Law Justice Thomas on §230 - Court turns down malwarebytes v enigma case; Thomas in favor of §230 review

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Justice Thomas of the US Supreme Court spends 9 pages talking about how the lower courts have given providers unwritten, overbroad protections. Link below, and pdf from the court attached.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/101320zor_8m58.pdf

Typical orders pdf from the court. Thomas's bit starts on page 12 and runs to the end (21).

IANAL, so will avoid much commentary, other than to say I think a narrowing of the interpretation of the law would fit most of Trump's agenda on the topic. Regarding the Farms, Thomas's example of Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment Recordings could mean that the front page header hypothetically could be an issue.
 

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How I love reading Thomas opinions.
TL;DR 'Retarded lower courts are pulling shit out of their ass to give sweeping immunity.'
'Nigger we know there's a difference between a publisher and a distributor and so did Congress when they wrote it!'
 
I think anything that forces a delineation between platform and publisher and lays out exactly what makes what will be a good thing, since social media companies sit in the gray zone where they try to be both.
 
Reading this post from Wraith entitles Wraith to search through your browser history, crash on your couch or bed if he's fleeing large groups of monster heroes if he's low on MP and HP, and go through your refrigerator. This also allows the reader no say when he goes through your underwear drawer and makes fun of your MLP underoos.
 
Thomas gets right to the heart of the matter, which is that the protections of 230 as written are relatively narrow (and probably reasonable). Unfortunately these protections have been expanded to cover deliberate, bad faith conduct which runs completely counter to both spirit and letter of the law. The law itself is not necessarily defective, but the enforcement and interpretation of it is deeply flawed.

A good, thorough judicial review of 230 would do a world of good.
 
Not Really Here said:
How I love reading Thomas opinions.
TL;DR 'Retarded lower courts are pulling shit out of their ass to give sweeping immunity.'
'Nigger we know there's a difference between a publisher and a distributor and so did Congress when they wrote it!'
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Thomas is one of the best Justices the Court has ever had.
 
Extending §230 immunity beyond the natural reading of the text can have serious consequences. Before giving companies immunity from civil claims for “knowingly host[ing] illegal child pornography,” Bates, 2006 WL 3813758, *3, or for race discrimination, Sikhs for Justice, 697 Fed. Appx.,at 526, we should be certain that is what the law demands.
Without the benefit of briefing on the merits, we need not decide today the correct interpretation of §230. But in an appropriate case, it behooves us to do so.
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There is an actual difference between big corporate sites like Google and Facebook and small independent communities like us and the chans.
There is no political will in the Congress to distinguish between what the Republicans consider to be censorious monopolistic Big Tech and what the Democrats consider to be racist harmful hate communities.
 
While the Justice might know there's a difference between publisher and distributor, saying Congress did is a bit of a stretch. Maybe the guy who actually wrote the bill and his lobbyists?

But my thought of this issue has always been that it needs to be enforced as written, nothing more.
 
Disc said:
At a glance, he seems to be going at it the right way: not that Section 230 should be abolished, but it should instead have its enforcement reworked.
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I'm admittedly a Clearance Thomas fanboy, so I'm always pretty optimistic of his opinions. If any Justice is commenting on this I'm glad it's him.
 
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