Amazon and Facebook Have Made the Web 10,000 Times Dirtier
Amazon issued a press release stating that it is fighting with 10,000 Facebook groups that sell fake Amazon reviews. It’s ironic, since Amazon has been a chief promoter of the avenue allowing this behavior: Section 230. Section 230 allows tech platforms to host and indirectly promote just about any type of bad behavior, including illegal behavior (fake review services and yes, human trafficking, murder-for-hire, etc.) and then say it’s just a community space and belatedly remove the content. Big Tech platforms like Amazon and Facebook have a massive financial interest entwined with this 230 law: the law has ballooned Big Tech’s user base and allowed it to have hundreds of millions of users sharing all types of ‘news’ (think Pizzagate, “stop the steal”) and selling all types of products (think counterfeit products, guns, faulty bike helmets, faulty fire alarms, flammable electric scooters, etc).
How cumbersome has Section 230 made the Internet? Amazon has had to issue 10,000 lawsuits to 10,000 different users—not just one to Facebook, who gives these 10,000 a home. That’s right: Section 230 has made policing the web 10,000x more difficult.
Many of the world’s most valued companies often have a vested interest in ensuring 230 stays in place as is. A dirty web is a profitable web often filled with anger, sex, violence, threats, and fake information. (Some good news: some in Congress are wise to this and are seeking to chip away at it.) Sadly, a quick shortcut to spotting the next investment-grade company may be asking, “does it benefit from Section 230?” It appears that there is a correlation between shirking responsibility and stock price because some of the wealthiest companies have banded together to protect and stop changes to Section 230. The lobbying group, called Internet Works and formed in 2020, boasts multiple billion dollar members, including: eBay, Reddit, Snap, GoDaddy, Pinterest, Dropbox, Twilio, and Etsy. Why isn’t Amazon and Facebook in this lobbying group? Both already employ collectively hundreds of their own lobbyists. They essentially have been building their own Internet Works lobbying group for a decade.
Amazon will likely spend as much time fighting the fake reviews as it does fighting lawsuits that it’s selling deadly products—which are rooted in the same issue: Section 230. Amazon wants to have its cake and eat it, too. Pollute the commons and cash in, yet shut down anything that hurts this profit (which fake reviews do). Idea: limit Section 230 and make it easier to stop bad actors. If it did, I’d give that a 5-star, authentic review, which apparently Amazon agrees is worth something.