RUI Research #14 7-25-23
Defend the U.S. Constitution from its worst enemy – Section 230.
I. Abstract:
Section 230 is a colossal con that’s corrupted and defrauded our Constitutional system. Reason, and the analysis and evidence below, expose the many Section 230 disruptions and corruptions that collectively are the U.S. Constitution’s worst enemy, and that make America, Americans, and minors, much worse off than before Section 230 became official in 1996.
This analysis exposes what Section 230 disruptions/corruptions are the Constitution’s worst enemy. The evidence that the ‘Internet industrial complex’ captures public policy is overwhelming. It spotlights how Section 230 enabled America’s virtual-sovereign suicide that corrupted the Constitution. It illuminates how Section 230’s promotion of a profit-over-people premise corrupts the Constitution. It exposes how Cryptocurrencies and crypto coins are unconstitutional fraud. It explains how Section 230’s domineering fraudulent precedent corrupts the U.S. Constitution, via abuse of power; and subversion of: the Seventh Amendment, “the rules of Common law” in the Seventh Amendment, the Supreme Court’s Supreme legal authority, and the Tenth Amendment.
Section 230’s many disruptions and corruptions of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights mean our overall constitutional system has been subjected to a colossal con and corruption that the Internet and Section 230 are all about one thing only, unfettered speech. As a result, America, Americans, and minors are much worse off than before Section 230, i.e., much less secure, safe, and protected; America’s economy, commerce, and markets are more unhealthy, unfair, dishonest, unstable, and anti-competitive; our society is much less healthy and more dysfunctional and dystopian; and individually we live more dehumanized with lost security, liberties, and personal sovereignty.
II. Dedication:
This defense of the U.S. Constitution is written for the benefit of all Americans and especially for the roughly one in ten Americans who have sworn an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States from all enemies foreign and domestic,” who are unaware of how disruptive, corruptive, and defrauding Section 230’s Internet policy/law and fraudulent precedent has become to the Constitution’s authority, function, legitimacy, and purposes.
U.S., State, and local government officers and employees’ oath to defend the Constitution is required in the Constitution for the President in Article II Section I, for Senators, Representatives; members of the State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers of the United States and the States, in Article IV and in Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment; and for all former and current government employees, including all lawyers, law enforcement, public safety, military, and veterans under Federal law.
This defense of our constitution also is written to alert, inform, and encourage all current, former, and future, government elected and appointed officials, and employees to stay true to their sworn oath and oppose Section 230’s disruption and corruption of the Constitution and its authority.
III. Introduction:
First, this analysis illuminates how America’s Internet Revolution policy and law in Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act has effectively disrupted, corrupted, defrauded, and de-constituted much of the U.S. Constitutional system.
Second, this piece illuminates and documents how those disruptions, corruptions, and misrepresentations of Section 230 and the Constitution have manifested and proliferated the antithesis of the Constitution preamble’s six purposes: “to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty…”
Section 230 is a colossal con that’s corrupted and defrauded our Constitutional system. The whole Section 230 narrative story of Internet platforms as poor needy victims bullied by rule of law, duty of care, lawyers, and the court system; as oppressed people in dire need of rescue via special government legal aid and the special privilege of impunity over others; as the true heroes and guardians of free speech, not the Constitution, the First Amendment, lawyers, or the court system. This colossal con is a fairy tale story that bad is the new good, and foxes best guard chicken coops.
The truth is trillionaire tech platforms and social media are not the oppressed, but the oppressors. Section 230’s domineering fraudulent precedent, Zeran v. AOL, has transmogrified Section 230 into Trojan Horse, tech tort reform, which unjustly and partially deprives victims of their rights, day in court, and justice, and which unjustly acquits the guilty and denies justice to the innocent.
The following analysis looks at Section 230 through the lens of the U.S. Constitutional system. It will expose and document how Section 230 corrupts the Constitution as its worst enemy, and how that constitutional corruption in turn corrupts America, Americans, and minors.
IV. What Sect. 230 disruptions/corruptions are the Constitution’s worst enemy?
America’s founders feared enemies of the Constitution and included many provisions to protect America’s Constitutional republic and democracy. Two centuries later, President Dwight Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address presciently warned us of one of the greatest domestic threats to our Constitutional government – unwarranted industry influence, power of money, and technological elites capturing public policymaking.
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. … The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” [Bold added for emphasis.]
President Eisenhower’s ‘military industrial complex’ warning to America is eerily like today’s Section 230-enabled and empowered ‘Internet industrial complex,’ AKA ‘Big-Tech,’ ‘Social Media,’ ‘Silicon Valley.’ Remember the Internet’s core enabling Internet protocols were created in the 1970s ‘military industrial complex’ i.e., The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Defense responsible for the development of emerging technologies for use by the military, per Britannica.
Tech public policy has become captive to the Internet industrial complex’s “scientific-technological elite,” AKA America’s ‘aristechracy’ anointed with Section 230 government privileges and protections that only Section 230’s “interactive computer services’ elites “unfettered by Federal and State regulation,” enjoy and exploit, unlike everyday Americans and small businesses, that are not privileged or protected by the government.
A. The overwhelming evidence the Internet industrial complex captures public policy.
The Senate Judiciary recently complained that Big-Tech’s money and lobbyists, control Congress, making passage of tech accountability legislation near impossible. Big Tech has huge hidden influence over the Defense Department. Big tech does backchannel diplomacy for the State Department. Big Tech has long had a special backdoor to the FTC to get its way. Big Tech stacks FTC tech hearings with tech-funded speakers. Big-tech has special access to policymakers.
Big-Tech’s revolving door raised ethical concerns. Big-Tech has unrivaled White House access that violates ethics rules. Big Tech buys influence in DC, funds the most third party organizations, funds politization of Supreme Court cases, and funds ads to mislead voters in elections. Big Tech’s media funding tracks its regulatory threats. Big-Tech funds undisclosed speakers at public policy conferences.
The crypto industry writes its own state laws, and amasses revolving door, govt-insiders as lobbyists. Crypto interests scam special tax incentives giving little in return. Big-Tech creates pages for terrorists and extremists. Big-tech spent many tens of millions of dollars to block antitrust reform legislation. Social media embeds in political campaigns.
B. Section 230 enabled and accelerated America’s virtual-sovereign suicide.
Sans sovereignty online, America is digitally defenseless from our worst foreign enemies.
Until nine states ratified the U.S. Constitution in September of 1787 per its Article VII authority, the United States of America was not an official sovereign nation. A ratified 1787 Constitution created America’s full sovereignty and sustained it for over 200 years, until the Internet Revolution in the mid-nineties.
In 1996, Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act made it U.S. policy that the Internet and its services be “unfettered by Federal and State regulation.” This sweeping abdication of U.S. government authority over the Internet in the U.S. effectively established the groundwork for an unprecedented, asymmetric and counter-productive, bipartisan, American Internet foreign policy that a 1997 executive order enhanced and implemented without a Senate approved treaty required by the Constitution.
Offline, 350-year-old ‘Westphalian sovereignty’ operates near universally. It is the reciprocal principle in international law that each state has exclusive sovereignty over its own territory. It is a diplomatic version of the Golden Rule, i.e., one does not interfere in the internal affairs of another nation, to ensure other nations do not interfere with theirs. This proven paradigm generally has facilitated international law and order, peaceful diplomacy to deter wars, and enabled reciprocally beneficial international relations, diplomacy, travel, trade, commerce, and law enforcement norms.
Constitutional chaos.Online, America’s de facto virtual sovereign suicide irrationally surrendered its virtual sovereignty over all things America, to a non-sovereign, non-reciprocal, autonomous, self-executing, Internet technology, with “no controlling authority,” no organization, no leader, no sovereign government, no reciprocity, no rule-of-law, no dispute resolution, no rights/court system, and no legal tender.
In addition, America’s de facto virtual-sovereign suicide has subverted and corrupted most of America’s foundational security essentials, i.e., surrendering sovereignty; banning borders; denying defenses; prohibiting police and public safety; abdicating authority; cancelling the Constitution; rejecting rule-of-law and rights; and denying a duty-of-care.
As a result, Section 230’s policy of approved anarchy on autopilot has become our Constitution’s and America’s worst domestic enemy by de facto aiding and abetting our Constitution’s leading foreign adversaries -- China, Russia, and cybercriminals -- with impunity. China has specialized in cyberattacking, hacking, and stealing much of America’s valuable government and corporate secrets, intelligence, security clearances, and data. Russia has specialized in out-of-control facilitation of rampant ransomware, serial cybercrime, and political disruption and corruption.
A 2022 Council on Foreign Relations report confronted this irrational cyber-sovereign-suicide. “The utopian vision of an open, reliable, and secure global network has not been achieved and is unlikely ever to be realized. Today, the internet is less free, more fragmented, and less secure. …it’s time for a new foreign policy for cyberspace.”
C. Section 230’s promotion of a profit-over-people premise.
“We the people of the United States” are the first words of the Constitution. A century later President Lincoln in His Gettysburg Address eloquently encapsulated our “we the people” centered constitutional republic as “Government of the people, by the people, for the people.” From 1934 to 1996 the Constitution-based purpose of communications law was people-centric in promoting the “national defense” and the “safety of life and property.”
However, from 1996 to present, Section 230 commercialized U.S. Internet law/policy, making the Internet’s purpose money-centric about commerce, corporations, and profit in protecting platforms by prohibiting protection of people online. This money-centric purpose endangers national security and the safety of life and property.
In 1996, Section 230 first commercialized communications and the Internet in characterizing the Internet as a “free market… unfettered by Federal and State regulation.” The 1997 follow-on executive order further ensured the Internet would be commercial first, communications/content second, in ensuring the Internet would be “electronic commerce” based, “global,” “self-regulated,” and “minimalist,” government. This Framework for Global Electronic Commerce was implemented and sustained without hearings, authorization, oversight, or a Senate approval.
Section 230’s money-first purpose subverts the U.S. Constitution in three ways.
- It subverts the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine when the executive branch made a de facto treaty to regulate ecommerce, when under Article I Section 8 it is Congress’ power to “to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes” not the President’s power.
- In addition, in making the Internet and its services “unfettered from Federal and State regulation,” the opposite of the Constitution’s power to “regulate commerce” effectively has Congress rejecting the Constitution’s authority.
- It subverts the Constitution it again in the President making a de facto ecommerce global treaty without the Constitution’s required advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate as required in Article II of Section 2.
D. Cryptocurrencies and crypto coins are unconstitutional fraud.
The U.S. Constitution’s Article I Congress Section 8 states “The Congress shall have the power… to coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standards weights and measures.” The U.S. Constitution’s Article I Congress Section 10 state “Powers denied to the States…coin money… make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts…”
To be a legitimate, official, real, and honest form of ‘legal tender,’ it must be “money that is legally valid for the payment of debts and that must be accepted for that purpose when offered” per Merriam Webster.
Arguably no industry has flouted, corrupted, defrauded, the U.S. Constitution’s notion, authority, control, and legitimacy, over most all things, money, finance, commerce, trade, commodities, securities, bonds, debts, taxation, law enforcement than the fraud and bubble prone, U.S. cryptocurrency/coin industry.
Thus arguably, no industry has more misrepresented their authority, legitimacy, value, security, safety, and integrity in misrepresenting the name, term, label, brand of their product, service, model, value proposition, and category, than cryptocurrencies and coins. Wikipedia’s list has ~forty cryptocurrencies, the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s list has ~20,000. Congress authorized none of these coins as required by the Constitution.
E. Section 230’s Fraudulent Precedent Zeran v. AOL corrupts the U.S. Constitution.
Section 230 is a colossal con; its corrupted & defrauded much of our Constitutional system.
When Zeran v. AOL misrepresented Section 230’s intent in 1997, it was assumed and heralded to be a legitimate representation of Congress’ intent and scope for Section 230 and a faithful defense of the Constitution. The evidence indicates it is not, but is de facto judge-made, absolutist, tech-tort reform law, e.g., “…Congress' desire to promote unfettered speech on the Internet must supersede conflicting common law causes of action.”
As it turns out, Zeran v. AOL has de facto unconstitutionally legislated: a bogus absolutist problem that common law justice threatens free speech online; a bogus purpose of ensuring absolutist “unfettered speech” online;” the bogus absolutist “immediate comprehensive effect” and scope of Section 230 online, and the bogus task of imposing absolutist tech-tort reform.
This autocratic abuse of power, denial of democracy, corruption of the Constitution, and deception of the people it governs, calls for a rethink of Section 230, and its purpose, problems, and solutions by each branch of the U.S. Government, the trial bar, and the public.
This misrepresentation and power grab, strengthens the case for repeal of Section 230 and its suspect precedent progeny, and it encourages court challenges of Zeran v. AOL from all quarters.
It is no coincidence or surprise that the inputs of such extremes, fraud, and half-truths have yielded the outputs of an Internet rife with so many extremes, fraud, lies, and mistrust. Fraud in is fraud out. No surprise U.S. Internet unaccountability policy is a fraud farm and fakery factory.
This piece and its evidence will shed light on how Zeran v. AOL has been and is a misrepresentation of Congress’ Section 230 intent and a corruption of the Constitution’s separation of powers and checks and balances.
F. Abuse of power.
The U.S. Constitution’s first sentence makes it clear Congress legislates not the judiciary. “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.”
There is much evidence that indicates that Zeran v. AOL, the judicial precedent that most affects the Internet that everyone uses to do everything everywhere for life, work, and play, is constitutionally suspect precedent and judge-made law affecting everyone’s speech and conduct. This gross abuse of power has helped disrupt and corrupt much of American government, business, work, and life.
A judge autocratically legislating, doing what 535 members of congress do under the Constitution, deny democracy, and violate the Constitution’s separation of powers.
G. Sweeping subversion of the Seventh Amendment.
Zeran v. AOL does one thing near universally, it is obeyed by most courts to routinely deny complaints in summary judgment before discovery. This soulless fraud to deny everyday Americans and victims their day in in court so the richest in the world enjoy government legal aid subsidies, assaults and offends the Seventh Amendment by denying American Citizens’ Constitutional right to trial by jury.
Seventh Amendment Text: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”
H. Sweeping subversion of “the rules of common law” respected in the 7th Amendment.
Zeran v. AOL’s judge-made, absolutist, tech-tort reform corrupts the rules of common law by making everything online “unfettered speech” which generally ignores and condones vast swaths of illegal conduct online.
I. Subversion of the Supreme Court’s Supreme legal authority.
Zeran v. AOL’s operative precedent for most things Internet is de facto promoting/enforcing “unfettered speech” which broadly subverts rule of law, law and order, and justice. It confuses everyone about whether Zeran v. AOL is the last word on online speech or are SCOTUS precedents on protected/unprotected speech the last word?
In touting and enforcing the promotion of “unfettered speech,” throughout the Federal and State judicial systems it muddies, confuses, and subverts the Supreme Court’s precedents that make some types of speech unprotected by the First Amendment.
It is no coincidence that much of the worst conduct and disruptive behaviors, like the ones directly below routinely occur on the Internet because people think there is no accountability online, its trojan horse tort reform, a notion encouraged and advanced by Zeran v. AOL’s “promotion of unfettered speech” via judicial absolutist activism.
Consider the eight types of speech the Supreme Court has ruled in precedents that are unprotected speech, i.e., not free speech: obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, fighting words, true threats, speech integral to criminal conduct, and child p0rnography.
J. Section 230’s Internet preemption of the States subverts the 10th Amendment.
U.S. Internet unaccountability policy also unnecessarily preempts citizens’ State rights making Americans second-class citizens online via unnecessary Federal preemption of States’ authority to protect their citizens from harm.
V. How Section 230 has subverted the U.S. Constitution’s purposes since 1996.
Section 230’s subversions and corruptions of the U.S. Constitution have worsened the national outcomes of all six purposes of the U.S. Constitution: “… to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty …” Sadly, Section 230 apparently has made America less united, just, peaceful, secure, flourishing, and blessed.
- From form a more perfect union to polarization, division, distrust = Internet incivility.
Section 230 imposes a divisive double standard for legal/illegal conduct, i.e., government authority and accountability offline, but ~none online. This is a self-defeating and counter-productive, chaotic policy of constant rule-of-law vs. rule-of-code disputes and disunion.
Section 230’s unaccountability policy has facilitated an Internet extreme machine that wrongfully and needlessly incites polarization, division, hate, rage, and violence. President Lincoln warned against double standards. "A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Consider the results of this disunion law and policy. Social media polarizes Americans. From 2000 to 2020, republican and democrat partisanship has skyrocketed 160% per Pew Research. Americans’ trust in honesty, truth, and elections has declined per Pew Research. Americans’ average confidence in major U.S. institutions has fallen 33% from 2000-2021, per Gallup.
Americans’ trust in the branches of Government has fallen during the smartphone/social media era 2009-2022. Trust in the judiciary is down 40% from 76% to 47%; the executive branch is down 30% from 61% to 43%; and Congress is down 15% from 45% to 38% per Gallup 2022.
- From establish justice to no rule-of-law, rights, or access to justice = Internet injustice.
There is no justice online. That’s because 230’s “unfettered by Federal and State regulation” means there is no rule-of-law, rights, duty of care, or access to justice online. Approved anarchy online regresses America to primitivism’s law of the jungle, where might is right, and people and minors are defenseless prey for predators. Out-of-control cybercrime is rarely prosecuted.
Section 230 is unjust and unfair by design. Section 230 is inherently a narcissistically, one-sided, and a one-way parasitic premise that perversely protects platforms from people by prohibiting protection of people from platforms. This promotion of a parasitic policy fosters extreme partiality and favoritism for Internet special interests’ above and before the well-being and safety interests of others.
Section 230 spawns unjust standards and Internet injustice.
Unjust legal Double Standard. Offline, people are accountable to rule-of-law. Online, Internet technology and services are not accountable for the same conduct. This unfair double standard enables bad actors to game and arbitrage opposing accountability standards with impunity causing ‘unequal justice under law.’
Unequal access to Justice. Offline the Constitution guarantees a citizen’s access to justice. However online, Section 230 court precedents regularly result in plaintiffs’ cases being immediately denied access to justice by losing via summary judgment before discovery.
Unequal Justice under the law. U.S. policy inhumanely values and protects technology over humanity and profit over people. It unsafely grants technology impunity to harm people. It unjustly disenfranchises people without their consent by empowering technology to govern and control people sans rights, due process, or access to justice.
3. From insure domestic tranquility to incitement, attacks, chaos = Internet instability.
Section 230 has spawned the opposite of domestic tranquility. Social media facilitated America’s only unpeaceful transfer of power. Profit-over-people algorithms promote ‘anger’ five times more than ‘likes.’ Social media fame has incited a 300% increase in U.S. mass shootings from thirty-three 1982-2002 to a hundred 2002-2022 per Statista.
Section 230’s disruptive double standard of accountability offline, but none online, has proved to be a democracy destroyer and an extreme machine that incites polarization, division, hate, rage, and violence.’ Mob morality now rules online.
Cyberattack and cyber-harassment victimization is out-of-control. 53% of US adults have been cyberbullied or harassed. 90% of U.S. organizations have been compromised by a cyberattack. 78% of U.S. organizations have suffered from ransomware.
4. From provide for the common defence to out-of-control cyberattacks = Internet insecurity.
America, Americans, and minors are much less secure, safe, and protected than before Section 230. Now most Americans have become victims of foreign-based and sponsored, cyberattacks, cyberbullying, or cybercrime.
In 1996, Section 230 surrendered America’s sovereignty and government authority online. Since then, this reckless policy of absolutist free flow of data into the U.S. has de facto aided and abetted the attacks of our top adversaries China, Russia, and cybercriminals, with impunity. At will, China has stolen countless U.S. national security and trade secrets. And Russia has disrupted America at will via rampant ransomware, cybercrime, and election interference.
Online, no one and nothing in America is safe or secure because there are minimal market forces or government requirements to be safe and secure. That’s why the NSA, CIA, DOD, DOJ, DHS, OPM, White House, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, et al have all been hacked; and hackers can hack planes in flight, vehicles on the road, and ships at sea.
5. From “promote the general welfare” to cybercrime, death, depression = Internet ill-being.
The crimes Americans most worry about are cybercrimes. Cybercrime victimization is out-of-control and prosecuted <1% of the time. About 70,000 Americans died from illicit Fentanyl poisoning in 2021 as a result of rampant illegal online pharmacies and/or Section 230 impunity for social media aiding and abetting illegal conduct online. 23% of Americans have suffered from cybercrime, 33% from identity theft, and 64% from theft of their data.
Consider ~$10 trillion of personal, commercial, and financial losses since 2000. Major examples of this out-of-control Section 230 enabled fraud, fakery, cybercrime, and accountability-arbitrage abuse, include: Enron fraud, WorldCom fraud, $5t Dotcom crash, $1t Fiber fraud, Napster piracy, Grokster piracy, financial crisis fraud, cryptocurrency fraud, unicorn fraud, blockchain fraud, $1tBitcoincrash, NFT fraud, Robinhood fraud, Decentralized Finance fraud, $3t Cryptocurrency crashes, NTF crash, FTX fraud contagion, FTX crypto-crash, $1t Covid e-grift, AI voice scams, etc. Policymakers can’t deny unaccountable ecommerce and crypto causes rampant crime, fraud, theft, and harm.
At first Congress expected Internet unaccountability policy to spur growth of Internet adoption and broadband infrastructure; it did. However, it quickly descended into much slower overall US. economic growth and less U.S. prosperity Comparing the pre-Internet period of 1960-2000 to the 2000-2020 Internet period, U.S. GDP’s average annual growth rate has fallen by ~half. An online/offline accountability double standard is an unfair playing field that’s manifested many monopolizations in otherwise competitive markets.
Parasitic Section 230 business models yield extremely disproportionate commercial prosperity. From 2012-2022, the revenue growth rate of the three parasitic business models of Amazon, Google, and Meta, outpaced the revenue growth rate of the other 497 companies in the Fortune 500, by +1,490%. In perspective, the Parasitic Three’s growth rate outpaced the USGDP growth rate by +1,250% while the Fortune 497 lagged by -15%.
Section 230’s unlevel playing field and Google, Amazon, and Meta’s massive asymmetric accountability arbitrage has enabled the parasitic business models to suck about $1 trillion ill-gotten dollars from their Fortune 497 hosts; estimate based on BEA/ Fortune 500 data.
6. From “secure the blessings of liberty” to the curses of liberty = Internet inhumanity.
Lost life security. Prior to 1996, Americans had a well-established, offline right to privacy based on the Fourth Amendment and federal privacy statutes passed in 1974, 1974, 1978, 1984, 1986, 1988, 1994, and 1996.
Now most know they have lost all their privacy online and want it back per Pew Research. Lose your privacy, lose your inalienable right to security to stay alive. Why? Privacy is integral to the natural human need for self-preservation. Privacy is akin to being able to hide from potential predatory harm. Without privacy, one can’t protect one’s security, identity, reputation, or dignity.
Lost liberty. Humans enjoy liberty and rights, things do not. Offline a person is a living being: human, individual, citizen, voter, customer, or adult/minor with liberty. However, online a person tellingly is not a living thing: they are data, a user, a product, or an avatar without liberty.
People have lost their humanity online. Online we’re dehumanized inanimate data products, commercial chattel that’s bought and sold with impunity by data brokers, without meaningful consent, rights, or recourse. We’re indentured servants online, disenfranchised commercial captives of unfair, one-sided, legal terms, indentures, and market power. Minors are prey for predators of all kinds, neglected and devalued with minimal age-appropriate protections.
Lost personal sovereignty. Lose your privacy. Lose your personal sovereignty to choose and control how you live your life. Online we no longer control our own destinies because others can largely control our virtual value, private data, and identity. And unfettered Big Tech monopolies largely control what we find, believe, see, say, and share online.
VI. Conclusion:
Section 230 is a colossal con that’s corrupted and defrauded our U.S. Constitutional system.
Reason, and the analysis and evidence above, expose the many Section 230 disruptions and corruptions that collectively are the U.S. Constitution’s worst enemy, and that make America, Americans, and minors, much worse off than before Section 230 became official in 1996.
Section 230’s many disruptions and corruptions of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights means our overall constitutional system has been subjected to a colossal con and corruption that the Internet and Section 230 are all about one thing only, ‘unfettered speech.’ As a result, America, Americans, and minors are much worse off than before Section 230, i.e., much less secure, safe, and protected; America’s economy, commerce, and markets are more unhealthy, unfair, dishonest, unstable, and anti-competitive; our society is much less healthy and more dysfunctional and dystopian; and individually we live more dehumanized with lost security, liberties, and personal sovereignty.
This rotten reality requires repeal to mitigate the problems and harms Section 230 has caused.
Only repeal can restore what Congress unwittingly took away in 1996 Internet policy and law -- sovereignty, constitutional authority, rule-of-law, duty of care, and access to justice over the U.S. Internet. Practically repeal would mean: Same rules and rights offline/online. Illegal offline is illegal online. Equal justice under law.
Only repeal enables Americans to go from not having, to having, rights, recourse, and access to justice online. U.S. policy would flip from protecting technology from people, to protecting people from technology, i.e., people primacy policy. Big tech and Internet technology would go from not being subject, to being subject, to rule-of-law and a duty-of-care like everyone else. Repeal keeps the Internet good (legal conduct) and fixes the Internet bad (illegal conduct.)
All who take their past or potential future oath “to support and defend the United States Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic” seriously, should support repeal of Section 230 soonest because reason, evidence, and conscience expose Section as a colossal con and the worst enemy of the U.S. Constitution. Taking, honoring, and sharing this solemn oath to the U.S. Constitution could serve as a good public integrity test in this upcoming election cycle. Forewarned is forearmed.
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Scott Cleland is Executive Director of the Restore Us Institute, an internet policy think tank and nonpartisan, faith-based nonprofit with a mission to restore internet accountability to protect people from online harm. Cleland was Deputy U.S. Coordinator for International Communication and Information Policy in the H.W. Bush Administration. To learn more, visit www.RestoreUsInstitute.org.