But this time, the targets of lawmakers’ ire weren’t just tech executives. From the beginning, senators from both parties focused their criticism on the law Congress passed in 1996, the law that paved the way for social media as we know it. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said the law “needs to change.”
The law in question is Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides broad immunity to online service providers from lawsuits over user postings, with the goal of promoting free expression online. Over the years, it has survived court challenges, legislative pushbacks and executive orders from President Donald Trump.
Now it’s back in Congress’ sights. The law still has ardent supporters, including much of the technology lobby, but Wednesday’s hearing showed signs that bipartisan support may be waning.
In his opening remarks, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Durbin said Congress needs to “look in the mirror” and share responsibility with technology companies for failing to protect children online. He said the law, originally intended to protect fledgling online forums, now allows “the most profitable industry in the history of capitalism” to operate “without fear or liability for dangerous behavior.” It is said that it is now operational.
Mr. Durbin’s Republican colleague, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R.S.C.), has stepped up his rhetoric, at one point telling Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, “You’ve got blood on your hands,” drawing applause. is.
“Social media companies, as currently designed and operated, are dangerous products that destroy lives and threaten our very democracy,” Graham said. He added, gesturing to the assembled CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, Snap, and Discord. “This is probably the last group of people I would choose to give comprehensive liability protection in America.”
Critics of Section 230 have long existed in Washington. But they were once a vocal minority in Congress. Now, that group increasingly includes people like Durbin and Graham, who lead powerful committees and were both members of Congress at the time Section 230 was passed.
This includes the past two presidents, although for different reasons. President Trump sought to weaken Section 230’s protections for companies that “censor” or moderate the speech of their users. President Biden has called for changes to Section 230 several times to make it easier to hold tech companies accountable for the spread of harmful content.
There was a time when members of Congress would precede their criticism of tech company CEOs by thanking them for their innovative products and the jobs their companies created. There were few such positive comments at Wednesday’s hearing. And calls for tech companies to self-regulate have turned into demands that they support specific legislation aimed at regulation.
These include five bills related to online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) introduced by the Judiciary Committee in May. These include the Earn It Act, which would remove Section 230 protections if a platform promotes content that violates civil and state criminal laws regarding child sexual exploitation. The second bill, the Stop CSAM Act, would create a new cause of action for victims and their families to sue over such matters.
The idea is that exposing online platforms to litigation will force them to take a more aggressive approach to detecting and removing that content. The idea was widely publicized during Wednesday’s hearing, but the bill has not yet been sent to the Senate floor for a vote.
Durbin asked Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, who cited the case of a 12-year-old girl who was targeted while using Snapchat. When the victims filed suit, Snap claimed immunity under Section 230.
“Is there any question that if Snap had faced the possibility of civil liability for facilitating sexual exploitation, it would have taken better safeguards?” Durbin asked.
Mr. Spiegel responded that the company already has safety measures in place.
There remains significant opposition outside the hearings. Although the bill has been pushed through a committee, it has not yet been voted on in the Senate and will face an even tougher path in the House.
Key figures in Congress also argue that the proposed changes to Section 230 would cause more problems than they solve. That includes Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), one of the bill’s original co-authors.
“I do not oppose changes to Section 230 if they solve real problems without causing massive collateral damage to marginalized groups,” Wyden said in an email. “Unfortunately, both the EARN IT Act and the STOP CSAM Act will make children less safe by encouraging companies to scan everything on your phone and undermine secure communications. . They do virtually nothing to catch predators.”
Wyden instead proposed that courts adopt a narrower interpretation of current law and hold platforms liable when their own design choices and actions lead to harmful content.
Yael Eisenstat, a former Facebook executive and current senior policy researcher at Cybersecurity for Democracy, said she is pleased with the momentum to revisit Section 230 and encourage technology companies to use their own tools and services. He said the provisions needed to be “updated” to take account of this. Action. But she said any changes to the law “need to be approached very carefully” to avoid chilling legitimate speech.
The company has already survived one legal carve-out, a 2018 law known as SESTA-FOSTA that rolled back liability protections for content related to facilitating sex trafficking. The next bill that seeks to chip away at Section 230 will need to take into account critics who argue that cesta fosta has made sex workers less safe without making the sex trafficking business worse.
