CDA Section 230: Explained

Why changing it and Net Neutrality throws our Digital 1st Amendment Rights Away

It gives it away without a fight. Is that what we are now? I wonder what our ancestors would say about fighting for something they believed in, then have their offspring destroy everything they paid a high price for with their lives.

This is very basic and sometimes hard to understand. But failure of understanding and not acting leads to humans using whatever they can for power and money to control the whole planet.

We all ought to be very thankful that some very smart people in 1996 fought the Federal Government and laid down in very simple terms - in 26 words - that over the next 27 years now as the date of this article, has changed all of us and the United States of America forever. And right now, if you can read this and understand it (read it 10 times to understand it if you have to) our future can be created to be anything as a country for the rest of the world or change the world into anything we want it to be. The Communist Marxist Nazis understand this. This is how they are able to change the fabric of America in less than a decade, unrecognizable to what worked for a long time: God, common sense and the American brand.

Basically, what Section 230 means is that at the device level - the computer on your desk at home or in your lap or the smartphone in your hand…as far as the United States digital territory of the World Wide Web internet domains is concerned…whatever data (long “a”, the word ends with a vowel, please. Aye, Fonzy?) that is transmitted or received, you are not responsible for.

Okay, so what is the big deal? To answer that, I have to get you to understand how data is sent and received by a smartphone, for example. You ever wonder how the internet can be so damned fast? Imagine a railroad packed the whole railway with an endless loop of train cars all connected together operating like an assembly line belt - looping and looping over and over. Each train car has a car number and in each train car are individual packages all destined for other train cars on other endless railways running trains connected to other railways. All train cars keep moving at a very high blazing speed even if the train cars are empty - 24/7 and never stops. A package in a train car destined for another railway is snatched off of it’s train car while moving onto another train car on another railway without stopping. This is done repeatedly until the data package gets to the computer or smartphone the user sent it to. Then the process of receiving something back data-wise from whoever it is or whatever it is, is the same.

So, who is responsible for publishing data? And if someone or something was responsible for the data that was published, then who would it be? Should there be anyone? If your smartphone, as any computer, connected to the internet constantly sends and receives train cars empty or not; how can you be liable for every package sent or received from your smartphone just sitting there doing nothing in standby dark mode? The camera and mic could be on and you’d never know it, being devil’s advocate.

But you loaded the app? You checked and tapped “I agree” to the Terms of Service (ToS) of the app/website. Every app and website you use has Terms of Service.

So, why would any local, state or federal government pass a law governing what kind of data you can send and receive from your smartphone computer? How and why is any government/private entity analyzing or storing your data? How can you isolate what data content is banned or what websites/apps you decide to use and install on a smartphone computer that manipulates how you use your data (i.e., what you see and hear)? Why do you need a government babysitter censoring or even controlling your data (i.e., what you see and what you hear) on your smartphone computer? Why force everyone into digital censorship and banning content because most people neither read the website/app Terms of Service nor understand that a smartphone is metaphorically just like a pack of cigarettes? Why do all users have to comply with dumb people using lawfare trying to create something more identical to the United States Tax Code of thousands of pages to make cheap even free internet interactive services liable and open you to be sued; to regulate something easily understood written in twenty-six words just because other dumb people who don’t have a clue how to safely use a smartphone pack of cigarettes and then hand the smartphone pack of cigarettes to their own kids to just go toke away use their smartphone, anywhere unsupervised?

Just sign up with an account and provide your papers (an ID) to prove you are over 18 or 21 or whatever to access certain sites that before nobody had a right to look what was in your data. Don’t worry. The website will keep your credentials and verify you, similar to a national firearms registry so when someone decides to invade us like China and/or alphabet soup, they can just print off a list and know who is loving their guns to confiscate them.

Think about it. Why isn’t there just like started 40 years ago:“NO SMOKING” dining sections for smartphone computer users/smokers before smoking indoors was made illegal for everybody? How many people go to a dining room to hear somebody on a smartphone computer just completely oblivious to you, each other’s space, relaxation and digestion while they “puff” away? And the lack of respect for others and no modicum of courtesy toward fellow man, just like my generation and generations after, pick up on how adults treat each other. Look at what is now the result of decades of this, add migrants that won’t assimilate and wonder if we are even going to have a country left by the time we figure it out.

So, why? Whether it is TikTok, Facebook, X, XXX, XNXX, Pornhub, YouPorn, Debbie Does Dallas…whatever website/app it is…nothing on the internet is banned or censored for content unless you personally by your device want it to be. Why doesn’t your internet television stream provide XXX TV? Any website/app can so why not? YouTube could switch on hardcore porn channels right now for free. So could Pluto TV, just for example. What stops them? Not laws or government regulation, it is whatever the person(s) who bought and paid for their website maps out rules for in their Terms of Service(ToS).

Apps on a smartphone are different because they are not internet but cellular phone data transmission services connecting through the apps you load exclusively to Android or Apple hardware to connect you to the internet through their cellular connection to the internet.

Up until the last 3-5 years now, every user in America has not been liable for just solely using and accessing anything on the internet. But if anyone is already doing something that is already illegal whether or not they use internet or a smartphone computer; if you are caught of that crime and adjudicated by law passed by legislation already on the books then just investigate, prosecute the crime and uphold innocent until proven guilty no matter what communication method is used. Leave the internet interactive communication alone and treat it like electricity…just a connection to turn off/on like a lamp or a toaster.

But that gets into another future discussion - the other side of the coin: Net Neutrality. Stay tuned for an article(s) on that. The Trump FCC in December, 2017 gave that away in the middle of the night. And that is still a severe blow to network neutrality. Even after 6 years, a neutral internet has yet to be fully tested and now what used to be is no more. Most people don’t understand what it is and what they lost 6 years ago…more to come. I will explain why no net neutrality stifles innovation to a stop and brings up really stupid things like “equitable AI” that would really doom us all forever. They are well on there way unless we stop transhumanism in it’s tracks.

Why take the internet and pass laws limiting your connection, how you use your connection and discriminate against only certain privately owned websites/apps a user may use without a court ordered warrant signed by a judge? Right now, the government cannot use any data of yours illegally obtained for prosecution. Law enforcement spies on all of us all the time without warrant using the Patriot Act abound, but the difference is they cannot use it unless they have reasonable doubt, probable cause, warrant, etc. Since Section 230 protects your digital records from any liability or government digital enforcement at the device level, this is why you see the government seize smartphone computers(devices). Section 230 protects you and your Internet Service Provider(ISP) from any liability from what you and your interactive computer services (websites/apps) you access and interact with do on the internet, including publishing.

Your own service you buy that connects you to the internet has logs of every little bit of data they send and receive from and to you. They can at any time pull up every single mouse click, tap or scroll…everything that you do on your smartphone computer and can easily list what website/apps you go to(and sell all of that in a convenient data package to the highest bidder if you agree to it to get your smartphone computer).

Right now and ever since the internet was created, whoever provides any of us a connection to the internet - even for free - free WiFi - nobody is held liable for what you use your electricity for, I mean data connection. Say goodbye free WiFi and free website/apps interactive computer services if they change Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act and make websites/apps liable for using the internet. Say goodbye to inexpensively buying your own website/app/platform/social media and providing anything because what is now inexpensive will be much much more expensive and many things will no longer be allowed to “publish” because they won’t allow anything that threatens them being sued. Or they could hire a bunch of censors and engage spybots using AI to police users on a free privately owned website by you for idiots now making both of you liable for whatever they post that they know nothing about that could bankrupt them. This would include private messaging like Messenger and othe IM apps. Messages are published posts, too.

By now you are probably wondering then why there is a big deal about websites/apps hiding behind Section 230 for shadow banning content, deleting content, blocking content, etc. and etc. Are you a publisher or are you not?

First, you have to stop thinking about a smartphone computer like just a television or radio with rabbit ears. What is the big deal with algorithms? Well, did you know that I can go to like Facebook, for example, and my friend next to me can go on their smartphone computer to Facebook at the same time. But what comes up on each of our screens are completely different. Why?

Each user has Facebook configured differently. Mine goes into my Facebook account and yours goes into yours. And then based on how you have interacted with Facebook and others you associate with determines what comes up on each person’s screen. So the person(s) who run the website can block, ban, publish anything they want if you use their stuff. If you create your own website or app, your rules govern the whole website/app. So, then how can a state in the union put restrictions on a website at the website level for whatever the content is and track the users for wanting to use the service out of literally millions of other websites because they deem the content a certain way?

What if you wanted to create your own internet pornography videos website? Do you really want to verify and keep records on people to access your site under penalty of law? Who is going to pay for that? The government cannot even keep elections secure so how can they ask you to do what they can’t do?

This is obviously the wrong approach. Are VPN’s going to be illegal next? How about things like PGP software or did they already ruin that? Things that for almost 30+ years have been the same when most of you didn’t even know how to turn a computer on, much less boot it. It used to begin a given not to believe whatever is on the internet and take it as a value added resource.

The only way that governments can police this and enforce anything they come up with is by staying connected in real time to all of our internet service providers (Comcast, T-Mobile, Cox, AT&T, etc.) so they can run bots to read your logs of what you use the internet service you bought and paid for to be able to see everything anything you have connected to the internet. So, here we go again. Take the information they gather on your internet use and store it for future use to help find a crime when they need one on you.

If you allow records to be kept to log on to a porn site, then what is the difference when a government requires verification to view an online church service? China does that. If you are under 18 in China it is illegal to go to a Christian church unless you are 18 years old.

The whole reason Section 230 was formed is because of pornography. Who is the government to tell you what data you can or cannot interact with on your smartphone? My solution to keep minors from accessing the wrong media, whatever it is? Here are some very simple steps:

1.) Don’t allow minors to have a smartphone unsupervised.

2.) Treat all smartphones in society just like a pack of cigarettes.

3.) All minors must have their smartphones secure in Faraday bags during school and stored like coats in a coat room until after school.

4.) If a minor is allowed to use a smartphone, make sure only the adult can own the minor’s smartphone and make the parents liable for any interactions the minor uses his or her phone for.

5.) Make it mandatory that the minor’s parent/guardian has the tools readily available and configured to audit their child’s ISP and have the adult sign off on the child’s smartphone like every quarter or 2 or 3 times a year. If the parent/guardian fails at certifying the minor’s device, then flag it.

Think about a Faraday bag like Section 230. When you put a smartphone computer in a sealed Faraday bag, no radio frequencies(RF) can go in or out through the bagthe smartphone computer is in. No data or phone service can be sent or received while it is in the bag.

Section 230 is like a virtual Faraday bag. Don’t let them change it. And in order to access anything on the internet you have to have device capable of accessing the internet. And it is not a TV signal. Different people can all go to the same sites and get a totally different experience.