SECTION 230 HATERS AREN'T GOING AWAY.

• Author: Brown, Elizabeth Nolan
• Position: TECHNOLOGY - Communications Decency Act

SECTION 230 OF the Communications Decency Act, known to its fans as "the 26 words that created the internet," shields social media and other digital platforms from legal liability for user-generated content. Although that protection has enabled myriad forms of online expression, it has become a bete noire for critics on the left and right who are unhappy with the results.

People who oppose government regulation of online speech hoped Donald Trump's departure from the White House would take a repeal of Section 230 off the table. While President Joe Biden has said he favors repealing the law and Vice President Kamala Harris has opposed it since her days as California's attorney general, Section 230's most zealous critics were Trump and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Now that both men are standing atop much smaller soapboxes, it seemed possible that Congress would turn its attention elsewhere.

No such luck. Between January and mid-March, seven bills targeting Section 230 were introduced in the House or Senate, sponsored by a mix of Republicans and Democrats.

The most ridiculous of these proposals is the Protecting Constitutional Rights From Online Platform Censorship Act, sponsored by Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.). His bill would make it unlawful for web services to remove or restrict access to any content protected by the First Amendment. Facebook would have to permit hardcore pornography. YouTube would have to permit videos of beheadings. Web forums for dog lovers would have to permit long odes to cats, or abortion, or rutabagas. Understandably, the bill has gone nowhere since DesJarlais introduced it on January 4.

The Curbing Abuse and Saving Expression in Technology (CASE-IT) Act, sponsored by Rep. Gregory Steube (R-Fla.), errs in the opposite direction. Under this proposal, web services would lose Section 230 protection for allowing or facilitating any content deemed to be "indecent, obscene, or otherwise harmful to minors" unless the platform could somehow guarantee that no minor could ever access it.

At the same time, Steube's bill would rescind Section 230's liability protection for "dominant" platforms that restrict content "pursuant to policies or practices that are not reasonably consistent with the First Amendment." It is not at all clear what that means, since the First Amendment constrains the government, not private businesses. But the bill says the provision should be "broadly construed" to foster "true diversity of discourse"...