But here's where it gets weird.
Back in 1996, some geniuses in Congress thought, "Hey, let's do away with the entire concept of the homeowner or business owner having responsibility for what happens in their place."
Seriously. Selling drugs, trading in guns and ammunition, human trafficking, planning terrorist attacks. All good. No problem.
No matter what happens in a place of business or a home, the owner - the person who opened the place to the world and put out a "Big Party" sign - bears no responsibility whatsoever for what goes on inside. None. Untouchable.
The police can bust the crooks, but they can't arrest the guy who owns the "castle," no court has any authority to try him, and he'll never, ever see even one day inside a jail cell no matter what happened in his place.
Sounds crazy, right?
But, continuing that metaphor about your home or place of business being your castle, that's pretty close to what Congress did with Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.
It wasn't always this way.
Back when the internet started, but before hypertext markup language (HTML) was invented, there were really only two big "houses" on the internet: CompuServe and AOL. My old friend and business partner Nigel and I ran "forums" on CompuServe starting around 1980, right up until 1996.
We ran the IBM PC Forum, the Macintosh Forum, and about two dozen other "places" where people interested in ADHD, UFOs, the Kennedy assassination, international trade, and a bunch of other topics were discussed.
CompuServe paid us well, because we had to make sure nothing criminal happened in any of the forums we ran. And we split that revenue with the 20 or so people who worked with us.
We kept the places open and safe. After all, it was CompuServe's "castle" and they were paying us to make sure nothing illegal happened inside it.
Until just after 1996, when they decided they didn't any longer have to pay to keep the "buildings" safe and crime-free.
The result of Section 230 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 is obvious today. The attack on our Capitol was largely planned on social media and the internet more broadly, where you can also buy ghost guns, other people's credit card numbers, drugs, and illegal porn.
The criminals can go to jail, but the people who own the Internet "castles" where the transactions take place are almost entirely immune.
In 1997, in the case Zeran v. America Online, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Section 230 is written so tightly that even when an online service is knowingly allowing lawbreaking, they can't be held accountable.
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