MESSAGE
| DATE | 2020-06-17 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] Internet wars continue
|
Justice Department Proposes Limiting Internet Companies’ Protections
Brent Kendall and John D. McKinnon
9-12 minutes
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. Photo illustration: Carter McCall/WSJ
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.
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-at-wsj.com and John D. McKinnon at
john.mckinnon-at-wsj.com
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
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