While Congress grilled some Big Tech CEOs this week, Democratic leaders have been busy in the background, working on proposals to change the wording of section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people on both sides of the ideological division who have become so angry with the actions of Twitter and Facebook, along with other heavyweights on social media, that support for this type of action seems to be growing. But what House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone (DN.J.) and his friends intend to do will not stop some of the worst abuses of Jack Dorsey and the company. Instead, it will open the door to unofficial censorship of anyone with insufficiently awakened views and could lead to endless lawsuits, not only against social media platforms, but of all online content publishers. (Axios)
The question is not whether to regulate technology companies, but how, the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Frank Pallone (DN.J.), tells Margaret Harding McGill of Axios.
Why does it matter: Democrats, empowered in Congress and furious at vaccine and election misinformation, agree that it is time to legislate on technology policy, including updating the key law that protects them from liability for user-generated content. The path to adopting a bill is a little clearer and there have been signs that the major technology platforms are ready to accept some changes.
Leading the news: Pallone said he wants to target the financial incentives of online platforms to amplify misinformation and extreme content.
Pallone cleverly frames the discussion by talking about “more outrageous and extremist” content (his words) and how Facebook and Twitter “take advantage” of it, because this is the kind of content that generates a lot of clicks. Lightning and inflammatory headlines are known to attract the eyeballs, and if Democrats make it appear that the only people punished are billionaires like Zuckerberg and Dorsey, it’s easy to get people to walk away with the door to lawsuits and regulations.
We need to keep two things in mind here. First, the Law on Decency in Communications does not only apply to social platforms. In fact, the original legislation was written long before those platforms were even a sparkle in the eyes of their creators. These rules apply to any website where news and opinions are published and, more specifically, to any website that allows comments from the public.
However, the biggest problem is that opening the door to lawsuits and restrictions involves a system in which someone will have to decide what qualifies as “outrageous and extremist” content. Even labeling something as “misinformation” opens the door to violent abuse. We’ve already seen far too many examples of blocking Facebook and Twitter content or suspending / banning users (almost entirely conservative voices) for posting comments that are considered “harmful.” This is often done under the guise of the alleged transmission of bad information about the pandemic, but those patterns of behavior shift to discussions about racism, social inequality, and almost any other divisive topic you would like to name.
People have been suspended by Twitter for suggesting that the new coronavirus originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, despite the fact that the former CDC chief recently said he thought that would be the case. Twitter suspended the New York Post account for weeks because it linked to one of their own stories about Hunter Biden, which ended up being 100% justified. (Dorsey told Congress this week that the decision was “a mistake,” but did not say who made the decision or what process was used to evaluate the content.) Other examples abound.
The point is that there will be no clear definitions of what speech is allowed and what is “extremely dangerous misinformation” other than that generated by publishers. And with section 230 as amended by Democrats, the Liberals will soon be flipping through comments sections of websites, such as the one you’re reading now. As soon as they find someone quoting the Danish medical study, saying that cloth face masks are ineffective in protecting uninfected people from contracting the virus, they will be able to launch a lawsuit against our company to allow “dangerous misinformation” to appear on the site. our. (Despite the fact that the results of this study were never denied.)
These lawsuits will (or at least should) eventually fail for the reasons of the first amendment, but too many of these frivolous attacks will generate massive legal bills that will take some smaller publishers out of business. So please don’t be too quick to support Pallone’s proposal just because you think it will punish Facebook and Twitter. There is a Trojan horse hidden in this plane, and the Democrats are fully aware of it. It’s not a bug. It’s a feature.