Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 is under attack — disguised as a cry for “reform” — from politicians on both sides of the “major party” aisle. To what purpose? Well, let’s look at Section 230’s key provision:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

US Naval Academy law professor Jeff Kosseff calls those words “The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet,” and he’s right.

Section 230 made “self-publishing” of Internet content feasible by saying that when you publish something on the Internet, you, not the site which allows you to publish it, bear legal responsibility for that content.

Facebook didn’t commit libel, you did. Twitter didn’t utter a true threat, you did. Instagram didn’t post revenge porn, you did. That’s the plain and simple effect of Section 230.

“Conservative” Republicans like US Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) want you to believe that Section 230 requires, or should require, sites which allow self-publishing to act as part of a notional “public square.” If those sites moderate “conservative” content — by blocking it, placing warning labels on it, or banning users who post it — Cruz, Hawley, et al. say they’re engaging in “censorship” and shouldn’t be entitled to Section 230’s protections.

“Progressive” Democrats get in on the action too, as with the “Protecting Americans from Dangerous Algorithms Act,” a piece of legislation proposed by US Representatives Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA). It would deprive interactive computer services of Section 230 protection if they promote “extremism” or “hate” by using “an algorithm, model, or other computational process to rank, order, promote, recommend, amplify, or similarly alter the delivery or display of information.”

Let’s unpack those positions by looking back to the age when photocopiers were a key technology for the non-wealthy to disseminate information to large numbers of people.

Suppose you run a self-service “copy shop,” and charge 10 cents per page for people to reproduce their flyers, “e-zines,” etc.

Common sense (which is what Section 230 boils down to) says that you aren’t responsible for what your customers reproduce on the machines you make available to them.

“Section 230 reform,” Republican version, says that if you refuse the use of your photocopiers to the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, you immediately become the “publisher” of, and legally responsible for, everything copied by all of your OTHER customers.

“Section 230 reform,” Democratic version, says that if your machines give the Klan an automatic discount for purchasing large quantities of copies, you are “amplifying” their message and become legally responsible for that message.

“Conservative” politicians want to torture social media into obediently promoting “conservative” content. “Progressive” politicians want to torture social media into suppressing “extremist” content. Neither gang seems to care if their waterboarding kills the victim.

The rest of us should care very much.  We could easily live without those politicians, but most of us wouldn’t want to live without the Internet as we know it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“President-elect Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal,” writes Tom O’Connor at Newsweek. “But a return is set to face challenges on both sides as they attempt to rebuild trust in a radically different environment than five years ago.”

Those challenges? “For one, Iranian officials see no room for renegotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA),” notes O’Connor (JCPOA is the formal name of the “Iran nuclear deal”).

For another, Biden has conditioned his promise on Iran first returning to its own duties under the deal, commitments it abandoned after the US president Donald Trump abrogated the agreement and pressured US allies to start ignoring their obligations too.

Even assuming fault on both sides for the deal’s collapse — and that’s a false assumption — Biden’s current approach is a recipe for  beginning his presidency with failure to deliver on a major campaign promise.

There’s a big foreign policy win available here, if Biden is willing to claim it. And in doing so he would enjoy the support not only of the law, but of more than 90% of the US Senate.

In support of Trump’s supposed withdrawal from the deal, critics cite a 2015 State Department letter asserting that “The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement, and is not a signed document.”

Which is true.

But it’s also true that on July 28, 1945, the US Senate ratified the United Nations Charter by a vote of 89 to 2.

And that the United Nations Security Council codified the “nuclear deal” as Resolution 2231 on July 20, 2015.

As a duly ratified treaty, per Article VI of the US Constitution, the UN Charter is part of “the Supreme Law of the Land.”

Per that treaty, UN Security Council Resolutions are binding on all UN member states.

QED, the JCPOA is US law and will remain so until and unless the Security Council repeals Resolution 2231, or the United States withdraws from the United Nations.

On his first day in office — preferably in his inauguration speech — Biden should announce that the United States will immediately resume meeting its obligations under the JCPOA. No pre-conditions. No negotiations. No dodges. It’s the law, and the Biden administration will abide by it, full stop.

He should also announce that if Iran’s government doesn’t do likewise within 90 days, the US will invoke the deal’s dispute resolution process, which includes a “snap back” clause potentially leading to the re-imposition of sanctions.

The JCPOA isn’t just a good idea, it’s the law. Biden should follow it, celebrate a win, then work toward even bigger wins such as mutual diplomatic recognition, free trade, and peace between the US and Iran after four decades of de facto war.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

A few weeks before the 2020 election, I visited a local gun shop. It was a madhouse. Weapons flew off the shelves as fast as customers could get their wallets out. Ammunition was in short supply too. Why? Well, on the front door, a flyer warned that, if elected, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would act quickly push to “gun control” legislation through Congress.

“Panic buying” before a big election, just in case, is the norm. That means booming business for gun dealers, but there’s just not much reason for gun owners or would-be gun owners to worry. Other than some ineffectual tinkering around the edges for propaganda purposes, “gun control” just ain’t gonna happen in America.

Not because the right to self-defense (and the corollary right to possess the means of self-defense) is an unalienable and non-negotiable human right, though it is.

Nor because the US Constitution clearly and unambiguously forbids government infringement on the right to keep and bear arms, though it does.

While I love the philosophical and constitutional arguments on the subject, it’s the facts on the ground that really settle the question.

As of 2018, the global Small Arms Survey estimated the number of firearms in civilian hands in the US at 393 million. If evenly distributed, that would be 1.2 guns for each man, woman and child in the country.

They’re not evenly distributed, of course. Per the Pew Research Center, “only” about 30% of Americans own a gun. Call it 110 million.

Here’s how any real public discussion of “gun control” in America is going to go:

Government: Give us your guns.

Gun Owners: No.

Government: No, really,  give us your guns. We passed a law!

Gun owners: Come try to take them and see what happens.

Government: Well, when you put it THAT way …

More than 100 million Americans own nearly 400 million guns, and have no intention of surrendering those guns. Furthermore, Americans can build relatively sophisticated weapons with relatively inexpensive machine tools and/or 3D printers, and very basic firearms with items found in most homes.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris don’t have to like those facts. They’re facts  whether Joe Biden and Kamala Harris like them or not.

And if they decide to get pushy about it? As few as 1% of those gun owners could, and almost certainly would, make the Civil War look like a day at the children’s petting zoo.

Yes, politicians will make impassioned speeches to roust votes and campaign donations out of the ignorant and fearful. They might even get some token legislation passed for gun owners to ignore and for politicians to ignore gun owners ignoring.

But they know any attempt to impose real “gun control” would be political, and possibly literal, suicide.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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