And then The New York Times publishes on the front of its business section a story with the headline, “Why Hate Speech on the Internet Is a Never-Ending Problem”. The subhead, after including an excerpt from 47 U.S. Code § 230: “Because this law shields it.”
That’s the entire front-page framing of this piece: that Section 230 protects hate speech. Except that it doesn’t.
Buried all the way at the bottom of this piece by technology reporter Daisuke Wakabayashi is a correction that confounds and contradicts the way that the editors of the business section wanted people to think about the issue.
Correction: Aug. 6, 2019
An earlier version of this article incorrectly described the law that protects hate speech on the internet. The First Amendment, not Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, protects it.
After going out of its way to position the story as being about one particular law protecting hate speech on the internet, you have to read all the way to the bottom and notice the correction to be told that it does not.
This is the worst piece of journalisming about Section 230 since last month’s BuzzFeed hackery. Why do the nation’s business and technology reporters want to come for Section 230?