Joe Biden is Clueless on Section 230 – And He’s Not Alone

NEW YORK – The other day, some clueless old fuck sat down for an interview with the editorial board of the New York Times and – among other things – advocated for the repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Unfortunately, that clueless old fuck happened to be Joe Biden, one of the more likely Democratic nominees for President of the United States in the upcoming election. Even more unfortunately, Biden’s not alone among American politicians in wanting to amend, repeal, eviscerate or otherwise gut Section 230.

Before talking about how misguided Biden and others are on what Section 230 is and how it works, let’s look at what Biden said to the Times – which, I warn you, is going to be a confusing, confounding and intellectually-painful exercise.

“[The Times] can’t write something you know to be false and be exempt from being sued,” Biden said. “But he [Zuckerberg] can. The idea that it’s a tech company is that Section 230 should be revoked, immediately should be revoked, number one. For Zuckerberg and other platforms.”

For fuck’s sake, we’re only a few sentences into this and already Biden is knee-deep in nonsense. Maybe it will seem less inane and more coherent if we look at a few more lines? (Spoiler Alert: No, it won’t.)

“It should be revoked because it is not merely an internet company,” Biden continued, demonstrating that he still hasn’t quite mastered the use of pronouns. “It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false, and we should be setting standards not unlike the Europeans are doing relative to privacy. You guys still have editors. I’m sitting with them. Not a joke. There is no editorial impact at all on Facebook. None. None whatsoever. It’s irresponsible. It’s totally irresponsible.”

As near as I can tell here, in the above paragraph, “it” refers to Section 230, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and… not having editors, I guess? (One gets the feeling that if he keeps going like this, Biden will get around to referring to his wife as an “it” eventually, too.)

“He should be submitted to civil liability and his company to civil liability, just like you would be here at The New York Times,” Biden continued. “Whether he engaged in something and amounted to collusion that in fact caused harm that would in fact be equal to a criminal offense, that’s a different issue. That’s possible. That’s possible it could happen. Zuckerberg finally took down those ads that Russia was running. All those bots about me. They’re no longer being run.”

Well, Joe, look at the bright side: at least those bots about you are no longer being run, right? Whatever the fuck that means, at least it sounds like a positive development.

“He was getting paid a lot of money to put them up,” Biden went on, proving that he can murder more than one pronoun in a single interview. “I learned three things. Number one, Putin doesn’t want me to be president. Number two, Kim Jong-un thinks I should be beaten to death like a rabid dog and three, this president of the United States is spending millions of dollars to try to keep me from being the nominee.”

I’m glad Joe learned something from using Facebook. I’m not sure what any of it has to do with Section 230, but education is rarely a bad thing, even for presidential candidates. Anyway, back to Biden and his… um… let’s call it ‘unique’ take on Section 230.

“Well the tech industry, look, not everyone in the tech industry is a bad guy, and I’m not suggesting that,” Biden assured his interviewers. “What I’m suggesting is that some of the things that are going on are simply wrong and require government regulation. And it’s happened every single time there’s been a major technological breakthrough in humanities since the 1800s, and this requires it. For example, you have children?”

Oh no; Joe isn’t about to suggest children should be “submitted to civil liability,” is he?

“Well, when you do and you’ll watch them on the internet, it gets a little concerning,” Biden continued. “What in fact they can see and not see, and whether or not what they’re seeing is true or not true. It matters. It matters. It’s like — well, anyway.”

I must admit, he finally hit on something that resonated with me: I too am concerned about Joe Biden watching children on the internet. Someone should be keeping an eye on that, for sure.

To unpack all Biden’s nonsensical notions above concerning Section 230 would require way more words than you want to read, or than I want to type. Instead, I’ll just focus on one of his misguided claims – that Mark Zuckerberg can write something he knows to be false and not get sued, but the New York Times can’t.

I’m going to be charitable and assume that what Biden meant was Zuckerberg can publish something he knows to be defamatory, not merely something false. After all, many things that are false aren’t defamatory, because to meet the legal standard of defamation requires more than simply making or publishing a false statement.

Guess what? If Zuckerberg sits down at his keyboard and writes a claim he knows is false and does so with malice and the intent to harm the reputation of Joe Biden, he bloody well can be held liable for it, even if he publishes it on Facebook. This is because Section 230 protects platforms from liability for information posted by third parties – and Zuckerberg doesn’t somehow magically become a third party to himself simply by posting crap on Facebook.

The flip side of Biden’s claim – that the Times can’t publish false information without getting sued – is wrong, too. Assuming we’re comparing apples to apples here, if the Times runs information which is false, but is supplied to them by a third party who they quote, for example, anybody defamed in that quote is going to face a seriously uphill battle if they try to sue the Times over the statement. It can be done, sure, but the bar is set very, very high.

Speaking of assholes who want to undermine the legal protections necessary to having robust free speech, our current Commander in Chief has on many occasions talked about wanting to “open up the libel laws” so it would be easier to sue publications like the Times when they publish false information. If it were as easy to sue the Times as Biden seems to think it is, then no such broadening of libel laws would be necessary for thin-skinned politicians to run around suing media outlets willy-nilly.

Hopefully, it will remain irrelevant that Biden (and many other politicians) either completely misunderstands Section 230 or is willing to pretend he does in furtherance of scoring points with people whose own understanding of the issue amounts to “Facebook = Bad.” Until or unless these anti-230 politicians pull out their red pens and begin monkeying around with Section 230 in their official capacity as legislators, this is all just blathering into microphones about something they don’t understand – and there’s certainly nothing new about politicians blathering into microphones about things they don’t understand.

If the pols ever do whip out those red pens though, it will be time for the rest of us to burn up the phone lines, take to the streets with colorful placards and whatever else it is we have to do to get the attention of Congress, so we can let them know we want them to keep their grubby hands off what is generally regarded as a crucial-to-the-internet limitation on liability.

Hopefully, that day will never come, because frankly I’m lousy at making placards – and the last time I tried to call my Congressional representative, I accidentally dialed a 1-900 number and wound up paying $120 just to yell for 30 minutes at some so-called “psychic” about why she should’t vote in support of FOSTA/SESTA.

Official White House Photo of Joe Biden by David Lienemann