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The FBI has reportedly identified six “tech savvy” adolescents as persons of interest in the bomb threats against more than a dozen Historically Black Colleges and Universities across the nation. The threats took place on January 31 and February 1…

Earlier this week we wrote about the problematic reintroduction of the EARN IT Act and explained how it will make children a lot less safe -- exactly the opposite of what its backers claim. Senator Ron Wyden has now put out a statement that succinctly explains the problems of EARN IT, and exactly how it will do incredible harm to the very children it pretends to protect:

“This sadly misguided bill will not protect children. It will not stop the spread of vile child exploitation material or target the monsters that produce it. And it does not spend a single dollar to invest in prevention services for vulnerable children and youth or help victims and their families by providing evidence-based and trauma-informed resources. Instead, the EARN IT Act threatens the privacy and security of law-abiding Americans by targeting any form of private, secure devices and communication. As a result, the bill will make it easier for predators to track and spy on children and also harm the free speech and free expression of vulnerable groups,” Wyden said. “I have spent my career in the Senate fighting to protect kids and aid victims of abuse, and I will do everything in my power to ensure every single monster responsible for exploiting children or spreading horrific CSAM materials is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But this bill does nothing to turn around the Justice Department’s tragic failure to prioritize child welfare and abuse cases.”

As Wyden notes, he introduced a bill that would put $5 billion towards actually fighting child sexual abuse, but for whatever reason that bill is going nowhere, while EARN IT is on the fast track.

Only one of those bills (Wyden's) actually moves us towards really fighting against child sexual exploitation. The other one grandstands and makes children less safe because it fails to understand technology or the law. Yet which one is Congress gearing up to support?

Since the start of 2003, Missouri voters have amended the state constitution 26 times. They approved a mix of conservative and liberal ideas that include making English the state’s official language, …

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder has shared a statement regarding the COVID-19 safety protocols for his U.S. solo tour, which launches Thursday in New York City. "We have done our…

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‘This year has been a lot harder than people thought it was going to be.’

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - The Missouri Department of Transportation and the National Guard have been helping to clear an accident that shut down one of the main routes through the state for hours. It appears that several semi-trucks were involved in an accident at around 11:30 a.m. in the area and are stuck on and [...]

In today's Vintage KSDK, it's snowmaggedon from the 1980s, with some video that's not been seen in years.

The stores are set to reopen at their normal times Friday.

As the ‘Great Resignation’ pushes the labor market even further in favor of job seekers, St. Louis staffing firms are in the midst of an evolution, growing in both revenue and employees, while adapting strategies to a vastly changed environment.

This is the second time in three months that the large St. Louis County district has faced challenges to books.

ST. LOUIS - Animal House Cat Rescue & Adoption Center is excited to announce the return of Cat Clips: A Competition in Cuteness! Celebrating its 3rd year, Cat Clips, a competition, and fundraiser, will include a compellation of short cat videos. The curated videos will be judged by a panel of cat-loving local celebrities. The call for submissions is now open, to submit a short film of your cat or cats visit https://filmfreeway.com/CatClips . Contest Submission fees: 1 st film submission - $10 Every film submission after that an additional $5 Winners will be announced at the screening and the following prizes will be awarded: Top prize - $250 Second place – $125 Third place – An awesome movie gift basket The selected shorts will be screened on Thursday, April 7, 6:30 pm – 10:00 pm at Third Degree Glass Factory (5200 Delmar Blvd. University City, 63108), doors open at 5:30 pm. Those attending Cat Clips will be part of the exclusive screening along with opportunities

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Our Love Story: The Couple: William(Jay) & Mallory Morris from Alton Date Met/Started Dating: June 26, 2004 Briefly Describe First Date: We met up at Gordon Moore park. Date Married: June 26, 2009 Name Something You Enjoy Doing Together: Spending time with our daughter. Share Advice For A Happy Relationship: Communication and being honest.

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GODFREY - Tom Long was a man who performed many roles and is remembered as someone who enriched many people’s lives throughout the region. He was an attorney, an accountant, a family man, a civic volunteer, and highly involved in the Village of Godfrey and Lewis and Clark Community College. Above all, and what he was most proud of was he was a family man and a devoted Christian. Tom died on January 28, 2022, at the age of 71. His graveside services will be held at 9:30 a.m. Saturday, February 5, 2022, at Sunset Hills Cemetery, 50 Fountain Drive in Glen Carbon. Visitation and a memorial service will follow at Vaughn Hill Church Of Christ, 662 South Bellwood Drive, East Alton, with visitation from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and memorial service beginning at 3 p.m. Some may not know this, but Tom was C.E.O. & Vice Chairman of Argosy Gaming Company in its infancy, starting in 1990 and helping the company grow into what it ultimately became for the Alton economy. Village of Godfrey Mayor Mik

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JERSEY COUNTY - County Engineer Thomas Klasner with the Jersey County Highway Department reported this morning that road conditions are getting more dangerous across the county. “They’re not good,” Klasner said of the road conditions. “Along the county highways, they’re not good here in Jersey County, and actually on a lot of the other roads. We’re having a serious drifting problem and trying to keep them open, especially the east-west routes.” Klasner added that strong winds from the north are blowing snow back onto the roads and filling in ditches, making it hard for snow plowing trucks to keep up. While the drifting problem is serious, Klasner said he’s heard no reports of accidents in the area. He also said there were a couple of power outages in the county that have since been restored. Still, he recommends people stay home and off the roads. “I would rather them stay home, because if they get caught in a snow drift,

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The westbound lanes of I-70 are shut down due to a jackknifed tractor-trailer near Bryan Road.

A producer of steelhead and rainbow trout is using Benson Hill’s plant-based soy ingredients to create fish feed that the two companies contend is cheaper and more energy efficient to make than alternatives.

I really wasn't going to write anything about the latest Spotify/Joe Rogan/Neil Young thing. We've posted older case studies about content moderation questions regarding Rogan and Spotify and we should have an upcoming guest post exploring one angle of the Rogan/Young debate that is being worked on.

However, because it's now come up a few times, I did want to address one point and do a little explainer post: Spotify's decisions about Rogan (and Young and others) has absolutely nothing to do with Section 230. At all.

Now, we can blame Spotify a bit for people thinking it does, because (for reasons I do not understand, and for which both its lawyers and its PR people should be replaced), Spotify has tried to make this about "content moderation." Hours after Spotify's internal "content policy" leaked, the company put out a blog post officially releasing the policy... that had already leaked.

And, when you're talking about "content policy" it feels like the same old debates we've had about content moderation and trust and safety and "user generated content" websites and whatnot. But the decision to keep Rogan on the platform has nothing, whatsoever, to do with Section 230. The only issue for Section 230 here is if Rogan did something that created an underlying cause of action -- such as defamation -- then, there might be a Section 230 issue if the defamed individual chose to sue Spotify. Spotify could then use Section 230 to get dismissed from the lawsuit, though the plaintiff could still sue Rogan. (If you want an analogous case, years back, AOL was sued over something Matt Drudge wrote -- after AOL had licensed the Drudge Report in order to distribute it to AOL users -- and the court said that Section 230 protected AOL from a lawsuit -- thought not Drudge himself).

The thing is, no one (that I can find at least) is alleging any actual underlying cause of action against Rogan here. They're just arguing that somehow Section 230 is to blame for Spotify's decision to keep Rogan on their platform.

But the question of Spotify's decision to keep Rogan or not has nothing to do with Section 230 at all. Spotify has every right to decide whether or not to keep Rogan in the same manner that a book publisher gets to decide whether or not they'll publish a book by someone. And that right is protected by the 1st Amendment. If someone sued Spotify for "hosting Joe Rogan," Spotify would win easily, not using Section 230, but for failure to state any actual claim, backed up by the 1st Amendment right of Spotify to work with whatever content providers they want (and not work with ones they don't).

Unfortunately, Spotify's founder Daniel Ek made matters even dumber yesterday by pulling out the mythical and entirely non-existent "platform/publisher" divide:

At the employee town hall, both Ek and chief content and advertising business officer Dawn Ostroff “repeatedly used the phrase ‘if we were a publisher,’ very strongly implying we are not a publisher, so we don’t have editorial responsibility” for Rogan’s show, said a second Spotify employee who listened to the remarks — and who, like some Spotify employees listening, found the executives’ position “a dubious assertion at best.”

In a chat linked to the town hall livestream, “A large portion of the angry comments were about how Spotify’s exclusive with Rogan means it’s more than just a regular platform,” said one employee.

That LA Times article, by Matt Pearce and Wendy Lee (who are good reporters and should know better), then confuses things as well, implying that Section 230 depends on whether or not a website acts as a "publisher or a platform." It does not. Section 230 applies equally to all "interactive computer services" with regards to content provided by "another information content provider." There is no distinction between "platform" and "publisher." The only issue is if Spotify helps create the content -- in whole or in part -- and courts have determined that merely paying for it doesn't matter here. It's whether or not the company actively had a role in making the actual content (and, more specifically, in contributing to the law-violating nature of any content). But that's not the case here.

Still, with all this talk of "platforms" and "publishers" and "content policies" and content moderation -- people seem very very quick to want to somehow blame Section 230. Superstar tech reporter Kara Swisher went on Anderson Cooper's CNN show and argued that Spotify doesn't deserve Section 230, which is weird, again, because Section 230 isn't implicated at all by Spotify's decision.

“It’s great to have different opinions. It’s not great to put out incorrect facts. There is a difference. There still is, no matter how you slice it.” @karaswisher on Spotify’s decision to add a content advisory to all podcasts that discuss Covid-19. pic.twitter.com/e7aYCe1ALt

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) February 1, 2022

Then, the folks at Sleeping Giants, an activism group that I think does really great work communicating with advertisers about where their ad dollars are going, also tweeted about the LA Times article suggesting that it was another reason why Section 230 was "too broad." After I (and many others) tweeted at them that this wasn't a 230 issue at all, they quickly apologized and removed the tweet:

Okay, @mmasnick and @evan_greer, two people who are extra knowledgeable on 230 and whose opinions I trust pretty much body slammed me on this, so I’m going to do some penance and dig deeper. Apologies to all.

Lesson learned. Never tweet, then go to a show for two hours. pic.twitter.com/q6W5Yqlrqh

— Sleeping Giants (@slpng_giants) February 3, 2022

But since so many smart people are getting this confused, I wanted to try to do my best to make it clear why this is not a 230 issue.

And the simplest way to do so is this: How would this situation play out any differently if Section 230 didn't exist? If it didn't exist then... Spotify still would be making decisions about whether or not to cut a deal with Rogan. Spotify, just like a publishing company, a newspaper, a TV cable news channel, would have a 1st amendment editorial right to determine who to allow on its platform and who not to. 230 doesn't create a right to editorial discretion (both up and down). That already exists thanks to the 1st Amendment.

Indeed, if you're thinking that Spotify might somehow be liable if someone gets hurt because they listened to someone spreading stupid advice on Rogan's podcast, that's not going to fly -- but, again, because of the 1st Amendment, not Section 230. As Section 230/1st Amendment expert Prof. Jeff Kosseff explained in this great thread, book publishers have (multiple times!) been found to be not liable for dangerous information found in the books they publish.

There has been a lot of talk about Spotify, Joe Rogan, and Section 230. The problem with the discussion is that 230 is irrelevant because there is not a viable cause of action against Spotify -- or Rogan -- for health misinfo. These books from the 80s explain why. pic.twitter.com/o1iFPfVvBt

— Jeff Kosseff (@jkosseff) February 3, 2022

In both of the cases he describes, people were injured, tried to hold the book publisher responsible for telling them to do something dangerous, and the courts said the 1st Amendment doesn't allow that.

or the surrounding legal doctrines to suggest that such a duty should be imposed on publishers . . . Were we tempted to create this duty, the gentle tug of the First Amendment and the values embodied therein would remind us of the social costs."

— Jeff Kosseff (@jkosseff) February 3, 2022

So then, the only way 230 comes into play here is in the specific case of if Rogan broke the law with his speech on the podcast (with defamation being the most obvious possibility). As far as I can tell, Rogan has never been sued for defamation (though he has threatened to sue CNN for defamation, but that's another dumb story for another day). So, the risk here seems minimal. Some people have suggested suing for "medical misinformation" but anything Rogan says along those lines is almost certainly protected 1st Amendment speech as well. But, if Rogan somehow said something that opened him up to a civil suit and the plaintiff also sued Spotify... Section 230 would... help Spotify... a tiny bit? It would likely help Spotify get the case tossed out marginally earlier in the process. But even if we had no 230, based on how the law was before Section 230 (and the examples like those shown by Jeff Kosseff), the courts would likely say Spotify could only be liable if it had knowledge of the illegal nature of the content, which Spotify could easily show it did not -- since Rogan produces the show himself without Spotify.

So in the end, 230 provides Spotify a tiny kind of benefit here -- the same it provides to all websites that host 3rd party content. But that benefit has nothing to do with the decision of whether to keep Rogan or not. It would only apply to the mostly unlikely situation of someone suing, and even then the benefit would be something akin to "getting a case dismissed for $50k instead of $100k, because the case would still be dismissed. Just with slightly less lawyer time.

We can have debates about Joe Rogan. We can have debates about Spotify. We can have debates about Section 230. All may be worth discussing. But the argument that Spotify keeping Rogan has anything to do with Section 230... is just wrong. The 1st Amendment lets Spotify host Rogan's podcast, just like it lets any publisher publish someone's book. Taking it away won't change the calculus for Spotify. It won't make Spotify any more likely to remove Rogan.

So, go ahead and have those other debates, but there's no sense in trying to claim it's all one debate.