Mihail Pojarsky/Pavel Durov and Section 230

Pavel Durov was recently detained in France. This is surprising, because Pavel used to say: "It is better to avoid arrests. What is the point of spending time in prisons?" And now for some reason he changed his mind. Be that as it may, our elephant with many children is accused of being an accomplice of terrorists, drug dealers and pedophiles because the corresponding content is distributed in Telegram, and Durov allegedly refused to cooperate with the French security forces.

To put it simply, they decided to pull Durov over for poor moderation. And this accusation is interesting to analyze. Another elephant with many children, Elon Musk, has already managed to declare on Twitter that this is "advertising the First Amendment." But in fact, the First Amendment is not what really protects online freedom of speech in the United States. The First Amendment has a bunch of exceptions: threats, copyright infringement, slander, and all sorts of "obscene." An ad for the sale of drugs or recruitment to a terrorist organization is obviously not protected by the First Amendment either. But who is responsible for the content? Obviously, the creator. But is the site where the content was posted to blame? And here in the US there were controversial cases when the courts were figuring out whether to punish the owners of bookstores where "obscene" books were found. In the end, they decided that it was not worth it. But, say, the owner of a newspaper that published a prohibited ad is not protected by the First Amendment in any way. That is, the First Amendment is not enough. It is important how exactly it is applied.

And the problem is that American legislators initially perceived the Internet not as a bookstore, but rather as a newspaper. They believed that site owners should be held responsible for illegal content. For example, in the mid-90s, a bill "on decent means of communication" was proposed, which assumed that providers would be punished for pornographic images on the network. Under such circumstances, the Internet as we know it would never have formed. After all, the Internet is not a newspaper. The site owner is physically unable to moderate all harmful content after the fact - the only way out here would be pre-moderation and "white lists". That is, the Internet would have become a fenced concentration camp from the very beginning of its existence.

But then two senators (one Republican, one Democrat) got busy and added one phrase to the "communications decency" bill. That's how "Section 230" of the US Telecommunications Act came into being:

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be considered a publisher or speaker of information provided by another information provider

This phrase is the shield that initially protected the American Internet from censorship. First forums, then social networks - all this could only appear in conditions when the owners of the sites did not worry that they could be pulled up for the content of users. More about the history of "section 230" is in one of my old videos .

The joke is that Section 230 is hated on both sides of the political spectrum in the US. Biden threatened to cancel it (but apparently never got around to it). Trump threatened to repeal it and even tried, but failed (that's why Musk and other Trumpists for "free speech" are a hypocritical spectacle). The wave against Section 230 is powerful: there is moral panic around drugs, and tears of unfortunate victims of trafficking, and other emotional crap that the general public loves so much.

In France, Pavel Durov is being charged with something that Section 230 would protect him from in the US - liability for users who operate on his platform. France is a different country. There has never been either the First Amendment or Section 230. Germany, France and others treat social networks like newspapers and try to bend their owners accordingly. However, it has never come to criminal cases before. Although the same charges could be brought against Zuckerberg or Brin. But they are not presented. Because they are afraid of the American authorities. But Durov is not an American. He can be used as an instructive example. So, no matter how we feel about Durov, now he is truly suffering for your and our freedom.

Let me clarify my thought a little. Now a wave has started moving towards Durov. Here you have moral panic around drug shops, and tears of victims of trafficking and other emotional grunts, which are standardly used to attack Section 230 in the USA (these conversations have been going on there for 30 years). And also all sorts of suspicions about cooperation with the Russian authorities. I say that all this is trivial compared to the overall picture, and the overall picture is this:

1. A free internet can only exist under laws like Section 230. Without it, the white internet will become a concentration camp. 2. The laws are different in Europe, but in fact, Section 230 functions as a kind of unwritten international norm. Because all the owners of large social networks are Americans. And if Americans are bothered with criminal cases, Uncle Sam will fly in and kick their ass. That's why American social networks in Europe are ironed out with fines, but not touched with criminal cases. The last freedoms on the Internet are based on this simple fact. 3. Durov is not an American, but a strange Russian, so he can be jailed. Such a demonstration will have a demoralizing effect on American owners of social networks. They will get scared and will become more attentive to European desires. So Section 230 will cease to be an unwritten international norm. The norms will shift towards European ones, when social networks are regulated like newspapers. 4. Total: the future fate of the entire Internet depends on Durov’s current fate.

Mihail Pojarsky 2024-08-25