Compu$erve had a fairly steep learning curve for the time as well as a pretty steep cost. That kept most of the trolls out.

On the other hand, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act came about because of politicians not liking the no-moderation that was Compuserve, and preferring the greater moderation of Prodigy.

Ignoring anything political there, I'm guessing Compuserve still had its rough edges, though maybe it wasn't so much with trolling?

That immediately allows huge numbers of trolls. But Facebook doesn't do much about them because on Facebook, we, the users, are the product and they deliver our eyeballs to the advertisers.

I saw a stat recently, that I'm not at all certain on the accuracy of, but that claimed that Facebook made more revenue per-user than Netflix. Which... yeah, I would find Facebook incredibly easy to cut if it suddenly cost as much as Netflix.

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* Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)

poindexter FORTRAN wrote to Dr. What <=-

We used to cycle through 'free' trials of AOL and leech files off of
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I did love those free floppies, though.

And, later, all those shiny drink coasters.


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Adept wrote to Dr. What <=-

On the other hand, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act came about because of politicians not liking the no-moderation that was Compuserve, and preferring the greater moderation of Prodigy.

That doesn't seem right. The CDA came out in 1996. Prodigy died for good in 2001 (and was never really popular). And while Compu$erve still seems to exist today, it was pretty dead by then as well.

But then our "representatives" were never timely in their legislation.

It seems, though, that the CDA was aimed mostly at BBSs - especially the ones that wanted to move from hobbist systems to commercial systems. Thinking of EXEC-PC and Rusty & Edie's here.

Ignoring anything political there, I'm guessing Compuserve still had
its rough edges, though maybe it wasn't so much with trolling?

No. Guessing... More like private areas for illegal activity. Compu$erve was big enough that people could use it for illegal activity and not be noticed.

I saw a stat recently, that I'm not at all certain on the accuracy of,
but that claimed that Facebook made more revenue per-user than Netflix. Which... yeah, I would find Facebook incredibly easy to cut if it
suddenly cost as much as Netflix.

That claim would pass my BS filter. Facebook doesn't have to create content, so its costs would be much less than Netflix. And at "free", Facebook would have more users.


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Adept wrote to Dr. What <=-

On the other hand, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act came about because of politicians not liking the no-moderation that was Compuserve, and preferring the greater moderation of Prodigy.

Cubby vs. Compuserve characterized the online service as a distrubutor,
not a publisher of content - and therefore not liable for defamatory
content.

Section 230, in a sense, reinforces that ruling by providing some
immunity to computer services.

My opinion is that as soon as you provide content in anything but a chronographically sorted view or start selling ads based on content
gleaned from users' postings, you've crossed the line from distributor
to publisher and should be compelled to monitor content.

You shouldn't get to make money by manipulating what people see to
maximize revenue and claim immunity.




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On the other hand, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act came about because of politicians not liking the no-moderation that was Compuserve, and preferring the greater moderation of Prodigy.

That doesn't seem right. The CDA came out in 1996. Prodigy died for
good in 2001 (and was never really popular). And while Compu$erve still seems to exist today, it was pretty dead by then as well.

Yeah, it wasn't that section 230 was directly aimed at Prodigy and Compuserve, just that they both got sued, and Compuserve won because they didn't engage in any content moderation, and Prodigy had issues because they were being considered a publisher because of taking _some_ stuff down.

But, yeah, take a look at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230
in the background and passage section

Since, yeah, it's kind of interesting how early online services that were not the internet impacted things. I guess they weren't BBSs, though I'm sure BBSs would still fall under a variety of these things.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)

My opinion is that as soon as you provide content in anything but a chronographically sorted view or start selling ads based on content gleaned from users' postings, you've crossed the line from distributor
to publisher and should be compelled to monitor content.

Not agreeing or disagreeing, but, conveniently, that change would heavily encourage online places to sort in ways that are probably better for users anyway.

Though I'm sure you could still sort based on interactions. E.g., "you always like this person's posts, so this person's posts are higher in your feed" is content-neutral.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Linux/64)
* Origin: Storm BBS (21:2/108)