> What Wyden happens to claim now about the CDA and Section 230 is irrelevant.

With respect:

A) no it's not, or you wouldn't be on here arguing about intentions. Nobody who actually believes in Death of the Author wastes their time arguing about why a thing was originally made. If people were really embracing Death of the Author in regards to Section 230, we would just be talking about its merits, and that would be great! But instead we're doing this.

B) it's unbelievably silly to ask people to trust your memory as a random internet commenter over both the original authors and over the many academic articles and legal decisions that have been written about Section 230. I guess every single legal precedent about Section 230 is also wrong about its intentions?

C) recommendation algorithms existed when Section 230 was written. They are not a new thing that Congress didn't know about in 1996.

D) biased platforms existed when Section 230 was written. They are not a new thing that Congress didn't know about in 1996.

E) without revealing too much about my age, I was alive in 1996, and while I wasn't particularly involved in the Internet at that point, I've been involved on the Internet long enough to have seen how the conversation on Section 230 has evolved, and "evolved" the right word to use. I think the "algorithms aren't protected" argument is a fairly recent invention. The critiques people are making today are different from the critiques they used to make online.

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And as respectfully as it is possible for me to phrase this:

Whatever your personal memory is about your motivations or the motivations of the people around you when Section 230 was proposed -- and I am not doubting you that maybe you did have a certain view of Section 230 back then, or maybe you were seeing reporting that phrased the provision in a certain light -- but that perspective is irrelevant to what the law actually says and the way it has been interpreted ever since it came out, and it is so unbelievable that Section 230's origins are so well-documented and there are still people on HN saying, "well, but those sources are all wrong, I remember what was going on at the time."

Maybe you did think of Section 230 a certain way back then. So? I'm supposed to trust you over the original authors?

In what other topic do we tolerate this kind of logic on HN? We seriously are now arguing that the bypartisan politicians who wrote Section 230 are... lying about what they meant? That's where we are right now?

At the very least, you'd better have some sources to back up what you're saying. The "algorithms are different" argument is very recent and from what I've seen doesn't really have any evidence for it suggesting that it is anything more than a fantasy about the law's origins that 230 critics would like to believe is true.

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Edit: Okay, actually, let's just nip this in the bud rather than argue back and forth. Here's how courts were talking about Section 230 in 1998, only 2 years after it was passed (https://cyber.harvard.edu/property00/jurisdiction/blumenthal...):

> If it were writing on a clean slate, this Court would agree with plaintiffs. AOL has certain editorial rights with respect to the content provided by Drudge and disseminated by AOL, including the right to require changes in content and to remove it; and it has affirmatively promoted Drudge as a new source of unverified instant gossip on AOL. Yet it takes no responsibility for any damage he may cause. AOL is not a passive conduit like the telephone company, a common carrier with no control and therefore no responsibility for what is said over the telephone wires. n11 Because it has the right to exercise editorial control over those with whom it contracts and whose words it disseminates, it would seem only fair to hold AOL to the liability standards applied to a publisher or, at least, like a book store owner or library, to the liability standards applied to a distributor. n12 [52] But Congress has made a different policy choice by providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others. In some sort of tacit quid pro quo arrangement with the service provider community, Congress has conferred immunity from tort liability as an incentive to Internet service providers to self-police the Internet for obscenity and other offensive material, even where the self-policing is unsuccessful or not even attempted.

So in summary, in 1998 courts were saying "yeah, it looks like this is a website making an explicit recommendation because it's actively promoting content instead of acting like a neutral telephone network, and we actually personally don't think that should be protected, but very clearly Congress has protected it and Section 230 applies to it." Their exact words are: "even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others."

But sure, Section 230 was only about getting rid of porn and had nothing to do with algorithms./s The reality is that even all the way back in 1998, courts already recognized that Section 230 applied to "promoted" content and was not qualified on an assumption that platforms would act like a common carrier. Even early on, courts already recognized that Section 230 protected more content than just pornography or indecency.