The Internet Dilemma

Hey.

And I'm Simon Adler sitting in for Lulu and Latif this week. How do you feel that the.

B team has been sent in for this. Yeah, they're like, you know, the understudy of the understudy was out today, so you're going to have to take just the ushers because a while back.

Our reporter, producer Rachel Cusick. She sat me down in the studio to tell me a story about both how beautiful we humans are, but also just how downright awful we can be. And the tricky business of deciding who should be held responsible when that ugly part of.

U.S. shows Let's Hit It. MM Hmm, so okay. So we are going to start on a stoop in Harlem.

Over in West Harlem in what 2016, yeah, 2016 with this guy Matthew Herrick.

Do you go by Matt or Matthew? Most people call me Matthew cool at the time, Matthew had recently.

Moved from L.A. to New York City. It was definitely, you know, a punch to the face, if you will.

Trading palm trees and sunshine for a smelly city stoop. Yeah, anyway, I think it was around.

October, mid-october, I was sitting on my stairs, just like in the front of my building. What's this?

Guy look like, Do we know tall, muscular, salt and pepper hair? Nowadays? I think probably just.

Pepper back in the day. And I was having a cigarette and a gentleman walked up and stopped and just stood in front of me. And you know, it's New York, so you have a lot of fucking weirdos, so I just figured it was just some weirdo being weird, like, whatever.

And it's someone that he doesn't know, someone that he doesn't recognize, but this guy....

He went, Hey, Matt.

It's so and so we were talking on Grindr, Grindr dating app used primarily by gay men. And so this stranger tilts his phone towards Matthew and he's like, Look.

On the app with, you know, a picture of me and I was like, That's not possible, like.

That is a photo of me, but that's not me. that is not a profile that I made. I'm not on Grindr.

You know? So he looks up at this guy like, I don't know how to explain this, I don't know who you're talking to. I'm very confused right now.

Looking for me from Grindr, like, how weird is that? Yeah, little did I know, because after that another guy came.

Or sometimes I'd be leaving the building and there'd be people outside, each time a different.

Man, you know, one or two a week all saying the same thing, like we were talking on Grindr, let's have sex.

At the company, and meanwhile, people were showing up to my home in large volumes and like, I'm.

And finally, one night, he's annoyed, he's fed up. I stood up and said, Fuck this. And he decides he is going to get to the bottom of this.

A photo and then logs on, and I saw the fake profile of myself. Very close proximity grindr.

Actually has this map feature where you can see where other people are who are on Grindr. And this person who had Matthew's name and his photo is like, right there.

Right outside his apartment.

Matthew is looking at the Grindr app, scanning for the fake him, and it'll tell you how far that person is away and this fake Matthew. He was like, 20 feet away.

So I'm walking along Morningside Park, refresh the app, then 15, he's walking, and I was walking then 10..

JC started yelling back at him. Matthew ran away. J.C chased him. The cops got called. It was a mess.

So an ex-lover made a fake profile for the purpose of terrorizing him.

Yeah, Matthew and this guy, J.C. had started dating not long after Matthew arrived in the city.

And we dated for, I want to say, eight to 10 months.

Matthew saw some little red flags and ended things, and that's when these people started coming. I think once Matthew broke up with him, he was like, if you don't want to date me, then like, screw you, I'll make your life a living hell anyhow. Once he knew it was J.C.

I ended up getting an order of protection against him.

And so JC couldn't go anywhere near him in real life, but an order of protection doesn't really apply when JC's sending other people to his door.

There was no ramifications for what he was doing.

There wasn't anything the courts or the cops could do about it. So Matthew contacts Grinder again and is like, This is the guy, shut him down, please, but still.

Nothing, no acknowledgement.

We reached out to Grinder for comment, didn't hear back anyhow. With Grinder doing nothing. J.C. went on the offensive. He actually made multiple fake Matthew profiles.

There were two to three existing on the platform, and that's when, you know, the gay zombies started coming for me.

Do you call them the gay zombies?

Yeah, it's because it's like everyone's like mad.

Just like, must get sex now.

Yeah.

And it wasn't just a lot of awkward but harmless encounters because these profiles....

Said I was looking for rape fantasies.

Matthew would try to explain the situation to people calmly, but then....

The profiles were telling these individuals it was part of my turn on so to stay and then approach me again.

Just diabolical.

Yeah, and so again, he tries reporting the profiles.

I had friends reporting profiles, family reporting profiles, sending emails to the company.

Again, nothing.

I was slammed against the wall.

Oh my gosh.

There was someone who broke into my building and physically assaulted my roommate while trying to get to me.

He goes to the cops.

Filed police reports and they turned me away. They were like, we don't understand. I don't think anybody really could grasp what I was actually talking about.

J.C. started making profiles that promised people crystal meth and said they should show up at the restaurant where Matthew worked.

I was taking an order at a fucking table and I remember this guy is tapping on my shoulder, saying my name high out of his mind. And I'm looking at the people that are sitting down and they're looking back up at me and they're like, what is going on? And my eyes are? Just because I'm like, Oh, my God.

And this went on for months.

Jesus.

Did you hate hearing your name at that point in your life?

Oh, I hated it, I hated everything about existing, I hated it all. Like, I remember sitting there saying to myself like, I either want to fucking blow my brains out or throw myself off a building.

And then one day, Matthew's talking to his lawyer.

My family court lawyer, she said, Hey, there's this woman named Carrie Goldberg. she might be able to help you. And at that time, I was so just beat to a pulp, I just heard the word help.

So he takes the train to downtown Brooklyn.

I sat in her office and she told me a little bit about herself.

I mean, as background, I started this law firm after I had been the target of a malicious and creative and relentless ex.

Attorney Carrie Goldberg.

One of the most malicious things that my ex was doing was blackmailing me with naked pictures and videos that he had contacting. Everybody in my life. He's making false IRS reports against my family.

Now, at that time, Carrie was already a lawyer herself, but she really only did family law stuff, wills, guardianships, things like that. And I had so much difficulty during that process.

Finding a lawyer who knew what to do and was at the intersection of intimate partner violence and internet law and First Amendment. And knew how to get an order of protection.

I was really desperate and so after this all ended, I became the lawyer I needed, like Matthew.

So she told me her story and I told her mine. And before I could finish, she said, I would like to represent you. I think we can slow this attack on you.

And the way to do that, Carrie said, was to go after Grindr, take him to court and argue that this guy. J.C. Used Grindr essentially as a weapon that Grindr knew all about it and did absolutely nothing to stop it. And so, day of the hearing, Carrie and her team file in. Sit down, confident, looking at their little table.

We're pretty badass litigators.

And across the aisle is, of course, Grindr's lawyers, and as the hearing begins, the Grindr guys, they stand up. I'm imagining they do that thing that men do where they, like, put their tie tucked in, like inside their jacket, and they're like, your honor. We don't have to do anything because of Section 230..

Section 230.

Yeah, and the judge is like, you're right, we don't have to go any further. That's the end of this.

It was over, it was over, and I said, What the fuck is section 230? I didn't even understand what that meant.

Okay, so let's start there.

Okay.

Section 230 is a provision passed by Congress in 1996.

Attorney and justice correspondent at The Nation Magazine, Ellie Mistal.

So that's how old this law is. Now. It's worth pointing out that most of the rest of the law is no longer good law. It's been amended, it's been shaped, it's been overcome with kind of newer, better laws that take into account what the internet has actually become.

And 230, it does one simple thing.

It relieves internet companies of liability for illegal things posted on their websites.

Meaning, he says, not only in Matthew's case, but in others like it. When someone lies about someone else or threatens them, or even tries to do them some kind of harm. Using an app or a website, these tech companies, they get off scot-free.

That's exactly what's happening.

A shield that no other industry gets except the tech industry.

In short, Section 230 makes the tech world untouchable.

It's just not fair.

So, unlike Matthew, Carrie already knew about section 230.

And so Section 230 is my nemesis.

She hates it.

I can only talk about it once a day because I get so aggravated that I then can't do my job. I think it can be totally decimated and thrown into the sun.

And, weirdly enough, this hatred, Carrie feels.

As you know, Google enjoys a special immunity from liability.

Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is shared by a lot of people.

A lot of Americans have concerns.

Conservative lawmakers like Ted Cruz.

Calling on Congress to get rid of special immunity for social media companies.

President Joe Biden called to have it removed.

We have to get rid of Section 230 politicians.

And so did former President Donald Trump. That is the thing about Section 230. It's kind of built this like king-sized mattress of strange bedfellows who are all teaming up and saying we want it gone.

It is literally this like ominous looming monster.

But Matthew?

I don't think they should get rid of it.

One of those people.

Without Section 230, we couldn't live the way we do today.

It is the law that makes the internet possible. And so now we're really getting into the heart of Section 230..

That heart and what our lives might look like without it. After the break.

The Democrats have spent the week partying, the Republicans are fighting to get back in the headlines. And let's be honest, the main thing a whole lot of people really want to know right now is who's winning. That comes down to how voters in a handful of states feel about these presidential tickets. I'm Kai Wright.

Simon.

Rachel.

Radiolab and we are back.

And we're going to go backwards. All right to a time not that long ago, when what the internet would be, what it would look like and feel like, was a very open question. A time when sort of anything seemed possible.

Sorry, what year are we in?

Okay, so, 1992.

Things are starting to happen.

Back when getting on the internet required somebody else in your house to get off the phone.

The internet has evolved from this thing that really only academics use.

It's taken us five years of real hard work to develop a system like this.

To something, niche and nerdy communities are playing on in the form of chat rooms.

Ask him, why not go talk to real people?

To finally.

Introducing the power of prodigy.

Something that everyday people like you and me were using through these bulletin boards.

What Prodigy does is connect our computer with a fantastic range of services.

Prodigy was one of these main early bulletin boards, and you know, it let people post something on there and then other people would comment on it.

Pictures of any kind? It was only text, and although it may have been primitive, you had access to information all around the world.

And as amazing as that was, as more and more people were logging on to get world news or share recipes, or share their opinions about financial markets.

Prodigy needs your attention.

You have new mail, these bulletin boards they began to get.

You're done.

Heated.

Instant message.

Don't make fun of you, don't make fun of yourself.

No, you make fun of yourself.

Goodbye and so guys like Chuck.

Chuck Epstein, moderator of the Prodigy Money Talk Bulletin Board.

Were brought in to turn down the temperature by removing posts that went too far.

So, you know, I just took down swear words, derogatory words, racial slurs, etc.

And it's just you there, you're all by yourself.

That's correct. I was the only one who had the software, the moderating software.

And so Chuck. He managed to create this little neighborhood where people could connect and say what they wanted, but where he could also be a kindly curator. Make sure that no one got out of line until....

Well, one evening I was at my house, took my poodle out the front door for a walk.

Fluffy little fella.

Miniature French poodle Bo. And we walked down the street about, you know, 40 paces.

Bo does his business, Chuck stretches his legs.

And a man literally jumps out of the bushes.

Oh my god.

It was like from the Spy movies, I didn't know what this guy was doing.

And standing there under a streetlight.

He says, Like Mr. Epstein, I said yes, and he hands me a piece of paper in an envelope. it was an envelope.

I thought you were going to say, he said, I'm here to have sex with you.

I am a gay zombie of yesteryear. This is where it all started, anyhow. So Chuck turns around, walks home quickly.

And I went back in the house and opened the envelope.

And the first thing that he sees on this piece of paper, it says.

Stratton Oakmont versus Prodigy. And Big Letters at the very top. And I said, What the hell is this?

Turns out that Stratton Oakmont was suing Chuck's employer prodigy, claiming that someone had used Chuck's bulletin board to smear their company. Saying that their president.

Was a thief involved in some scams? And Stratton Oakmont was a criminal organization, basically attacked the reputation and the financial acumen and the honesty and the ethics of Stratton Oakmont.

And that these posts constituted defamation.

In this $100 billion lawsuit.

Now, as would be discovered years later, these posts were not defamatory. In fact, Stratton, Oakmont and their president were doing so many illegal things that they would one day inspire Leonardo DiCaprio.

Was all this legal? Absolutely not.

In the film The Wolf of Wall Street, We don't work for you, man.

You have my money taped to your boobs. Technically, you do work for me.

Yeah, Jonah Hill's character was actually based on the guy who cried defamation, but at the time of the suit, nobody knew anything about that. And so....

The lawsuit was about a.

When the thing went to trial, these wolves of Wall Street. They argued that because Prodigy employed people like Chuck, moderators who left posts up and took posts down that they were responsible for every defamatory post they left up.

The judge ruled that Prodigy was responsible.

Now.

And Compuserve did not hold itself out to be a family-friendly bulletin board.

They were just like Prodigy, but they had no moderators, no chucks, didn't take anything down. All the swear words, defamation, racial slurs, all of it stayed there, and when they went to trial in a very similar online defamation lawsuit, they won.

Well, that seems completely ass backwards.

Yes, yes.

What the law was saying is that if your approach is anything goes, then you'll be Scot-free. But if you attempt to have rules of the road, then we're going to make you responsible for every piece of content that's uploaded by every single one of your users.

Former Republican Representative of California Chris Cox. And when he learned about this, he was like, This is not the way we want the internet to be regulated.

Because of the obvious consequences, you know. The rate of increase in users of the internet was exponential. And it was clear that this new means of communication was going to be of vital importance, either for good or for ill.

And he worried that this precedent set by these two cases, like reward the Wild Wests punish the family-friendly sites, could be disastrous.

And one of the great things about being a member of Congress is that. When you pick up the newspaper and you see something that needs to be fixed, you say there ought to be a law. And then your next thought is....

You're like, who can do this for me?

Yeah, I could do that.

But he needed a partner.

So I made a beeline to my friend Ron.

Ron Wyden, one of Oregon's United States senators.

Democrats little buds, they get ice cream together.

Chocolate chip for me.

When I'm being very extravagant, I have one scoop of vanilla and one scoop of chocolate.

That's living the life. And he says, Ron, Like, I think it's really, really important that we do something about this. Explain these two cases and how....

You know, online platforms would offer the choice. You could either police your website and be liable for everything, even if something slipped through, or you could turn a blind eye and not police anything. And Chris and I said, Maybe we can come up with something that really promotes the best internet.

An internet where sites could take down what they wanted without getting in trouble.

And the point was to keep it really simple. So Chris and I went to the house dining room, sat by ourselves, and we put this together.

A couple days later.

It wasn't perfect, by any means.

And do either of you know it by heart? I'm sure you do, because you talk about this all the time. Can you just say it just so we have it on the recording?

Yeah, sure. What it says is that 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.

In other words, these internet companies could control the things that got posted on their sites as they saw fit, without the threat of being sued.

And so right now, we're going to take you over to the Library of Congress for this signing ceremony.

Mr Clinton used the same February 8th, 1996..

Today, our world is being remade yet again by an information revolution.

In a wood-paneled hall, President Clinton signed these 26 words into law.

This historic legislation recognizes that with freedom comes responsibility. This bill protects consumers against monopolies. It guarantees the diversity of voices our democracy depends upon. Perhaps most of all, it enhances the common good.

I mean, just as one example, if it hadn't passed and sites remained liable for every little thing that we posted.

You couldn't imagine a project like Wikipedia taking off as it has.

Or that Ice Bucket challenge that raised millions of dollars for ALS Research or Black Lives Matter.

They absolutely could not exist without Section 230.

I mean, section 230 let websites moderate as best as they could without the threat of constantly being dragged to court, which allowed space for this massive online wave.

Kill yourself.

Put my pictures on there, put my little stuff, they know my name and everything. Report the account please. And when someone comes to them and says, please make it stop. Like Matthew or Grindr Guy or countless other people....

And I'm sorry to my children.

Again, Section 230, while critical to how the internet was made, critical to how it functions, is old.

Once again, Justice Correspondent Ellie Mestal.

And contemplates a late 90s internet world that simply no longer exists.

Yeah.

So, yes, it's a sense of like, our laws should be updated to reflect how the internet works today, not how it worked in 1996.

It seems not unlike 1996, when Section 230 passed. Like, there's this open question again of what is the sort of internet that we want?

However, the other side of it is also, you know, we're kind of backing into the actual point. Do you mind? I want to start the point differently, right?

Yeah, do it.

Because here's the thing, one of the reasons why we don't know what's going to happen with Section 230. Sorry, the best way of saying it.

You're your own producer.

The bottom line is that we don't know what's going to happen to the internet.

Which, you know, it would take out racial slurs, problematic stuff, but it also might weed out these kernels of ideas that led to the Arab Spring and Black Lives Matter. And me too.

So only the most kind of anodyne, Disney-fied I like soup kind of comments.

Are those options, like both, equally likely if Section 230 were to go away?

Well, are you conservative or are you liberal? Because what you think is more likely really tracks with your politics right now? Liberals, at least the ones who think Section 230 should be taken away, think the social media platforms will go full-on aggressive, stopping hateful comments. However, conservatives like Josh Hawley really think that it's going to go the other way. That in a post-section 230 world. Because of the threat of liability, these companies, they would go in a wild West format and just let everything ride so nobody gets in trouble.

But the problem there, Ellie says, is....

Upside down and shake money out of it, right? Like none of this happens if somebody can't make money off of it, right?

Meaning, in most cases,....

Sometimes I just want to rent a car and go, you know?

I do know, and I think I can help you with that, really.

Advertisers Yeah, I love Hertz.

Oh, yes, love Hertz.

And what the advertisers want is for there to be moderation, because they make more money when things are for lack of a better word. Nice. So it's highly likely that the advertisers simply will not stand for a wild wild West scenario. Where, like, when you click on the page, all the comments are like, F you, you dumb n-word.

And if that happens, you're basically calcifying the internet as we have it today. Like these small companies, these startups, these homespun sites, they will not have the resources to moderate.

If you put these moderation controls on them, the next Twitter, the next Facebook, the next TikTok, there will be no way for them to compete.

So what we will have is basically just the titans that we have today.

It wouldn't be so comp, it wouldn't be a complicated issue if it wasn't a complicated issue.

Once more, Matthew Herrick, from the beginning of this episode, whose life got literally destroyed by Section 230. But still thinks we shouldn't get rid of it. I'm so surprised that you don't want to just get rid of it altogether. I don't know. It's like a freaking shark came and bit your arm and you're like, Well, the shark has done some good for the ocean, you know?

Well, because I understand how complicated it is. I mean, I don't want to sound, you know? I mean, obviously I'm fucking pissed, but like, I'm launching a coalition with, you know, a nonprofit organization, to help survivors. I'm trying to, like, seek out what I can utilize through that experience to create positive in the world. And I think that's all I can do. But I'd be bullshitting you if I said that I had the right answer.

And he's not alone. I don't know how to fix this thing, so the decision for now just seems to be to just leave it.

And the Supreme Court said so.

Um, Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court section 230c.1. So this past term....

The Supreme Court heard two cases about Section 230.

Section 230C1 1333 Gonzalez versus Google.

And during one of these trials from the bench.

Elena Kagan says.

Why is it that the tech industry gets a pass? A little bit unclear, on the other hand. I mean, we're a court, we really don't know about these things. You know, these are not like the nine greatest experts on the internet.

And boy, there is a lot of uncertainty.

And they decided to leave it in place.

You know, there is a reason why a law from 1996 is still the law today. And it's because not because it works, but because it is the least bad option.

This story was reported by Rachel Cusick and produced by Rachel and Myself, with mixing from Arianne Wack. Special thanks this week to James Grimmelman, Eric Goldman, Naomi Leeds and an extra extra to Jeff Kossiff.

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