Introduction
A crucial section of federal legislation that protects Internet giants like Facebook, Snapchat, and X from litigation for user posts is being changed by lawmakers. This protection is seen as the lifeblood of social media.
The next Silicon Valley’s representative in the House wants to amend a crucial federal statute that protects Facebook, Snapchat, and other internet giants against content lawsuits brought by their users. It is said that this protection is what keeps social media alive.
The top eight Democratic contenders running to replace Democratic Representative Anna Eshoo in her deeply blue district, District 23, all concur that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted in 1996, needs to be changed.
At the time, lawmakers were reluctant to take any action that would impede the industry’s expansion. Their agreement suggests that Eshoo’s replacement won’t serve the local business community. if not on this particular matter.
What to do next is the tricky part. Regardless matter the winner, Silicon Valley’s voice in Congress will be amplified by their efforts. They may spearhead the effort to take concrete action to purge the hate on social media.
Washington’s theatrical preening about the matter is enough for us. The most recent production took place this week when prominent internet CEOs appeared before Congress for their yearly visit of public flogging without actual consequences.
The hearing, if anything, demonstrated how the desire to alter liability safeguards has evolved into a rare area of dissatisfaction and bipartisan consensus.
During the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on preventing online child sexual exploitation, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “You and the companies before us, I know you don’t mean it to be so, but you have blood on your hands.” Five legislation on the subject were passed unanimously, and Graham declared, “This committee is done talking.”
Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, concurred. “Until the doors to the courthouse are opened, nothing will change. Money speaks louder than we do up here, therefore I believe the time for all of this immunity is over. Finally, we ought to take action on culpability, Klobuchar stated.
Republicans used to be the only ones to complain about Section 230, saying it was the reason conservatives on social media were mistreated. Once, if the National Defense Authorization Act, the yearly defense funding law, didn’t remove Section 230, then-President Donald Trump threatened to veto it. That was not the case.
Democrats have joined them, primarily because they feel that doing so absolves the platforms of responsibility for anything that occurs on their websites. Sen. Laphonza Butler of California urged Snapchat CEO Evan Siegel to apologize to the parents of two 16-year-old boys who died from drug overdoses after purchasing pills via Snapchat during this week’s hearing.
What do you say to those parents?” Butler said Silicon Valley’s
The leading contenders in the 16th Congressional District, which encompasses portions of San Mateo, Santa Clara, and Santa Cruz counties, share the same goal of making social media platforms safer and smarter.
The only other female candidate for Eshoo’s seat, Palo Alto City Council Member Julie Lythcott-Haims, informed me that she supports changing Section 230 since she is a mother of two. Holding corporations responsible for the harm they cause is vital.”
Sam Liccardo, a former mayor of San Jose, is also in favor of changing it, and he has stated that he doesn’t believe the industry’s long-standing claim that doing so will impede innovation. Perhaps that argument held water when Facebook was just being started. Not at this time, when Meta’s market capitalization is $1.2 trillion, a “t.”
“While Section 230 has supported the growth of the innovation economy, the time for thoughtful reform appears long overdue,” Liccardo stated.
What happens next? The issue facing Eshoo’s successor is that one. How can it be altered? And how can you accomplish it without undermining the local industry?
“Voters who work for companies that rely on Section 230 are concentrated in Eshoo’s district,” noted Eric Goldman, a longstanding supporter of the legislation and co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University. “I would expect the district’s representative to understand and defend the critical role Section 230 plays in the district’s economy.”
The contenders begin to set themselves apart regarding their future course of action. Alternatively, they lack a precise response.
Democratic candidate for Saratoga, Rishi Kumar, informed me that “removing the liability protections of Section 230 will compel platforms to take content moderation more seriously and do more to protect their end users from illegal activities and disinformation.”
However, despite the hiring of thousands of content moderators by the firms, not much has changed.
If elected, Assembly Member Evan Low stated that he would like to see “an ability to get a court order to remove content if there is imminent incitement of violence” included in an updated version of Section 230. As of right now, Section 230 immunity is so extensive that social media companies are not required to remove content even by the Brandenberg test, a Supreme Court ruling that permits punishment for provocative speech designed to provoke unlawful violence that is expected to occur.
The legal professor Goldman, though, wasn’t convinced. If anything is “truly an incitement to violence,” he stated, “it’s not protected by the First Amendment, and it would constitute a federal crime.”
Obama administration official Peter Dixon told me he wished there were more journalistic-style barriers, a la conventional media, for internet platforms. Instead of just posting information to their platform, they would be held more responsible for the stuff that their algorithms choose and highlight.
Applying journalistic standards, according to Goldman, would result in “a complete restructuring of the entire internet ecosystem. To put it another way, one of the wonderful things about the internet is that it has allowed journalists to continue sharing their ideas and content.”
The next Silicon Valley’s representative in the House will have to overcome this obstacle. Thankfully, there will be cross-party backing for their efforts to combat hate speech and false information on the internet. The bad news is that it will remain difficult to identify the best remedy.
Question Eshoo, who stated that Congress must alter Section 230 because it “cries out for reform.” She has years of trying. Her successor will now have to figure out how to do something more than just humiliate tech executives in public.