WASHINGTON, D.C.—As Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, the law commonly referred to as “the First Amendment of the Internet,” comed under attack this year from multiple bills in Congress as well as from the White House and Justice Department, now West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin is expected to introduce yet another bill aimed at scaling back the internet freedom law.
According to a report by Politico, Manchin—known as perhaps the most conservative Democrat in the Senate—will soon introduce a bill to strip Section 230 protections from online platforms that fail to report “suspicious activities” by their users to the United States Justice Department.
In the bill now titled the “See Something, Say Something Online Act,” such “suspicious activities” would include possible “major crimes” such as “illegal drug sales," according to Politico technology reporter Steven Overly.
Currently, Section 230 grants an effective legal immunity to platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or any online service provider, for content posted by users. Under Manchin’s proposed bill, they would lose that immunity if they did not blow the whistle on “suspicious activities” taking place on their sites.
“As the Internet rapidly changed, we failed to keep up. Now we must amend Section 230 to reflect the way the Internet impacts our lives today—both good and bad,” Manchin said, as quoted by Politico. “That’s why I am planning to introduce bipartisan legislation that would require companies to say something when they see something illegal online.”
The most high-profile piece of legislation, of several now in Congress, that would scale back 230 is the “Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2020,” or EARN IT Act, sponsored by Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham.
Under EARN IT, platforms would be largely stripped of Section 230 protections, but could “earn” back their immunity by following a set of “best practices” for monitoring and reporting alleged illegal content on their sites.
But Manchin—who was governor of West Virginia prior to becoming a senator—has been pushing for rollbacks to Section 230 at least since 2018, when he said at a Senate hearing that internet platforms should be held accountable for opioid sales online, according to the Politico report.
Section 230 is particularly important for the adult industry, because according to First Amendment attorney Lawrence Walters, “any change to Section 230 could result in restrictive content moderation rules or elimination of the platforms, themselves.”
Photo By Rebecca Hammel / Wikimedia Commons Public Domain
