My latest piece in @Slate on the role online communities played in my life.

As a black, queer conservative, I find myself in a strange position as an absolutist supporter of #Section230. https://twitter.com/FutureTenseNow/status/1321931946323283969

When I was closeted, it was a lot easier to friend a random gay person from Saskatchewan with a pride flag in his background than to come out.

If you’re an LGBTQ+ millennial and had an internet connection, you likely owe a very particular to debt to the internet.

The comforting anonymity of early chatrooms in the 90’s and the reassuring safety of posting in a Reddit in the early 00’s made for and by queer or questioning people was the first step for many in accepting their identities.

We all owe a debt to the laws that allowed online communities to flourish—like #Section230 of the Communications Decency Act. Section 230 established that legal liability for illegal content online should be aimed at the individual who shared it rather than the platform.

There’s a growing consensus that 230 is the root of the problems we see online today.

The left believes dismantling 230 will stop misinformation & harassment. The right believes removing 230 will mean less censorship of conservative speech.

Both are wrong.

If you have a problem with private platforms deciding how to moderate content users post, then your problem isn’t actually with 230—it’s with the First Amendment and the Supreme Court.

Every online community would be affected by these changes.

But those communities most ignored by society and mainstream media would face the brunt of the impact.