, that’s a much different than policing content harassing specific individuals.

Example: the Stop the Steal Facebook groups were suspended despite their being nothing illegal about those groups. They were groups committed to a certain opinion. However, Rose City ANTIFA, a group that has been involved in violent protests, their page still stands. What’s the difference? One group is pissed at the system and another group is, well, pissed at the system. One happens to be on the right, another happens to be on the left. However a big difference is that the Stop the Steal groups don’t make violent protest a fundamental part of their message. I don’t care to debate the merits of either side, the point is when Facebook takes a side, they are no longer operating within the letter or the spirit of Section 230. If we were talking about designated terrorist organizations, then removing their content is uncontroversial and consistent with the law. But Republican groups aren’t legally designated terrorist organizations anymore than BLM is. So a decision to remove one and not the other is editorial.

Were articles about Stacy Abrams’s claiming a rigged election in 2018 tagged with fact checks? No. Did articles about her claiming to have won tagged? Nope.

Facebook is entitled to do what they want, however my point isn’t that Facebook should allow everyone and everything; my point is that can’t take an editorial stance or even “fact check” and still expect Section 230 protections.