Democrats want a truce with Section 230 supporters:
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which says apps and websites aren't legally liable for third-party content, has inspired a lot of overheated rhetoric in Congress. Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) have successfully framed the rule as a "gift to Big Tech" that enables social media censorship. While Democrats have very different critiques, some have embraced a similar fire-and-brimstone tone with the bipartisan EARN IT Act. But a Senate subcommittee tried to reset that narrative today with a hearing for the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (PACT) Act, a similarly bipartisan attempt at a more nuanced Section 230 amendment. While the hearing didn't address all of the PACT Act's very real flaws, it presented the bill as an option for Section 230 defenders who still want a say in potential reforms.
[...] Still, Section 230 has been at the forefront of US politics for years, and some kind of change looks increasingly likely. If that's true, then particularly after today's hearing, a revised version of the PACT Act looks like the clearest existing option to preserve important parts of the law without dismissing calls for reform. And hashing out those specifics may prove more important than focusing on the policy's most hyperbolic critics.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 30 2020, @09:21PM (2 children)
You do realize that the CDA and its section 230 [wikipedia.org] was enacted in 1996 right?
And you are aware that Facebook was founded in 2004 and Twitter in 2006, right?
Corporations "buying" laws that were enacted a decade before they existed, huh? If true, that would be a neat trick. But it's not, so it isn't.
You're talking out of your ass.
(Score: 1) by hemocyanin on Friday July 31 2020, @02:48AM (1 child)
https://sunlightfoundation.com/2014/11/17/fixed-fortunes-biggest-corporate-political-interests-spend-billions-get-trillions/ [sunlightfoundation.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 31 2020, @03:37AM
Which is definitely fucked up. I agree.
Getting the money out of our political system is an important (if not the most important, certainly in the top three) step toward curbing the legalized bribery called "lobbying."
But it still doesn't mean that corporations (Jack Dorsey was 20, and Zuckerberg was 12 when the CDA became law) "bought" laws a decade before they were founded.
The discussion and debate around the CDA is part of the Congressional Record, not to mention the extensive press coverage of that debate, so you *could* actually get a clue.
But I won't hold my breath.