Friends, hello and welcome to Never Post, a podcast for and about the Internet. I'm your host Mike Rugnetta, this intro was written on Sunday, March 23 at 11:32PM eastern, and we have a formidable show for you this week. First, Georgia goes on a no buy journey where she attempts to make it nearly three months without purchasing new clothing as per the seventy five day hard style challenge. She talks about her experiences with Kyle Checa and host of the
podcast articles of interest Avery Truffelman. Then I talk with Mike Masnik, founder of the stalwart technology block Tech Dirt about legislation that could be introduced in The US as soon as this week that would sunset section two thirty of the Communications Indecency Act, 26 words which, quote, paved the way for the modern Internet. Now why would anybody wanna get rid of those? And also typing tests. But first, let's talk about a few of the things that
have happened since the last time you heard from us. I have four stories for you this week. Boston Celtic ska mainstay, the dropkick Murphys, were not banned from x for comments frontman Ken Casey made on stage critical of the US administration. Over the weekend, a post went viral claiming that the Northeast punk band rebooted from the social site after Casey pointed out a concert goer wearing a red MAGA hat and joked that Elon Musk's black dark MAGA variant is the quote, Elon Musk
true Nazi edition. On her newsletter, the handbasket, Marissa Cabas reports that the podcast Midas Touch shared a clip of the joke which was shared again by an account claiming that it had led to the band's suspension, but it had not. Cabas confirmed quote, the dropkick Murphy's account was banned as early as June 2024, but regardless at least seven news stories centering on this claim had been published by the morning after the first posts. Don't believe everything you
read on the internet, I guess. X has, however, seemingly suspended accounts connected with Turkish opposition in the midst of large scale protests in Istanbul following the arrest of Ekrem Imamoglu, mayor of the city and presidential candidate running against Recep Tayyip Erdogan. PCMag reports that most suspended accounts quote, belonged to grassroots activists with followers in the low tens of thousands who shared protest locations for students.
According to X's transparency report, they continue, it complied with 68% of Turkey's government requests to take down content in the second half of twenty twenty four. Speaking of ostensible governments, multiple news outlets report that the US government is close to finalizing a deal for the sale of TikTok. Oracle, whose servers house TikTok's US recommendation engine and user data was once thought to be the preferred
purchaser. But late last week, Reuters reported that quote, White House led talks are coalescing around a plan for the biggest non Chinese investors in parent company ByteDance to up their stakes and acquire the short video apps US operations, end quote. Among the investors are Susquehanna International Group and General Atlantic. Reuters reports that private equity firm
KKR is also involved. And finally, biotech and personal genomics company twenty three and Me has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and its CEO, founder Anne Wojcicki, has said she will step down, although she will retain a seat on the board. This leads to a number of questions about what happens to the genetics information of the 15 some million people who have used the service in the event of the
impending liquidation of all of its assets. California's attorney general Rob Bonta released a statement on March 21 reading in part quote, due to the trove of sensitive consumer data twenty three and me has amassed, attorney general Bonta reminds Californians of their right to direct the deletion of their genetic data under the genetic information privacy act and California consumer privacy act, end quote.
Though these laws were passed in California, most websites make these features available to all users regardless of their location. So thanks California, I guess. We'll put a link to AG Bonta's statement in the description which includes directions for deleting your 23 and me data if you need them. In show news this week, this is the first episode of Neverpost officially distributed by Radiotopia. So that is very exciting.
If this is news to you, just click back one episode and listen to our explainer about what Radiotopia is and what this means for the show. And if this is your first never post joining us from some other part of the Radiotopia family of shows, welcome. We are very happy that you're here. As mentioned last episode, I was on Matt Silverman's influence podcast talking about my career in media and what it is like making content these days. So that is out now.
We'll put a link to that in the show notes. And also, I had the immense pleasure of speaking with Kurt White, a clinical psychotherapist, a clinical social worker, and a teacher at the Smith College School for Social Work, as well as the vice president of community partnerships, communications, and development at the Brattleboro retreat where he hosts their podcast unraveling. It's actually kind of a cousin show to never post. Both shows are made by some of the same
people. Kurt and I talked about how it is that, our interactions with the Internet can help us construct our sense of self, and how this becomes the source of all kinds of anxiety for all kinds of people for a lot of different reasons. You can listen to our chat over on unraveling. We'll put a link in the show notes. And we liked it so much that we're actually gonna publish a segment length version on the next episode of Neverpost. But if you wanna listen to it now, please go
check out unraveling with Kurt and his co host Mary. They are amazing. It's a great show. We're all really huge Kurt and Mary fans over here on Neverpost. Okay. That's the news I have for you this week. Next, Georgia and the 75 hard style challenge, then me and Mike Masnik on section two thirty. But first, each member of the team went out and bought a mechanical keyboard and did not touch it until we sat down to
record a typing tournament. In our interstitials this week, the team uses monkeytype.com to see who got those WPMs.
Hey, type freaks. Welcome to the big show. First round, Georgia Hampton, Hans Butoh in the blue corner. Georgia Hampton, will you tell the folks at home what you're typing with today?
I'm rocking a Red Dragon Ultimate Gaming Rig, model number s one three four in the color mint green.
A strong addition to the fields. Georgia will be typing out of the left side of your headphones. Georgia, please march your way over there.
Aye aye.
And in the red corner, Hans Buto Hans, what are you typing with today?
You will never defeat my LUT detect j one twenty. Corporate black borrowed from my wife's work.
Hans will be typing out of the right earphone. Hans, march your way over there.
Yeah. Hans did a backflip. Woah. I
am so ready for this. Position your microphones.
Okay, everyone. We will be typing 100 words. The first person to clear their 100 words will go on to the final round at the end of this show. I will count you in. Are you all on monkey type?
Hell yeah.
Just staring at your words.
Okay. Okay. I'm trying not to read them.
I wanna see your hands on camera. Your hands can leave frame and begin typing in three, two, one,
type. Georgia is locked in. I'm just euphoric.
This is so intense. I'm I'm
so bad. Hans is really putting putting the knees into it. He's really got the stance of someone who is working very hard.
The longest I have not seen Georgia smile in my entire life.
Oh, first blink. That's the first blink of the round.
This is kind of a sleep aid for me. This is good.
On. I'm getting there.
Collin's digging deep. Woah. Georgia's done.
Oh, 90
92. 90 two? Georgia Hampton came to win. Georgia, Field: That's how you do it, baby. Alright.
I can see nothing. I can see nothing. Me.
Alright. Georgia Hampton will be back on the mint machine in the final round of the tournament.
Georgia, what were you what what's your WPM? Oh my god. 84. Yeah. It was close to that. What's your accuracy? 92%. Why are
you coming for me like this?
What what percent? You already
lost, man.
What what what percent was your accuracy?
92.
God. Yeah. I was close to that too. Okay.
Okay. I believe it. I also
am I also am good typer.
I am now learning I hate this keyboard. That was it's so annoying. I hate
using it. Well, alright, sickos. We'll see you back here in twenty some odd minutes. Georgia, Field: Oh, god.
Okay. So what was the actual garment that broke you?
It was this faded blue bomber jacket. So that's me, obviously. I'm talking with Avery Truffelman, host of Articles of Interest, a podcast which explores fashion, clothing, and our relationship to both. We'll get to the bomber jacket and how, yes, it broke me. But first, here's me two months ago. Georgia, Field: Okay. It's day one of the seventy five day hard style challenge. It's 01/06/2025, which feels like, an ominous day to start this. But you know what?
Let's do it. First of all, it is 29 degrees in the city Georgia, Field: of Chicago, Illinois, but it feels like 13 degrees. So I think we're looking at pants. Maybe. God. I'm already so stressed out. Why is it that the second I decide to do this, I'm like, what are clothes and have I ever worn them? What is this? Who bought this stuff? Not me. Oh, god. Okay. The seventy five day hard style no buy challenge is a TikTok trend started by fashion influencer
Mandy Lee last year. She's also known by her handle old loser in Brooklyn. Mandy presents the challenge as a way to save money, to learn about your own closet, and ideally, a bit more about your personal style. The rule's fairly straightforward. Get dressed every single day for seventy five days straight and document all of your looks. Don't buy anything new. Don't
introduce anything new to your wardrobe. This one's really, really important because the point is to really get creative and rely on your own brain and your own closet for inspiration. During the no buy, one stops consuming in order to confront their closet. Put new outfits together with what's already there. After seventy five days, your clothes buying habits are hopefully more intentional.
While you're going through this journey and documenting your outfits, you're going to be collecting a dataset of what you actually wear. And this acts like a sort of catalog to track what you're really, really wearing so you can enjoy your clothes in a new way and discover any wardrobe gaps that might exist. By documenting your outfits, Mandy means posting, and people do. Georgia, Field: Today is my first day joining in on Mandy Lee's seventy five day style challenge, and I'm really excited.
I wanna, like, lift my spirits. So here's me documenting day one. And I'm wearing just like a black turtleneck, and I decided to wear just this vintage navy blue button down on top of it because I haven't worn it in a while. I wore a Saksha jacket from Mexico, secondhand Coach bag, vintage Ralph Sunnies from Venice. And I think I wanna pair it with this red bag because I love doing a pop of red with gingham. I love this outfit. The No Buy is its own version of a show and
tell. It's between a get ready with me and a haul video. It's also kind of a brag, a way to show off what you already have in your closet. Let me tell you about mine, my closet. I have a complicated relationship to my clothes, and my wardrobe is in a constant state of flux. I have a closet with a dozen or so coats in it and another one full of pants and dresses and skirts and shoes. I have 36
pairs of shoes, including heels. And finally, I have a dresser of shirts, sweaters, sweatshirts, and, like, three more pairs of pants. I adore shopping, and I window shop online daily. I browse Depop. I always have a new pair of pants open in a tab on my computer. I go to vintage markets every couple of weeks and often end up leaving with something or several things. For my whole life, buying clothes has been a salve for a bad day or a painful breakup or a funk. But I tend to overbuy garments
I'd consider staples, stuff I can wear all the time. That means I've wound up with 26 total pairs of pants, a lot of turtlenecks, and a lot of black. My closet is full of repeats. Three identical black turtlenecks, a section of my closet dedicated to eight black dresses that are almost all the same length. I tend to put together uniforms and stick with them. I wear the same pair of Docs every day despite having 35 other pairs of shoes to choose from. I wear the same earrings every day.
And that sameness is what often drives me to go buy something special and new, even if it's a fourth identical black turtleneck. I've wanted to break out of this for a while. I just want variety. And I do have some colorful pieces in my wardrobe. I have skirts. I have cool vintage jackets. I have interesting rings and necklaces. Like, the tools are there. I know they are. I just have to make myself use them.
And I was hoping that the no buy could hold my hand to the fire and force myself to even just add more uniforms to the roster. There's no world where I stop wearing mostly black. I like wearing black. And I also think changing that would terrify everyone who knows me. But I did want to spice things up, play around some more, have fun. I wasn't going to post my outfits every day on TikTok or whatever, but I did document them in another way by recording myself with the Voice Memo app daily.
Georgia, Field: We got, little black turtleneck top that's like a tank top under a cotton, like, bright green sweater, little western belt with a silver buckle, these carpenter jeans that I wear all the time, and then yellow socks that are sort of a butter yellow, which I'm gonna wear with my little loafers. Yeah. I think we got it. Day one down, only 74 to go. That first day, I did pretty well. And for a week, it felt fun to shop in my own closet instead of online.
I was actually clawing my way out of my all black outfit everyday purgatory. But as the days ticked on, I started to feel different. Georgia, Field: I'm in that place where I don't like any of my clothes, and I feel like I've never put on clothes in my life. At first, I blame the weather. And I mean, it is hard to put together multiple slayful outfits when what I really need to do is wear the thickest, warmest sweater I own multiple days in a row. But that wasn't really the problem.
Georgia, Field: Something about, like like, documenting this, like, sucks. Like, ugh, god. I feel like I like, I wanna just magically have a better relationship to my clothes or, like, know how to put a cool outfit together that's different than the way I normally dress. But, like, why would I wanna do that? This is just my normal my normal life. Like, I don't I'm not even posting photos of these. Like, all you're hearing is me losing it. The longer I documented my process, the more I felt this
pressure, guilt, shame. I did not feel closer to my personal style. If anything, I felt like the opposite. Rooting around in my closet revealed the holes in my wardrobe, but in a painful way. Like, I have this amazing pair of striped pants that I was excited to style until I realized they just don't fit me anymore. I found this cropped chestnut brown sweatshirt that I had bought maybe, like, five years ago, tried it on, and genuinely couldn't understand why I had bought it in the first place. It
fit so weird on me. The neckline was too structured. It tugged upwards in this really weird way when I lifted my arms. Like, why did I even own this? So I was stuck in all black again, recording myself describing the same uniform outfits that I've always worn since time in memorial. I wasn't on a journey of personal style discovery. I was trapped in the past and unable to leave.
Yeah. When you're confronted by your closet, you're confronted with all of your past selves. It's a way of, like, having to learn to live with your past, which is rough.
That's Avery again. And I wanted to talk to her about why the no buy challenge made me feel so bad. And she said that that's kind of the point.
This is something that I've been wrestling with for a very long time. And I think it's something that's so deep and fundamental, and it has to do with our relationship to our own desires, our own sense of fulfillment. And every time the promise of a new garment comes along, it's the promise of a new self. And that's part of, like, getting right with yourself, is, realizing, okay, understanding who you are, how much capacity you have for change, how much
you have changed from the past. I mean, it's like existential stuff.
But it's tricky to know where and how I need to change when it comes to clothes. On the one hand, denying myself the desire that comes from shopping feels like ignoring key parts of myself, the parts of me that truly find joy in playing around with clothes. But on the other hand, I've been chasing that promise of a new self for years. I'd buy a black sweater and feel renewed for a minute, and then my eye would start wandering again.
It's part of why I don't do Instagram or TikTok because those things are like desire engines. I am going to look at these things. I'm going to see what other people have. I'm going to see how they comport themselves, and I am going to find some lack in myself. I'm going to I don't know. I was I was on Instagram for a little bit and immediately was like, oh, everything I do is wrong. Like, all my clothes are wrong. Everything I I need to change it all. So it's this,
like, complicated wrestling with desire all the time. It really vexes me a lot.
I wasn't expecting to hear Avery, of all people, tell me that she goes through this push and pull of existential turmoil around clothes. But it's also exactly what I deal with too. Any video on TikTok, any Instagram story by a friend of a friend, I can't help myself but laser focus on their cool pair of shoes or that plaid sweater they have as a new potential purchase that I could make. And removing the possibility of continuing this practice forced me to contend
with its spoils. Namely, confronting a closet full of a lot of the same stuff and lacking a lot of clothing I actually need. In a way, that's the no buy doing its job, by forcing me to look squarely at my closet without distraction. But my conversation with Avery made me realize that my discomfort didn't really feel like this big confrontation with desire. The thing that was so unbearably horrible about this process wasn't my wardrobe. It was documenting my outfits. But why?
Why did that suck so much more than anything else? I was wrestling with this question when I talked to Kyle Chaeka, the columnist from The New Yorker, for my segment about having fun online. And in addition to his many other accolades, Kyle also wrote a book called The Longing for Less, which was about minimalism. So I figured I'd ask him this question. Why did documenting this process feel so terrible?
I mean, like you're you're dressing for the internet. You're performing this exercise in order to generate more content, which in a way is another form of stuff like, you're contributing to the general mess of the world by putting out another video even though it's about not buying stuff. So to me, improving your relationship with stuff should be about stripping away the layers and stripping away the like meta meta quality of the act on the internet and just confronting the thing itself.
So I mean, thinking of it that way, how do you succeed at a no buy challenge?
By not buying anything and then not posting about it.
By recording my daily outfits, I put myself under a microscope, scrutinizing something I do every day. And that started off okay. But over time, I got more judgmental, more self critical. And I was doing it because I felt like I was performing. By virtue of creating a document, I created an audience of myself and, I mean, you listening to this right now. It made everything a performance, and that performance did not come naturally to me. It felt horrible.
Georgia, Field: Okay. So I'm just lying in bed right now thinking about outfits and how I can kinda play around more with my closet. And I felt myself feeling so stressed and so guilty. And I I I wanted to record myself kind of going through this because, like, what the hell is this? Georgia, Field: Why why should I feel bad about this? And I think it's because I'm doing this for every like, four people. Georgia, Field: I think I'm predicting judgment. Every half baked criticism I had of my
clothes gained a body and a brain and a voice. The second I realized I was documenting myself for an audience, I got lost in this mindset where, like Avery described, I worried that my clothes were wrong and that I needed to, quote, unquote, fix my closet. But rather than being dressed, I'd become fixated on getting dressed. And that's not the point of the no buy challenge. Videos show people who already have their outfit put together.
And I'm sure they also stood in front of their closet and felt the way I felt, the all too common, ugh, I have nothing to wear feeling. But with a no buy, you're not supposed to show your work. You're supposed to show your cool vintage jacket. But I was sick of this show and tell from hell. It wasn't working. So after telling Avery about the challenge and the difference between getting dressed and being dressed, I did mention my personal experience. I don't think I told you this. I did try this.
I was gonna ask. Yeah. Okay. Let it go.
Well, I lasted about three and a half weeks.
Wow. Hey.
That's pretty good.
But no, I'm serious. Too kind. You're too kind.
I'm really serious, though.
I had kind of assumed that Avery would chide me for giving up so quickly, but she didn't. And I'm grateful for that because I wanted to shut up the part of me that somehow still felt guilty. And it's a feeling I wrestled with a lot on the day when I stopped doing the no buy. So Georgia, Field: I did a bit of a whoopsie uh-oh yesterday. Went to a vintage market with a friend, and I did did buy a couple things.
I hear a chorus of booing. But listen. It feels a Georgia, Field: lot better doing this as in, like, buying something vintage than buying anything new. I'm very much gonna stick to that, but I broke I broke no buy edge. Georgia, Field: I I betrayed you all, but I don't know. You'll have to forgive me. Georgia, Field: Got a dress on today. That's all. Let me tell you something. The difference in how I felt after going to that vintage market and, yes, buying
that blue bomber jacket was astounding. And it wasn't just that I was buying stuff again and fueling that desire engine like before. I was intentionally deciding how this journey would look for me specifically. A no buy just wasn't going to work for me in the long term, and I had finally allowed myself to realize that. But I mean, the no buy also kind of worked because the stuff I bought at that vintage market was filling holes in my wardrobe
I realized I had while doing my no buy. But now, I felt like I was actually able to do what I wanted to do in the first place. Get to know my closet is a way of getting to know my personal style, fill in some gaps, and have fun. I wanna play this one specific part of my conversation with Avery again.
That's part of, like, getting right with yourself. It's like realizing, okay, understanding who you are, how much capacity you have for change, how much you have changed from the past. I mean, it's like existential stuff.
I mean, that is exactly what I wound up doing. Just, you know, in a different way than I originally expected. I went into this whole experiment thinking that a no buy would inspire me to play, to be innovative, to challenge myself to get out of my fashion comfort zone. But what the no buy really showed me was that I had filled my closet with clothes that would never let me out of that comfort zone in the
first place. And it certainly proved to me that performing, being dressed, even for an imagined audience, was not going to inspire me at all. The possibility of being observed as I struggled through this only made me scared that somehow I had already failed. Kyle was right about that. The only way, at least for me, to succeed at this process was to stop posting about it. Thank you to both Avery Truffleman and Kyle Chaeka for helping me
through the maze of this no buy journey. In the end, I decided to switch from a no buy to a no new, as in only buying secondhand clothes. That felt really good. And it's honestly something I'm going to keep doing well past the seventy five day mark, which I reached on March 22. But I know this is only one of countless ways to reexamine your wardrobe. So I'd be very interested to hear about what has helped you connect with your style and with your
relationship to clothes. I mean, I'm still looking for new tactics, so tell me what's been helpful. I wanna hear about it. All the ways to contact us are in the show notes.
In the blue corner, weighing in at four pounds sixteen ounces is Jason's keyboard.
I can keep it. Jason, do
you wanna tell us who we have?
How much my keyboard weighs? Is that what you want me to tell you? I think I have that. So today, I'll be typing on a high ground hunter x hunter performance 65% scale wired magnetic linear dynamic actuation switch gaming keyboard with rapid trigger Hisoka edition.
I'm sweating. I'm sweating.
That thing's street legal?
And in the red corner, the host of the show, the keyboard with the mostest, Mike Rugnetta. Mike, what you what are you packing over there?
I am typing on a Royal Kluge r s 61 no. RK? Hold on. Let me check. Royal Kluge r k 61 mechanical keyboard.
Mike, take your corner in the right. Jason, take your corner in the left.
Alright. I'll see you in hell.
Gentlemen, position your microphones.
Jason, I think we can still be friends after this.
We'll see about that.
This is the last episode of the show.
Alright. Bring up monkeytype.com. Are the competitors ready? Hold your hands up. I wanna see hands up. Hands up in the screen. And I want you to start typing in three two one go.
Experience of
this. Yeah.
This is pretty brutal.
Mike's eyes are locked.
Turns out these scale difference matters.
Jason's eyes are going up and down. Up and down. Look at that from Jason. Oh. You should have got Georgia, Field: those little cover covers.
Oh, My space bar doesn't work.
Oh, this oh,
no. Oh, this is flag on play.
Oh. That's right. That's right. Keyboard down. Keyboard down.
Technical difficulties. Yes. Someone get a medic.
Ahsoka wouldn't stop for you, and I won't either.
Oh my god. This is oh my god. This is tragic. I have to push so hard on the space bar. This is what I get for buying a used keyboard. This is
not what it sounds like when we are in production meetings normally. Normally, everyone's Hans, why are you lying? Every
time I look down, the changing lights distract me. Oh my. I'm done.
I'm not I am not even close. Not even close.
Jason. Wow.
I did not get to 50 words.
What? Was it a space bar issue? Was this an equipment failure?
Yes. It was a space bar issue.
Hate to see it, folks.
Hate to see it. It is a poor competitor who blames their tools.
It's almost like somebody with the nen ability bungee gum made your space bar a little sticky.
We'll run that one by the stewards.
Jason, well played. Just don't ask my accuracy score.
No. I gotta know. I gotta know since we're now competitors.
67%. Not great.
Well, it will be a pleasure to to fight against you, Jason.
Type. Type type again type against Georgia unless you have other plans.
Well, I'm on my way. Let's just say that.
Stay tuned for more drama.
The internet is infrastructure, obviously. Wires in buildings full of machines and people in those buildings making websites, but it's also an institution. In the sense of it being a practice, a set of relationships between things. Something that is done versus something that simply is. And as we're learning now in many different ways across the world, institutions can be surprisingly fragile and their continued existence can depend on not very much at all really.
Some spit in paper clips, toothpicks and bubble gum. In a sense, the internet as you and I know it at least is humming along because no one has pressed too hard on any particular toothpick. One of which is called section two thirty. Senator Dick Durbin, democrat from Illinois, and senator Lindsey Graham, republican from South Carolina, are gearing up to put forward legislation possibly as soon as this week
that would repeal section two thirty. We wanted to understand more fully what section two thirty does, why it's so important, and why politicians might wanna get rid of it and in so doing potentially completely reshape the internet.
So we talked with Tech Dirt's founder, Mike Masnik. Joining us is Mike Masnik, the CEO and founder of the Copia Institute, a tech law and speech think tank which operates the blog Tech Dirt that reports on the legal and policy issues faced by the tech industry with particular focus on privacy, free speech, and copyright. Since August 2024, Mike has also been on the board of the microblogging social media platform Blue Sky.
His white paper protocols not platforms, a technological approach to free speech in part inspired the creation of Blue Sky. He's also the host of Otherwise Objectionable, a podcast about the origins of the tech boom, debates over speech and liability online, and section two thirty, which is what we're gonna be talking about here today. Mike, I'm a big fan of you and your work. I've been following you for a long time, so I really appreciate you coming on the show to talk to us.
Yeah. Thanks for having me. I'm always interested in talking about this stuff with smart knowledgeable people, so Well,
we'll see. Don't let's not
get ahead of ourselves here.
So you're here to talk to us about section two thirty. For listeners to the show who might not know what section two thirty is, it was included in the Communications and Decency Act of 1996, and it reads as follows. It's very short. 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.
And I've seen you and other people describe this as essentially 25 words which make the Internet as we know it possible. And before we talk about why someone would want to change or repeal this, I was wondering if you could just tell us what it was intended to do at the time. Like, what do these 25 words mean?
So it's 26 words.
26. I didn't count right. Okay. Thank you for the thank you for the life hack check. Yes.
And there were a few different concerns about the Internet going on in the nineteen nineties. The Internet is early. The World Wide Web has just started. There are other aspects of the Internet that has existed, and everyone's sort
trying to figure out what to do about it. And what became section two thirty, which was not designed to be part of the Communications Decency Act, It was designed to be its own standalone act to say, if you are an interactive computer service that you are hosting other people's content, you can't be held liable for that content. There is a little bit more to that law. It's not just those 26 words. Mhmm. But, you know, the idea was like, this is a better
approach. What we're saying is that if you're running an Internet service, you can choose to take down any content that you want. You can choose to leave up any content that you want. You can choose to use all different kinds of tools and resources to to allow users to filter. You can sort of empower everyone. You can empower the companies to make their own decisions in terms of, like, what types of communities do they want. If they wanna create a gardening community.
Right? Can they say, like, no posts that aren't gardening, or is that is that introducing liability? You know, part of 02/30 was like, yeah. You can create a gardening community, and you can ban nonverbal speech. Yeah. You could
do what you want if someone comes in and they start wanting to talk about, like, building car engines or whatever.
Exactly. And so the house supported it, and so they passed it. Yeah. And so then you had two laws. You had the senate had passed this this crazy sensorial law that was like, take down everything. Anything bad is illegal. And then you had this house bill that was, you know, let there be Do whatever you want. Yeah. To
to to create the communities that you want. And the congress and its ridiculous non wisdom, they took these two approaches that that directly conflict with each other and just put them together. And then the the Cox Wyden bill became part of the Communications Decency Act, even though it was designed to be the opposite and opposing the Communications Decency Act. So
then you had this one bill altogether. Yeah. But then the ACLU challenged all of the senate side of it, which got tossed out nine nothing by the Supreme Court, and all that was left was section two thirty.
Wow. And so my understanding, you know, to just talk about, like, who benefits from the protections provided by two thirty and what kinds of things that it does, It's not just being able to moderate content level, decisions, like posts that people make. This is also what allows, say, like Gmail to implement spam filters, because that is a way of determining what sorts of messages get and do not get to an end user. Is that right?
Yeah. Who it benefits honestly is is everyone who uses the Internet. Yeah. It's it's it's hard to explain how much it benefits people. Early on, there were lawsuits from people whose emails were caught in spam filters, and they said, you know, we're we're suing this. You know, it's defamatory to call our email spam.
Right.
And, you know, those got thrown out on two thirty grounds. And if they didn't, like, that would be terrible. It it it goes even further than that because, you know, one of the elements of two thirty that is often missed, and these are two of the 26 words that are in the law, is it's not just about interactive communication services. It's also about users. So it's or users. And so if you retweet something, you are protected. You don't get sued. If you retweet something that's defamatory, you're
protected. The person who made the speech can still be, you know, held viable for for defamation. But also if you forward an email, and there were Yeah. Some of the early cases about 02:30 was someone received an email making accusations about someone else and they forward it to a mailing list. And the question was, who is liable for the, you know, potentially defamatory accusations in the email? Is it the person who wrote the the email or is it the person who forwarded it?
And so because it says no provider or user of interactive computer service Exactly. You're fine.
Yeah. So what it is saying is that whoever created the content, they are liable, not the person who just sort of passed it along.
Yeah. So, I mean, 02/30 has been it seems like since its inception now, a perennially challenged piece of law. Like, it's always on the senatorial chopping block in one way or the other. And it's funny. It's like, it was started as a bipartisan project and now has had bipartisan criticism.
Yes.
For its entire history. Like, what what is it about two thirty that makes it sort of, like, stick in the craw of so many lawmakers? Why why does it keep coming back up?
Yeah. It's really, you know, around twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen that things began to change. And and, again, on both sides. Right? You have both the Democrats and the Republicans being mad about it. And the reality is that it appears to be that both of them want to control the Internet better for their own interests. You know, the First Amendment is there and it protects lies and disinformation with a few exceptions. Very narrow exceptions. There's obviously defamation. There's fraud.
There are things like that. What the Democrats tend to be mad about is that social media companies were not more proactive in trying to take down the the disinformation, which again is not entirely true, which is where the Republicans got mad at all of it. Because especially, you know, post twenty sixteen election, there were lots of concerns about
election misinformation, election disinformation. And because the public spoke out about it, because the media spoke out about it, and importantly, because advertisers began to pull their advertisements from Facebook and from Twitter and saying, like, we won't support a platform that is pushing election disinformation. Yeah. The companies themselves had a business reason to actually try and tackle that. The response then though was Republicans freaking out and saying this is censorship.
Because they're because they are saying it's a it's a political position and not incorrect information being right, of course.
The reality is that the scale of the process of what's called now trust and safety of handling this kind of information is beyond your imagination. It is an impossible problem, and mistakes are going to be made. And some of the mistakes are just because people disagree subjectively over does this cross the line or not. Some of it is just because the frontline people have, like, fifteen seconds to make a decision on some of these things.
Yeah.
Right? And and you're never going to be able to get all those things right. But section two thirty, part of the importance of it is it says, like, if you make a mistake because you're going to make mistakes, you're going to make many mistakes every day, you don't get punished for it.
Yeah.
If you were to take that away, that actually makes it more difficult to moderate content because any mistake could create the potential for legal liability. And so, you know, the the result then would be taking away section two thirty depending on how you look at it. There's a few different things of where it could go. But one aspect of it is that many sites would then decide not to look. Yeah. If they don't moderate at all, then they cannot be held liable
under the First Amendment. And so the incentive then is to just look the other way and try not to find out any of the bad content. And then your website gets filled with spam. And again, like, you know, if this is supposed to be a gardening forum and you can't weed out spam or off topic subjects or anything like that, or you might introduce liability, it it would be impossible, and we would not have the kind of openness of the
Internet that you want. So either you get to that point where you do no moderation at all
And you have just a complete cesspool, like, murky swamp of everything.
Garbage. Awful. Nobody even likes it. Even the people who are like, no. We don't want any censorship.
They wouldn't like it.
They wouldn't like the spam. Or you have sort of the Netflix style Internet, which is like, okay. This is just purely broadcast. We are just picking and choosing the few things that you are able to see, and it's not an interactive service. It's now a broadcast service.
So I mean, that completely without 02:30, the way the Internet looks completely changes, basically, overnight.
Exactly. Yeah. It is a very, very different Internet.
The people who do wanna get rid of it, why do they want that? Or do they not actually want it?
I don't think anyone really wants it, but I don't think they fully understand the implications of it.
Okay.
And so, you know, I think a lot of it is just control. Right? That that these people want the Internet to be in the image of what they want. And often with critics of of section two thirty, they have very strong feelings of what the Internet should look like in their ideal world. And it doesn't because people are terrible sometimes and people are different. But a lot of people think, well, if only the Internet match my
view of what it should be, then it would be great. And the best way to get there is to remove two thirty.
But really what they're saying is like, if only there were no people who bothered me in the world.
Yes. Yes. Okay. Got it. Great.
It's an unrealistic view of the world, but I don't think they're fully understanding the implications of it or how the Internet works fully, how section two thirty works, and and how the the First Amendment underlies both of those.
And who is it that is making this push now? Who's the group of people behind it?
So there are a number of politicians, again, on both sides of the political aisle who have been gunning for section two thirty for a while. On the Republican side, you have Lindsey Graham, Josh Hawley, Marsha Blackburn to some extent. Ted Cruz really was one of the first to to come out and really yell about section two thirty, completely misrepresenting it, by the way, as as part of the that process. On the Democratic side, you have Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut,
Dick Durbin, Amy Klobuchar. But so you have this sort of bipartisan approach
Yeah.
To getting rid of section two thirty. And now the proposal that that we're expecting to come out soon, in theory, is one that will be headlined by Graham and Durbin, bipartisan, and the plan is to sunset section two thirty and basically say, by the end of twenty twenty seven, we would just wipe out section two thirty and it would be gone from the laws on the books.
So listeners to the show will recognize Blumenthal and Blackburn is also having been involved in COSA Yes.
Which is
part of another sort of like moral panic of like the Kids Online Safety Act, we have to protect children. Again, from pornography and sex trafficking and various content level evils, which much like Fosta Sesta, a lot of its critics will say will cause more problems than it will solve,
pushing things further into the fringes. In that group that you just mentioned, I think it was Durbin who had also said, you'll correct me maybe if I'm wrong, that it's like, we're gonna set a date, it will sunset by 2027, but we don't actually want that to happen. We don't we're not we don't actually want to get rid of two thirty. What we want is for the social media platforms to come and talk to us about regulation. Can you what is in
in a word,
what like, why write a law? Why write legislation if you don't actually want it to happen?
Yeah. It it is very much the give us what we want or we'll shoot the Internet kind of of a Yeah.
Really is like a it's like a hostage situation, really. And, like, it's not, you know, they're using the back end of a screwdriver as a hammer. Like Yes. What like, why? Do you like
Yeah. Instead of recognizing that the problem is them and that they don't really understand what they're doing, they're blaming because it's easy to do this, they're blaming big tech and saying, like, oh, big tech lobbyists. Every time we try and change section two thirty, the big tech lobbyists descend and they're too powerful and it's like this big deal. And
so, therefore, we have to, like, give them an ultimatum. And the only way to give big tech an ultimatum is to try and take away two thirds entirely.
Which is just extremely not true.
Right. Mark Zuckerberg has come out and said, and Facebook or Meta's, you know, official stance is that the law should be changed. And the ways that they are suggesting changing it would effectively dismantle section two thirty. And people say, well, why would they do that if that's going to lead to more liability for them? The reality is that what section two thirty does well, it protects smaller platforms much more than it protects bigger platforms.
Mhmm. The bigger platforms may face more legal threats without section two thirty and more liability, but the First Amendment will still protect them. The difference is that in a section two thirty case where a platform can use section two thirty, you can get it dismissed at the earliest stage. It probably costs a company about a hundred thousand dollars to get a case dismissed on two thirty grounds. If you're getting a case dismissed on first amendment grounds, it's much more involved.
It goes deeper into the process. You have to do a bunch of other things. It's probably more along the lines of $2,000,000.
So all the small platforms can't afford that? Exactly. They're gonna go away. Yeah. Right. Which Facebook loves.
Which Facebook absolutely loves because right now Facebook is losing users, and they're finding that there is more and more competition that is a problem for them. But Facebook also has a building full of lawyers. Right? If they start facing a whole bunch of lawsuits that are about 2,000,000 a pop that they're going to win, and they know they're going to win because the First Amendment will still protect them, they can afford many of those lawsuits and
they'll just go to court and they'll win. And it'll cost them, you know, whatever, $50,000,000. That's pocket change.
Yeah. Couch couch cushion money.
Exactly. But for smaller companies, for others, you know, for little forums, for any new competitor that is coming up, that is existential. You get one or two of those lawsuits, many of those will go out of business.
So I have two follow ups to this. One is just sort of like, I have a side question and then an actual follow-up. The side question is like, is this also a way it seems like they're already going this way, but is this also a way for Facebook to be like, listen, we didn't wanna moderate anything anyways. So we we're we could just get to stop and that rules.
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think they would love it.
Yeah. My, my actual follow-up is from the perspective of someone who is a lawmaker and who is ostensibly invested in the health of the American economy, which, like, at this moment, that might be a strange thing to claim a
lawmaker is interested in. But Yeah. Do they just not know that this is a a, like, death blow to the kind of economic development that has been, like, really, like, the signature accomplishment of the country for the last thirty years, or do they think that they're helping that in some way?
It it's a little unclear to me, and I think there are different motivations for different different ones. I think there is the moral panic aspect of it. There are a number of groups who are really focused on things like child safety. I think they're incorrect in thinking that two thirty is the problem when actually two thirty is what allows companies to experiment and try and figure out ways to protect children and to do more to keep children safe online without facing legal
liability. There's also the entertainment industry, Hollywood and the record labels spent many years fighting the Internet companies over copyright issues, and mostly lost. And some of the Hollywood Lobbyists effectively decided, well, now we lost the copyright fight, but we're going to destroy tech companies however we can, and section two thirty is is our next target. And so suddenly, you had these people who had been fighting on copyright stuff suddenly showing
up in congress experts. And I was like, you have no knowledge or experience with section two thirty. Why are you testifying as a section two thirty expert? And so you have elements of both of those in this effort to to undermine two thirty. You have the people who see it as like, oh, we're gonna profit from this, and you have the people who are making the sort of moral arguments incorrectly, I think, where they don't really understand the the nuances and complexities here.
What other tools do lawmakers have to get this work done instead of threatening two thirty? Like, are there other ways for them to get what they want?
I actually do think there are a lot of tools, most of which are totally ignored. And I have been working on a paper of like all the tools that that politicians should look at before they get to two thirty. Oh, wow. But I've been working on it forever, and and I never get it done because so much other stuff is happening.
We shouldn't have had you on this podcast. You're we've taken fifty five very important minutes from your life.
But it's you know, there are a whole bunch of other tools. Obviously, like antitrust is a big one. Right? If you're worried that companies are getting too big, you have antitrust tools that you can use. Bigger ones though, I think, are even more important. There's there's a law called the CFAA. And I bring this up all the time and everyone stares at me blankly and they're like, what is that? The CFAA is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
And it was written in theory to to stop computer hacking. It's very poorly written and it's very vague and it's been abused in all sorts of ways. Because it talks about authorized or unauthorized access. And what is authorized access? Well, somebody says, well, if you violate the terms of service, that's no longer authorized access, and we can sue you for computer hacking.
But where that has become really a big problem, I think, and I'll go back to Meta as the example of this, which was in the sort of, you know, 02/2010 time frame. I forget exactly when this started. There was a company called Power Ventures that they had created a dashboard that let you look at multiple social media back when there was most multiple social media in one unified interface.
You gave power your logins and it would go log in to Meta and or not Meta then, Facebook and and whatever else was out there and give you a single unified dashboard. Facebook sued them claiming that they violated the computer fraud and abuse act because they claimed it was unauthorized access. I don't think it was unauthorized access because the user themselves was providing their own logins. They were giving authorization for that.
But they won. And that sort of stripped out the ability for there to be, you know, a way to get out of of the Facebook silo. Right? You know, I also think, like, patent law has often been used to shut down competition. The issue inherent in all of this is who is controlling your experience online, and people are upset about certain billionaires in the in most cases, you know, controlling your experience and manipulating. Yeah. Manipulating what you see or what you don't see. Right?
That's the underlying concern that I think a lot of people have and it's legitimate. But the way you get around that is if there is real competition and if you can still communicate with people without having to be pulled into the manipulation engine part of it. And so patent law, CFAA, there are antitrust in some cases. There are ways to deal with that that isn't break the entire Internet.
Sure. So the future at this point is, like, a little bit uncertain. We know that legislation may be incoming at some point or another. We don't know exactly when. Like, what should people look out for? Like, what is the next six months to a year look like?
Yeah. Well, to some extent, I wish I knew.
Yeah. Of course.
It would let me plan stuff a little bit better. It it does come a little bit haphazardly. You know, the issue really is what is congress gonna do? And so watching what is coming out of the senate in particular, and just seeing where these things go. And I would say being very careful about, you know, who you trust on these issues.
We need people out there speaking about how important the Internet and the ability to speak is and the ability to use alternative services, whether it's small forums or alternative social media, how important that is, you know, people really need to speak up about it.
So in addition to your show, otherwise objectionable, what are the other places that people can go online to learn more about this?
So, obviously, Tech Tirt, I've been writing about it forever. Yeah. And so you can follow me there. I am on Blue Sky, and so I'm often commenting there on it. There are lots of other excellent people who are covering this stuff. Eric Goldman is a professor at Santa Clara law professor at Santa Clara University. He has a blog that covers almost every section two thirty case. It's like the best database of what's going on. Jeff Kosseff, is a law professor at the Naval Academy,
wrote the book, The 26 Words That Created the Internet. He's been following this stuff closely. EFF, as an organization, has obviously been paying close attention to this. The ACLU, brought the original case that that got the Communications Decency Act cost out. All of them have been following this and working on these issues. All of them are worth following, and they do an excellent job of keeping people up to date on these things.
Great. We'll put links to all those things in the show notes. And, yeah, we'll put Tech Dirt right at the top. Can't co cosign, I've been reading it for years, and it's an indispensable source for all of this stuff. So thank you for all of your hard work. Always appreciate that. That goes constantly to the grindstone.
Let's get ready to cookie clack. It's a beautiful day here for the final round of the team takes sighting tests
on Neverpost. In the blue corner, Georgia Hampton. Ow. Ow. Ow. With an accuracy of 92%. Oh.
I know
that's right. That's a lot to come Georgia, Field: up against. Right. It's gonna be tough for our other competitor, Jason the whip fingers overholzer.
Good try, Hans. Nice. Nice one. With an accuracy of redacted. That's none of your
Not accuracy. It's about vibes.
But, Mike, how do you like the chances of each of these two competitors?
You're asking me to choose a child and I refuse to, but Georgia is gonna smoke Jason.
I am going to try to get an accuracy at least above 80, which will slow me down. But I think it is a more fair way to do this competition.
Jason is going for the political victory. You know why I lose?
Because I chose to.
It's actually ethically
Yeah.
Better. Alright. Georgia, to your corner in the left. Jason, to your corner in the right.
Here I go.
I wanna see hands up. You're gonna start typing on type. Ready? 321. Type.
Oh. Oh, it's a strong showing.
Jason looking down not as much as
last much. Yeah. He's more comfortable. He looks way more comfortable on this on this smaller scale.
I will say Georgia is statuesque.
I now see what I was up against, and, I never stood a chance.
Jason, looking like he's having a good time.
Yeah. Oh, some deep breaths. Some deep breaths.
Got enough. Yeah.
I understand it now.
Yeah. Yeah. He's got it. This, it looks like the strategy of improving his accuracy might be paying off for him.
I understand it now.
This this is close to yeah. This is what you like to see, folks, in the final. This is it. To the wire. Both competitors strong, coming in hot,
giving it their all. And
it's coming down to the wire. We're getting close.
I was 92 words in.
So close.
Well played, Georgia.
And that's a
Good job.
A 94% accuracy.
Wow. Folks, she just keeps getting better.
71% accuracy trending in the right direction. Okay.
The next time we do this, we should do it on a mobile keyboard.
Oh god.
Georgia Hampton, congratulations.
Congratulations, Georgia. Thank you.
As your prize, just mail your keyboard to us, and we'll dip it in gold for
you.
Perfect. I never wanna see this thing again.
That is the show we have for you this week. We're gonna be back here in the main feed on Wednesday, April 9 for $4. You can get a single McDonald's Big Mac in the year 02/2002. Though strangely not February or 02/2001 when they were more than $4. For $4, you can get a venti chai tea at Starbucks in 2014. For $4, you can get a Mexican pizza combo at Taco Bell in 02/2001 or for $4, you could get a membership to never post right now and support your friendly local Internet media and tech
criticism podcast. Sure. You'll get an ad free feed of the show. Sure. You'll get extended segments and interviews. Sure. You'll get sideshows like our watch along pod Neverwatch or our sleep aid pod slow post. Sure, Hans will call you and personally tell you that he loves We're we're not we're not doing that one anymore. Really? I still think it's okay. Fine. Fine. Fine. Okay. Sorry about that. Well, I love you. And I'll love you more if you become a member.
NeverPoe.st, 4 dollars a month. Membership, it's good for the soul. Neverpost's producers are Audrey Evans, Georgia Hampton, and the mysterious doctor first name last name. Our senior producer is Hans Buto. Our executive producer is Jason Oberholzer, and the show's host, that's me, is Mike Rignetta. By the sparklet of certain ciliates, cesium practices its cricket song. Am I supposed to be impressed? My smoothie comes with GPS. Excerpt of We Have the Technology by Michael Robbins.
Neverpost is a production of Charts and Leisure. It is distributed by Radiotopia.