In written testimony, before his appearance, Thursday before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Facebook’s CEO said Congress should consider changing Section 230 to require companies to “earn” liability protection. It’s the latest example that Mark Zuckerberg isn’t interested in fixing what’s actually wrong with Facebook, but rather protecting it at all costs against both regulation and competition, reports Inc.
Section 230 provides platforms with the ability to moderate content posted and insulates them from liability over what users share or posts. Without the protection from Section 230, companies could be held liable for anything their user’s post.
Here is an excerpt from Zuckerberg’s written testimony:
Instead of being granted immunity, platforms should be required to demonstrate that they have systems in place for identifying unlawful content and removing it. Platforms should not be held liable if a particular piece of content evades its detection–that would be impractical for platforms with billions of posts per day–but they should be required to have adequate systems in place to address unlawful content.
What Zuckerberg is essentially saying is that platforms would be protected from liability for content posted on their platforms only if they have a system in place for removing content that might make them liable in the first place.
Guess who has that sort of system in place? Facebook does.
Facebook’s Trust and Safety team has 35,000 people. Their job is largely moderating content. That means the company has roughly one person “identifying unlawful content and removing it” for every 80,000 users.
However, if a company of Facebook’s size, which has 35,000 people dedicated to the task, can’t effectively prevent objectionable content, how can a small startup with 15 employees, building the next social network or app?
If Zuckerberg becomes successful, there would be no Etsy, Shopify, or even a comments section on your favorite blog. No startup would any longer have the ability to meet Zuckerberg’s requirement and hence someday pose a threat to Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg aims to eliminate any potential competition from a small startup that might challenge Facebook’s dominance in the future. And Zuckerberg just asked Congress to pass a law to do just that.
Source: INC
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