CDA 230, which says, “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”, is basically why user-generated content even exists in the first place. Basically, websites can’t be civilly or criminally charged due to actions its users might do.
So, is this the only reason why kink content is even allowed on the internet, since it might be illegal due to the outdated and vague obscenity laws on the books in the US?
I bring this up, because it’s looking like the law is going to be repealed soon…
Yes, this part of the protection that Internet companies have from liability for obscene user content. They are not protected from liability for content that is illegal under federal law, but if there is content that is legal at a federal level but obscene in a particular state, CDA 230 protects them. On the other hand there are many other pressures on Internet companies to disallow sexual content, such as advertisers and payment processors.
Right, but I’m afraid that this’ll turn into blanket bans of certain kinds of adult content, if not ALL kinds of adult content, like what Tumblr did 10 months ago.
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What does 230 have to do with kink content? Nothing at all.
Well that’s why there’s such an emphasis on “user generated content”. Tumblr did what they did because they were a part of Yahoo! which was bought out by Verizon.
And Verizon didn’t want to moderate/manage all of the pornographic content on the website.
Tumblr operates on the idea of niche communities, usually in the forms of tags and interests, similar to Twitter.