 The Supreme Court has taken up a lot of really substantial cases that could Fundamentally transform aspects of the United States things like democracy with the case of Morvey Harper But there is a pair of cases that they've taken up Which is also really important that hasn't gone as much attention as the other big cases now these cases They have to do with section 230 and I think that a lot of people are comprehensive about talking about this particular subject because it is very confusing because nobody really knows What the true take away would be in the event the Supreme Court struck down section 230 we've heard a lot about this we've heard critiques about section 230 from the left and the right and The implications of its demise aren't really known But one thing that is for sure is that it would radically change the internet and Odds are it would be changed for the worst As opposed to the better. So what exactly is the Supreme Court looking at? Well, Mike Bebirnez of Yahoo News explains the Supreme Court this week announced it will take up a pair of cases that could Fundamentally change the legal foundations of the internet both cases ask justices to consider how far protections that shield websites and social media Companies from legal liability over what users post to their platform should go those protections were created in a portion of the communications decency act of 1996 known as section 230 a provision that has been called the 26 words that created the internet Section 230 did two crucial things it established that companies operating websites or social media platforms could not be held legally Responsible if their users post content that breaks the law It also granted them the right to curate edit and delete user content as they see fit So suffice to say the internet in its current state exists specifically because of section 230 without section 230 The internet might look like a very different place Now as I alluded to earlier both Democrats and Republicans have critiqued section 230 Even though Donald Trump has been particularly vocal in his criticism But the Democrats who oppose section 230 claim that websites should be held more culpable if Violent extremism is festering on their website if the proliferation of misinformation on their website continues Whereas Republicans don't like the second provision of section 230 specifically the one that gives social media websites the power to Delete and curate content They don't like that because they claim that these websites all have a liberal bias And it leads to the censorship of conservatives now that critique from Republicans is Not really founded by data, you know leftists also get banned from social media websites frequently as well They just don't whine about it as much but conservatives in particular They get a ton of traction on websites like Facebook where the left just isn't able to compete and they also dominate YouTube as well Although I don't have data to back that up But just for argument's sake you can see that there are different arguments against section 230 Democrats are against one portion of section 230 and conservatives are against another portion of section 230 There's two sections of 230 and you know, there's reasons for both sides to be against it at least what we've heard Now both of the cases that the Supreme Court has taken up they have to do with families who are suing These tech giants Twitter and Google in particular because a member of these families fell victim to Extremists now the families are arguing in these lawsuits that websites should be held legally liable if Extremism proliferates on their platforms and they don't take action to stop it You could read more about this on the SCOTUS blog post about this now the Supreme Court Could go either way they could side with the families and claim yes These websites these tech giants in particular should have done more to prevent extremism that led to the deaths of these families victims and They can also take it in a different direction They can say well actually there's already too much content moderation or they could just strike down section 230 all together The question is what does that mean for the internet going forward and really? Nobody really knows all we can do is speculate But odds are it would mean less freedom on the internet if the Supreme Court in any way Decided to take on section 230 and declare it Unconstitutional either fully or partially many communications law experts fear that a decision throwing out section 230 would create chaos in one of the World's most important industries as companies attempt to quickly react to a sudden and drastic change to the legal landscape They argue that because few companies would be able to endure the new financial risk of lawsuits over user-generated Posts venues for free speech online would rapidly erode or even disappear Other sites might go the opposite direction and to shoe moderation altogether Which would create space for their platforms to turn into cesspools of objectionable content Kyle Barr of Gizmodo states if a company like Twitter suddenly finds that it is held liable for each post on its site The company says that its options would become limited to either folding entirely or conducting extreme amounts of vetting and Content moderation much more than already goes on. This of course isn't exactly what conservatives want Or it's at least what they claim that they don't want so envision That being the product the end result of the Supreme Court ruling with regard to section 230 What does this mean for independent media YouTube shows like my own? Could independent media exist in a post section 230 America? I Genuinely don't know or if it does exist would it exist in a different fashion with this force YouTube to Hire content creators for example so that way they're not just independent contractors So that way they have more direct control over what we as youtubers say Would Twitter take up a lot more bands It's so hard to say and it's horrifying to think about the implications of what this would look like But as the article alluded to it could go in the opposite opposite direction as well Which wouldn't necessarily be ideal for example David Ingrim of NBC News explains Alternatively the court could also create a situation in which tech companies have a little power to moderate what users post Rolling back years of efforts to limit the reach of misinformation abuse and hate speech So what would that look like in reality? Well in the event a user for example makes a death threat online to a politician That would disempower websites like Twitter or YouTube from suspending that user They would have to allow the extremism to go on to that website They would be unable to do anything about that it would be in the hands of the local police department Where that individual made that complaint? Does that sound like a really good? alternative as well to give them no tools whatsoever to get rid of Violence and extremism so YouTube would not be able to remove an ISIS beheading video I mean do you understand how both extremes when it comes to section 230? They don't provide a better alternative to the internet today There are certainly issues with the internet as it is but certainly it isn't that there is too much freedom on the internet It's that there isn't enough freedom But conservatives as much as they complain about section 230 haven't been very helpful in activists fight to Strengthen the internet freedom for example They have held up the confirmation of gg zone to the FCC for almost a year now Gg zone is a strong supporter of net neutrality which would create more internet freedom because remember net neutrality is an issue where it would prevent Internet service providers like Comcast AT&T From picking and choosing which websites they want to prioritize so they couldn't choose to strangle or throttle Traffic to their competitor if AT&T wants to launch, you know some alternative streaming service They couldn't then in turn throttle traffic to Netflix so that way it becomes unbearably slow and people opt for AT&T's alternative they can't do that with net neutrality, but under Trump's leadership a Geed pie repealed net neutrality and now if gg zone were to be confirmed the FCC would have the makeup To actually restore net neutrality But conservatives have fought against this at every step of the way claiming that gg zone is too woke And she wants to censor conservatives when she wants to do the opposite She wants to enhance freedom on the internet and even if net neutrality were to be restored There's other things that need to be done to reign in big tech because I do believe that they have too much power Right, but not too much power with regard to section 230 not too much immunity with regard to section 230 We need antitrust legislation and Amy Klobuchar of all people actually proposed very strong antitrust legislation But the vote on this in the Senate has stalled thanks to Chuck Schumer Now he keeps promising that there's gonna be a vote But it keeps getting postponed longer and longer and longer so things like that need to stop But just imagine for a second the situation where the Supreme Court these six conservative justices have Unlimited authority to remake the internet as they see fit Well, we don't have to imagine it because they actually do have that power it's just a matter of matter of whether or not they'll exercise that power and Reshape strike down or partially strike down section 230 The internet could turn into a very dark and dystopian place and it's already a pretty dark and dystopian place It's not perfect, right? But things could get a lot worse quickly if section 230 weren't in place that is needed for internet freedom And if they do away with this then things are gonna get really bad And so I would encourage everyone to pay attention to this case because it is one of the most important cases that the Supreme Court Has taken up this term