Section 230 should be revoked because the lack of liability against social media company owners for the acts of users on their platform, results in poor censorship that allows for a increase in racism (and thus an increase in hate crimes, mental health issues, oppression for certain groups), bullying (which has similar impacts), and for crimes such as sexual trafficking and the selling of drugs (which causes deaths, which should be the HIGHEST stake in this debate, alongside structural violence since death is irreversible and policies/social ideologies against minorities are also unlikely to be reversed since they're seen as insignificant). Section 230 being revoked reverses this because the act of being held responsible (through legal lawsuits, etc) acts as a purpose to strengthen moderation around these issues, to prevent these consequences from occurring. Thus, my contentions will center around those 3 points.

1.) ScienceFirst states that Section 230 isn't a "get out of jail free card," but fails to provide other ways that companies are held accountable for their poor moderation. You should prefer my argument, stating that it is a "free card," because I state clearly that the lack of legal accountability for the acts of users on the app, results in them lacking the reason to actually enforce this moderation, allowing these rampant behaviors of racism, crimes, and bullying by users to go on freely. Revoking Section 230 reverses this because it gives them a reason to actually moderate this behavior. 2.) they state that Section230 would result in social media companies just shutting down all platforms or enforcing unfair restrictions, since they'd be legally responsible for harm done. However, this is false. If a company were to do this, they'd risk losing the users on their platform and thus money. This would make having the platform itself a burden and defeat the owner's purpose of creating it. Given that it would be more financially beneficial to increase fair and accurate moderation (by hiring more staff for example) than to significantly decrease the rate of users in general due to unfair moderation that significantly restricts them, they'd likely choose to do the first option. This causes them to lose less money. You can make money by adding extra costs to your overall budget, but none if you don't have users in a platform to begin with. 3.) You state that countries with similar protections have worse moderation outcomes. However, this is false. The European Union implemented a similar standard with the The Digital Services Act (DSA), where social media companies can receive penalties for what is determined as inadequate moderation (displayed by the content of users) on their platforms, and Europe is a region in the world with some of the lowest crimes documented on social media, with Greece being the nation with the lowest crime rate on social media (ranking highest in the National Cyber Security Index (NCSI) at 96.10, indicating strong defenses against cybercrime, including social media–related threats). This reveals that the act of holding social media leaders responsible for the content on their platforms does reduce the effects of crimes, as noted by my initial argument.

This is a strawman. Nobody is arguing that drug sales and trafficking aren't already illegal, we are arguing that these social media platforms act as places where these illegal activities can spread at a much faster rate before they're stopped. People can only reach so many people in-person. However, online, they gain access to millions on potential victims, and due to how long it takes for criminals to actually be caught + how long an investigation takes, simply because it's "illegal" doesn't prevent this, they will still have many victims prior to be caught. Section 230 being revoked mitigates these impacts by preventing criminals from reaching as many victims as possible (due to their content being removed by stricter moderation), prior to being caught. This will result in less victims, less deaths, less assault, etc. For once a person fentanyl from an illegal seller online and consumes it, their health is immediately at risk and they can possibly die. If that person dies, it doesn't matter if the act that killed them was illegal, given that it still happens. At that point, the conversation shifts from whether it's illegal or not to how can we prevent these illegal acts from happening. My side wins on that. 2.) They say that I haven't showed any evidence that revoking section 230 reduces hate crimes or bullying. This is false, my argument that Europe increased a decrease in crimes in general after implementing stricter platform liability, INCLUDES HATE CRIMES. Hate crimes are crimes, they are automatically included within that statistic. As to bullying, it is just logical that stricter platform liability would cause more moderation on videos/posts that violate the guidelines in terms of bullying, decreasing its visability on the platform. You honestly don't need a statistic for this; the logical train follows and the Neg has yet to refute that train of thought, so it should be accepted as the truth. 3.) They state that speech has been pushed underground due to censorship, but they fail to provide any evidence or examples of this, nor is it a claim supported by a logical sequence of events. It's just a baseless claim thrown out in the air that states "we have data" without showing us that. They don't tell you how it gets pushed underground, why, where it gets pushed, etc. I tell you that in all of the logical claims I make, so don't accept this claim as logical. 4.) They state that it forces smaller sites to close, but these smaller sites typically aren't successful regardless. In the decade, we've seen the same social media sites dominate: Tiktok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. People are reluctant to use new social media platforms because these familiar brands are something that most people already use, causing more social interaction, a more expected, and an overall better experience on the platform. This will forever be a bigger threat than Section 230 because it doesn't matter if you can't afford moderation, if you're unable to gain enough users on the platform to need it anyways. 4.) According to a variety of sources, 90% of startups fail. This means that regardless of whether or not section 230 is revoked or not, a social media startup is likely to fail. This makes the impacts of section 230 very small, if there is any at all, leaving this argument as nonunique. The supposed "shut down of new companies" is happening RIGHT NOW, while section 230 still exists. 5.) Judge notice that ScienceFirst is using catchyphrases to draw your attention. Be aware that these phrases add absolutely nothing to his argument. Unless they come with logic and facts, ignore them.

A notice-and-action system is literally an example of a form of liability for the content of their users. If they poorly moderate the content that their users create, they receive a penalty. That is a literally a direct example of a company facing consequences for not taking responsibility for their user's content. It doesn't have to be the same "sue everything" framework. My argument doesn't rely on that. All my argument actually relies on is a consequential force that pushes social media platform owners to actually take stricter moderation actions. Any form of punishment in regards to that user's content meets that standard. Not only "sue for anything." 2.) There doesn't need to be evidence putting the two same things into one article. We can look at the correlations seen across the entire region to make that conclusion. The evidence shows that countries under the DSA tend to have less crimes on social media than nations that aren't under similar policies, and that they are all consistently the top countries when it comes to low crimes on social media. There can't be some other explanation for this, for the ENTIRETY of Europe, given that Europe is not a cultural monolith, where everybody agrees on the same standards. We have to find a common ground that can explain this, and this is it. This is also supported by the fact that crimes online in EU countries like Greece, were a bigger issue, prior to the implementation of DSU (prior to 2022), compared to after. 3.) Company owners aren't idiots. They won't just move to the extreme version or what's easiest. They will move to what will be more beneficial for them and their company and maximize their profits (since profits is their incentive for having a business in the first place). As stated before, if a company dissatisfies the majority of their users by making their platform heavily restricted, unrecognizable, and almost unusable, they risk losing the majority of their platform. Logically, their users make up their entire profits (directly and indirectly as they cause advertisers to also attract to the site), meaning that this act would cause them to lose almost all of their money, making it not feasible. Instead, they'd find an option that helps mitigate the damages, without losing all of their profits and hiring more moderators to accurately reduce term violations will prevent these lawsuits, while still keeping users happy. Lawsuits will never outweigh the amount of money caused by losing users from insanely restrictions because through this solution they'd happen less frequently, but either way they wouldn't be super frequent regardless. A lawsuit has to be initiated by someone and that wouldn't be for every post. However, the threat of a lawsuit is enough to deter because the possibility of having to lose money alone acts as a deterrent. The two realities can exist at once, yet you act like they can not. 4.) You say it has carve-outs, but literally don't name them, so I am confused on what your argument is.

1.) Section 230 cuts down on crimes promoted and seen online. That's why. Not all crimes are online-based, most likely aren't, which is why I showed you that online-based crimes have reduced, and not crimes overall. It makes no sense to look at crimes overall, when that includes offline crimes that are still rising for completely unrelated reasons. You should still prioritize the mitigation of online crimes because any reduction of a crime is good. This brings me back to the weighing that I proposed in the very beginning of the rounds, stating you should always prioritize the reduction of deaths. A death is irreversible, whether or not it happens from an online crime or not, so if an better online moderation reduces online-crimes that are related to death, that is good regardless. Always remember judge, a business falling can be reversed, intense moderation can be reversed, but a person losing their lives can not, so we should always prioritize mitigating anything that prevents that from occurring, including online crimes. 2.) You keep repeating the "they'd repeat everything" framework, without acknowledging the fact that would interfere with their biggest source of income: users. This has already been debunked and my rebuttal was not responded to, so this counts as a conceded argument. It's final rebuttal, so do not allow them to come up with a rebuttal against the user argument now judge. 3.) You haven't provided any evidence showing exactly how much the revocation of section 230 would harm small businesses, so the claim that it would make small businesses "impossible" compared to it's current weight is unwarranted. All we do know is that businesses are mostly failing right now, and either way they'd fail. The impact isn't big enough to consider, and regardless you should still prioritize reducing crimes over this because as I stated, deaths are irreversible, an economic failure of a company is not. 3.) Again, it doesn't need to specifically state that platforms are publishers to implement the same punishment system that revoking section 230 would do. You failed to acknowledge that my argument relies on punishment in general, which makes this hard to win on. 4.) The neg never disproves the evidence that the DSA nations have had the least amount of crime on social media, ever since it's implementation. They concede that it does reduce crimes on social media, you should vote on the crimes it reduces, regardless of how many due to the weighing mechanism used: irreversibility. Judge always remember, the owner of a failed business can pick up their boot straps and get back up again. A victim of a death-related crime on social media, doesn't have that chance. Vote to revoke section 230 and allow citizens to breathe again. I rest my case.