Here is a fact, if the establishment conservative movement is promoting an idea, then it is a scam. The scam many of the members of this fake movement promote is repealing section 230. Section 230 is a section in the communication decency act that gives immunity to the operators of services such as email and social networks from liability for the content users generate on the service. They claim that this will help hold companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter accountable. Of course, this is fake. The problem is not that we want to make these companies liable for the content on their services. The problem is that these companies remove content they disagree with from their services making the content invisible to their users. Repealing section 230 will be great for these companies. They will censor even more. The main casualty will be smaller platforms such as GAB and MeWe that allow more free speech. These companies will be sued out of existence by leftists whose feelings are hurt by content outside the 3×5 card of allowable opinions.
So, if repealing section 230 is a scam, what should we do? There are multiple alternatives:
- Liberty-minded content creators should expand their social media reach to use free speech alternatives such as MeWe and GAB. Liberty Minded content consumers should focus on these platforms and share and promote the content there to their social circles to drive more engagement.
- Liberty-minded businesses should look for alternatives to the advertisement services offered by companies like Google, Facebook, and Twitter that actively work against their beliefs. Business owners can advertise on podcasts or radio channels that cater to their favorite audience. They can sponsor local events in areas they serve. They can even send coupons by mail or hire young people to place them on doors.
- Censored content creators should sue anti-free-speech companies for their censorship in different courts. We may be able to get a legal judgment that these companies are outside of section 230 protection because they exercise editorial decisions over the content.
- Elected officials who are fuming about the need to restrict silicon valley should instead focus on reducing advertisement and other contracts with the anti-free-speech companies. Imagine a world where you see less government propaganda on Facebook or where your local school board stops buying useless tech gadgets from Google.
Some may wonder, these ideas punish the anti-free-speech, how can we build alternatives. I would recommend they avoid the urge to think about 1 to 1 replacement to the existing platforms. So many alternative social networks and communication apps are coming online. Just help people explore and try as many of them as possible. We may not have a widely used social network such as Facebook or Twitter. We may have 20 different social networks. Each of these networks caters to a different audience. Centralization of power is bad so having a future with less concentration of power is better for the cause of liberty.