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Comment by hundt

5 years ago

My understanding is that (c)(2)(A) is only about liability for the act of moderation itself, e.g. suing Twitter because they banned you. If they did that in bad faith you could hypothetically maybe sue them for it, but there would need to be a cause of action, which there normally wouldn't be.

'gnopgnip may be referring to the much broader liability shield, for the content that you do not remove, which is provided by (c)(1) and has no good-faith requirement. That is Twitter's main "legal protection from defamation and libel" that you mention above.

Trump's executive order suggests that the (c)(1) liability shield could go away if you don't meet the (c)(2) good-faith requirements, which I gather is not considered a strong legal position.

The thing with selective enforcement is that then anyone with claims against Twitter can claim that their moderation attempts are all in bad faith, because they are selective - thereby opening them up to libel.

  • Maybe, but did you read my post? You need a cause of action. It is not libel to moderate someone's tweets, so even if § 230 does not protect them you can't sue them for libel based on their moderation.