I've been following this issue here on this page and on my forum for quite some time-- thank you President Trump and AG Barr for generating some real movement!
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Justice Department Proposes Limiting Internet Companies’ Protections
Action follows President Trump’s executive order seeking to weaken broad immunity enjoyed by Facebook, Twitter and other platforms
President Trump’s administration is involved in a continuing clash with technology giants
Updated June 17, 2020 5:01 pm ET
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department proposed a rollback of legal protections that online platforms have enjoyed for more than two decades, in an effort to make tech companies more responsible in how they police their content.
The department’s changes, unveiled Wednesday, are designed to spur online platforms to be more aggressive in addressing illicit and harmful conduct on their sites, and to be fairer and more consistent in their decisions to take down content they find objectionable.
The department said the time was ripe to realign tech-company legal immunity “with the realities of the modern internet.”
“Several online platforms have transformed into some of the nation’s largest and most valuable companies, and today’s online services bear little resemblance to the rudimentary offerings in 1996,” when the legal protections were first granted, the department said.
The proposal would have to be adopted by a divided Congress, and it could be difficult to get such a complicated, controversial plan enacted in an election year.
Still, the move represents an escalation in the continuing clash between the White House and big tech firms such as Twitter Inc., Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit and Facebook Inc.
Last month, President Trump signed an executive order that sought to target the legal protections of social-media companies, responding to concerns among some conservatives about alleged online censorship by the platforms. The executive order aimed to limit legal immunity for social-media companies when they are deemed to unfairly curb users’ speech, for instance by deleting their posts or suspending their accounts. The administration, however, can’t impose many of these changes unilaterally.
The Justice Department’s proposed changes address the type of speech concerns raised by Mr. Trump, but they extend more broadly, seeking to strip civil immunity afforded to tech companies in a range of other circumstances if online platforms are complicit in unlawful behavior taking place on their networks.
The proposal, for instance, would remove legal protections when platforms facilitate or solicit third-party content or activity that violates federal criminal law, such as online scams and trafficking in illicit or counterfeit drugs.
Facebook and Twitter have taken different stances on moderating President Trump on their platforms. It's the latest controversy in an ongoing debate about the responsibility tech companies have in policing speech online.
Internet companies would lose immunity if they have knowledge that unlawful conduct is taking place on their platforms or show reckless disregard for how users are behaving on their sites. Without those legal protections, tech companies could be exposed to claims for monetary damages from people allegedly harmed by online fraud and other illegal activity.
The department also wouldn’t confer immunity to platforms in instances involving online child exploitation and sexual abuse, terrorism or cyberstalking. Those carve-outs are needed to curtail immunity for internet companies to allow victims to seek redress, the department said.
Attorney General William Barr has repeatedly voiced concerns about online-platform immunity, citing, for example, a terrorism case in which courts ruled that Facebook wasn’t civilly liable because its algorithms allegedly matched the Hamas organization with people that supported its cause.
The Justice Department is also seeking to make clear that tech platforms don’t have immunity in civil-enforcement actions brought by the federal government, and can’t use immunity as a defense against antitrust claims that they removed content for anticompetitive reasons.
Twitter and Facebook representatives on Wednesday reiterated their past statements in support of longstanding legal protections.
Twitter last month said removing the protections would threaten the future of online speech and internet freedoms. Facebook has said that cutting platform immunity would restrict more speech online “by exposing companies to potential liability for everything that billions of people around the world say.”
The sweeping protections now enjoyed by tech companies were established by Congress in the internet’s early days, through a provision known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Under that law, tech platforms are generally not legally liable for actions of their users, except in relatively narrow circumstances. Internet platforms also are given broad ability to police their sites as they see fit under the current law.
Those protections would be scaled back in significant ways under the Justice Department’s proposal, which seeks, in essence, to prevent platforms from taking down content without offering reasonable rules and explanations—and following them consistently. It also would make platforms more responsible for third-party content in other areas such as online commerce.
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The proposal’s restrictions on platforms’ content-moderation practices would be extensive.
For instance, the department is proposing to strike from federal law a provision that allows platforms to delete content that they merely deem to be objectionable.
The proposal also would give some teeth to an existing “good-faith” standard that platforms are supposed to use in their content-moderation decisions. The aim would be to require platforms to adhere to their terms of service, as well as their public claims about their practices. Platforms also would have to provide reasonable explanations of their decisions.
Digital platforms have historically made decisions independently about how to police content, covering topics ranging from election interference to harassment. On Wednesday, the first industry group devoted to such issues, the Trust and Safety Professional Association, was launched with funding from Facebook, Google, Twitter and other big tech companies. “These issues are front and center during these fraught times,” the organization’s founders said in a statement.
The Internet Association, a trade group of leading online companies, warned: “The threat of litigation for every content moderation decision would hamper IA member companies’ ability to set and enforce community guidelines and quickly respond to new challenges in order to make their services safe, enjoyable places for Americans.”
Section 230’s broad protections have drawn increasing criticism from both the right and the left in recent years, and some lawmakers, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, have begun weighing rollbacks. A bipartisan group of senators currently is pushing legislation encouraging internet companies to take special steps to block online child sexual exploitation to qualify for full protection.
But the new proposal seems unlikely to break an election-year logjam in Congress over how to proceed. Inaction is being fueled in part by concerns among some lawmakers that going too far with reforms could push tech companies to further tighten restrictions on speech and content, or, alternatively, retreat from sensible policing standards.
The politics of the debate also are heated. While some Democrats support changes to the law, they also question the Trump administration’s aims.
“I’ve certainly been one of Congress’ loudest critics of Section 230, but I have no interest in being an agent of Bill Barr’s speech police,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.) said.
Some administration critics believe its recent actions on Section 230 are aimed at discouraging big tech companies from seeking to restrict online activities of the president and his allies during the 2020 campaign.
Republicans cheered Wednesday’s proposal as long overdue.
“I’m glad to see Attorney General Barr taking action to roll back Section 230 immunity,” Rep. Doug Collins (R., Ga.) said on Twitter. “Google—along with every other big tech company—shouldn’t be allowed to get away with content filtering or censorship.”
Mr. Trump’s executive order last month focused on encouraging more action to curb Section 230 by federal regulators, including the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission. It also seeks to convene a working group of state attorneys general to look into complaints by users.
As expected, the order was quickly challenged in federal court by an online-rights group; that challenge remains pending.
On Wednesday, Democratic FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks, a self-described skeptic of Mr. Trump’s executive order, urged Republicans to bring their proposals forward quickly, so affected companies don’t find themselves facing uncertainty during campaign season.
“Let us be clear with the American public about what, if any, real-world impact the executive order has, and let us avoid an upcoming election season in which the government can use a pending proceeding to intimidate private parties,” he said in remarks at an industry think-tank webinar.
Write to Brent Kendall at brent.kendall@wsj.com and John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com
