I never said they should be prohibited from policing content merely that if they are capable of policing content they should be held liable for content on their platform like every other publisher.
There is no reason to give these censorious companies extra legal protections no other publisher has if they are censoring society. They have been protected by a regulation that is now causing intense centralizing of power in the hand of a few technocrats and it is actively harmful to the rest of society to so empower them over everyone else.
It is operationally impractical that society should be subject to Google's whims but Google not liable for Google's network content.
>User content on most websites are published by automation, and are not reviewed by humans, like this comment.
So what? They choose to publish it. They can choose not to. Their own internal business practices don't require society to give them loopholes with which they get out of all liability and abuse the rights of others.
It's a good reason to the publisher, its not a good reason for the rest of society.
>It is not reasonable to make people guilty by proxy. Someone either did the crime, or they didn’t.
If there is no crime in publishing the content then overturning special protections in section 230 will have no effect.
>If you own a building, and someone writes a bomb threat on a bathroom stall, are you guilty of a bomb threat?
If you have a magazine, and publish letters to the editor that contain bomb threats, yes. A building isn't a publishing business, and these companies are in the business of publishing, but it turned into publishing on computers and suddenly they get a special exemption.
They choose what goes on their platform, who can go on it, what is said. They've demonstrated amply their ability to control speech and enforce policy. Let them have their platforms, let them have the liability like everyone else.
There is no reason to give these censorious companies extra legal protections no other publisher has if they are censoring society. They have been protected by a regulation that is now causing intense centralizing of power in the hand of a few technocrats and it is actively harmful to the rest of society to so empower them over everyone else.
It is operationally impractical that society should be subject to Google's whims but Google not liable for Google's network content.