Not prioritizing moderation and not locking down chat for anyone under a certain age is inexcusable. But when I see articles like this and see the law enforcement interviews I can’t help but smell a planted article to push for pulling back section 230 protections.

What that won’t do is hold big companies truly accountable. What it will do is push piracy, anti-imperialism, anti-racism, anti-zionism, anything that goes against the mainstream narrative and could get companies even conceivably in trouble for hosting it (and I’m not talking just about reddit type hosting in that they provide the code, front-end, etc but any type of hosting including companies that host this lemmy instance) will lead to massive crack-downs on anything outside the mainstream. Which means us. Which means anti-imperialist speech, which means speech against the genocide of Palestinians, etc. Meanwhile take-downs for violent rhetoric from the reactionaries will as usually be untouched or left up a suspiciously long time before being pulled down.

Companies will pre-censor because right now they only get in trouble for not acting in a reasonable timeframe upon notice, if you lose that there is a strong incentive to vet and hit anything that anyone, even a bunch of online Nazi goons crying about commies who are terrorists without further evidence as reason to just stop doing business with that person or group and deplatform them immediately. The powerful will get a second chance and appeal, the powerless will be given the finger.

The problem as usual is capitalism and capitalists and their corporations. The solution as usual under capital we’re told we should believe and accept is strip everyone of their rights, further entrench the security state, pass enabling laws to allow better suppression of content that the state finds harmful and after a short period of success basically ignore the original stated reason for passing such things.

Capitalism cannot handle keeping kids safe. Capitalism is a pedophilia loving, pedophile enabling system.