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from the government-should-govern-moderation-policies dept.
Greene offers bill to abolish Section 230
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Thursday is introducing a bill to abolish Section 230 — the law the protects online platforms from liability — on the heels of Twitter accepting Elon Musk's offer to buy the company and take it private.
Greene's bill would eliminate the law making online platforms not liable for content posted by third parties and replace it with a provision to require "reasonable, non-discriminatory access to online communications platforms" through a "common carrier" framework that Greene compared to airlines or package delivery services.
Republicans have long claimed that social media platforms have an anti-conservative bias, pointing to tweets that have been taken down and the removal of entire feeds from networks.
[....] Titled the 21st Century FREE Speech Act, Greene's measure will serve as the House version of a Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.).
To combat the alleged bias against conservatives, it would prevent online communications platforms from exerting "undue or unreasonable preference or advantage to any particular person, class of persons, political or religious group or affiliation, or locality" and would provide consumers a mechanism to sue for violations.
Should any platform be liable for someone else's speech? Even if they engage in moderation?
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Monday May 02 2022, @04:11PM
This is the way I hope it goes.
At a minimum, a common carrier should be able to block traffic that is harmful to the network (DDOS) or abuses the network (SPAM).
Beyond that, it gets hard.
On a copper POTS line, At&t couldn't prevent Bob and Alice from discussing Eve. At&t was obviously a carrier.
On a paper newspaper, the Tennessean could choose not to run Bob's editorial disparaging Eve. If they chose to run that but not Eve's rebuttal, that is an editorial choice. I have difficulty with allowing them to make that choice and simultaneously claiming immunity from the implications of that decision.