It involved suppression of an article published by a New York newspaper, by social media companies with a large presence in New York. You could indict the social media companies as part of a conspiracy charge under New York law, even if other relevant events happened elsewhere.
Also, do other jurisdictions have obscure election interference laws they never use? Does Delaware? I bet they do.
Do you mean to argue that the social media websites were legally required to allow links to that article? I don't think that's how the First Amendment works.
A key part of the New York case against Trump was the “catch and kill” “scheme.” Of course tabloids aren’t required to publish stories, just like social media websites aren’t required to publish links. But in the Trump case that was deemed election fraud.
A key part of the NY case was also that Trump, the actual candidate, was a causal agent in the catch and kill scheme which, it was argued, violated election laws. What does the case against, say, Twitter look like? They weren't running for office or a part of any candidate's campaign.
No, Section 230(c)(1) [1] protects users and websites sharing user generated content against liability for relaying other users' generated content. Section 230(c)(1) protection is not conditional on whether such websites remove some legal content while keeping other legal content up.
> (1)Treatment of publisher or speaker
> 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.
Section 230(c)(2)(A) separately disclaims the relayer (whether website or user) of liability arising from actions of "good faith" restrictions of access to online third-party content (such as removal thereof) that the relayer considers to be "otherwise objectionable". Content that violates terms of service falls under "otherwise objectionable", and so does content that the would-be relayer is biased against. Section 230(c)(2)(B) disclaims the relayer of liability for actions of granting someone the technical means to restrict access to online third-party content. Nowhere does Section 230(c)(2) act as a legal condition on which Section 230(c)(1) protections depend [1].
> (2)Civil liability
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
> (A)any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
> (B)any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).
The authors of Section 230 were Senators Ron Wyden and Chris Cox in 1996. Here's Ron Wyden in 2023 explaining the function of Section 230 [2]:
> I wanted to take a few minutes to share my thoughts on why Section 230 remains vital to a functioning internet - and how the Supreme Court oral arguments and briefs in Gonzalez v. Google helped make the case for 230.
> First of all, Section 230 is a law that Chris Cox and I wrote. It essentially says that the person who creates a piece of content online is the one responsible for it.
> As a result of 230 and the First Amendment, websites are able to take down posts they don’t want — stuff like hate speech and violent content and other muck — and elevate other posts.
> So much of the focus on Section 230 is on the big social media companies. But my goal with 230 is protecting two groups: First, users, who want to be able to speak online and to access interesting content. And second, the startups and small sites that want to compete with the incumbents — whether that’s going up against big cable or big tech. Everyone from Wikipedia to Reddit to a knitting message board.
> It’s what allows sites to host controversial content without fear of being deluged with lawsuits.
Later on regarding proposed changes to Section 230, Wyden says [2]:
> There may be ways to change Section 230 to make it clearer about what the law is supposed to protect, and what it isn’t. I’m constantly evaluating ways to make the internet a better place for users. But as the son of a journalist I can’t support any bill that narrows the First Amendment in the process, or that discourages moderation. So far, the proposals on offer violate one or both of those principals.
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—
> (A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
Yeah as other commenters have pointed out, I just don't know what your rebuttal to my original point is with all this. Do you really think my belief is that if any of this broke any laws, I don't want to see it be tried in court, just because I support Joe Biden?
That's just not how I think, and I don't believe it's how most people think. Most of us are really boring normies who don't like criminals and think people should follow the law and be tried in court when they don't.
I don't know anything about it, but if fraud - or some other crime - was committed by someone in a conspiracy to benefit a campaign, then it seems like that may well be a case that could be tried under New York's laws.
If a prosecutor brings that evidence to a grand jury, they indict one or more people, and then those people are tried and convicted by a jury of their peers, then I think justice will have been done.
