NY Times Calls Out Politicians For Lying About Section 230

from the good-job dept

We've spent months now highlighting how politicians (of both parties) continually misrepresent what Section 230 of the CDA says. There are open questions as to whether or not this is because they don't know the law, or they don't care, and they think lying about it helps them politically. Considering that two of the most vocal individuals are Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley -- both of whom have a long history of being Constitutional lawyers -- it is difficult to believe that both aren't fully aware that they are lying.

Now the NY Times is calling them out, with an opinion piece by editorial board member Sarah Jeong, highlighting how badly they get the law wrong. She notes that the law is short and easy to read, and therefore no one has an excuse for blatantly misrepresenting it.

Section 230 of the C.D.A. is neither long nor particularly inscrutable. It clocks in at under 1,000 words, and it makes clear that the law does not premise protection on political neutrality. Neither does it force tech companies to assume either the role of “publisher” or “platform.” And it states that C.D.A. 230 has no bearing on federal criminal law — or on intellectual property law, for that matter.

She also highlights that there are some reasonable arguments to be made that the existence of Section 230 has stopped lawsuits from people who have legitimately been harmed -- something we've discussed quite a bit as well. There are real and legitimate questions over how to handle those situations (and, relatedly, if the internet platforms themselves are the proper party on which to place liability or responsibility). However, you aren't going to have reasonable and nuanced conversations about any of that if you're lying about the law.

But there can be no honest debate over a version of C.D.A. 230 that doesn’t exist. Political neutrality has never been part of C.D.A. 230, and to make it so would require a complete overhaul of the law. Senator Hawley’s bill calls for government regulation of the internet on an unprecedented scale. The Federal Communications Commission used to enforce the Fairness Doctrine on the airwaves, a policy under which broadcasters were required to air balanced opinions on controversial issues — balanced from the F.C.C.’s perspective, that is. It’s already perilous to have a government regulator decide what is fair and balanced. It makes even less sense when applied to the internet. In 1969, the Supreme Court upheld the F.C.C.’s power to enforce the Fairness Doctrine on the grounds that the airwaves are an inherently limited resource. But the sea of internet postings is boundless.

The Republican Party’s new obsession with “political neutrality” has left former allies reeling. Berin Szôka, the president of the libertarian-leaning think tank TechFreedom, said in an interview that Republicans were once his natural allies on a wide range of issues, but have now “betrayed their most fundamental principles, principles they spent decades fighting about — to keep the government out of meddling in broadcast media, fighting against the Fairness Doctrine. And now they want exactly that but on steroids for the internet.”

As Jeong notes in her piece, it might make sense to have an actual debate on Section 230, but almost no one -- least of all the legislators who are responsible for doing so -- seem willing to have an honest discussion about the law.

But the debate is not focused on the real issues with C.D.A. 230 — indeed, it is not focused on the actual text of C.D.A. 230.

Perhaps the discourse will be improved if we all take a moment to actually read the text of C.D.A. 230, but Mr. Szôka is not optimistic. Senators Cruz and Hawley, he said, are totally aware of what the statute says and what the case law around it actually is. “They’re smart lawyers. And they absolutely know what they’re talking about is a warping of Section 230.”

Of course, what the opinion piece does not discuss is why Hawley and Cruz are so eager to misrepresent the law and to grandstand about it. It doesn't discuss how this misrepresentation plays to a certain base, and gets them riled up and angry. Indeed, I'll expect many people in the comments of this very post to continue to make false claims about CDA 230 and "neutrality" that are simply untrue. It has created a narrative that is not accurate and is so far from truth that any debate on it gets mired in the complexities of having to call out statements so dishonest that they cannot have been made in good faith.

There may be legitimate debates to be had over the impact of 230 and how it works -- but when politicians are so focused on scoring political points rather than dealing with real issues, that's never going to happen.

Filed Under: cda 230, josh hawley, neutrality, sarah jeong, section 230, ted cruz

Former Content Moderator Explains How Josh Hawley's Bill Would Grant Government Control Over Online Speech

from the not-a-good-idea dept

Daisy Soderberg-Rivkin, who used to work at Google as an in-house content moderator, has written a fascinating piece for the Washington Times, explaining just what a disaster Josh Hawley's anti-Section 230 bill would be for the internet. As we've discussed, Hawley's bill would require large internet companies to beg the FTC every two years to get a "certificate" granting them Section 230 protections -- and they'd only get it if they could convince 4 out of 5 of the FTC Commissioners that their content moderation efforts were "politically neutral."

Soderberg-Rivkin points out how that will stifle the kind of "clean up" efforts that most everyone -- especially folks like Senator Josh Hawley -- often claim they want when they complain about all the "bad stuff" on social media. Remember, just before introducing this bill, Hawley was whining about all the bad and dangerous content on social media. Except, under his own damn bill, social media sites would be forced to keep that content up:

Under the Hawley bill, the FTC would audit major platforms’ moderation practices every two years to determine whether those practices were “biased against a political party, political candidate or political viewpoint.” In practice, this would look something like this: A few FTC auditors would walk into a technology company and declare the beginning of the audit. They would comb through tens thousands of removals decisions, looking for those that are “politically biased” — a process that could take, at minimum, weeks to complete.

In the meantime, content moderators would hold back on their take down procedures because no one could really tell them how “politically biased” is interpreted. In other words, disinformation, Nazi propaganda and white supremacist videos would fester on the Internet. If a moderator fails this test, not only would they be fired, but thousands of lawsuits and fines would come tumbling down on the company.

At my former job, I tried to keep in mind that while I had to look at horrific content, thanks to my efforts, many others would not have to. Yet in a world where this bill passes, I would sit down at my same desk, take a deep breath and prepare myself to look at terrorist executions, aftermaths of mass shootings and hatred-motivated violence — but this time, with full knowledge that I had absolutely no control over its distribution.

To some extent, this gets at the weird mental pretzel logic Senators like Hawley keep twisting themselves into. They complain about all the bad stuff online... and think that the way to deal with that is to remove the one law that makes it possible for companies to design plans to moderate away that bad stuff.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, content moderation, free speech, government control, josh hawley
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Senator Graham Spreads A Bunch Of Nonsense About 'Protecting Digital Innocence' Online

from the moral-panics dept

We warned last week that Senator Lindsey Graham was holding a "but think of the children online" moral panic hearing. Indeed, it happened. You can watch the whole 2 hours, but... I wouldn't recommend it (I did it for you, though). Most of it is the usual moral panic, technologically illiterate nonsense we've all come to expect from Congress. Indeed, in a bit of good timing, the Pessimist's Archive just tweeted out a clip of a 1993 Senate hearing in which then Senator Joe Lieberman flipped out about evil video games. Think about this, but two hours, and a wider array of nonsense:

It starts out with a prosecutor from South Carolina, Duffie Stone, moral panicking about basically everything. Encryption is evil. Children are being sex trafficked online. And, um, gangs are recruiting members with (gasp) music videos. Later he complains that some of those kids (gasp!) mock law enforcement in their videos. Something must be done! The second speaker, a law professor, Angela Campell, claims that we need more laws "for the children!" She also goes further and says that the FTC should go after Google and others for not magically stopping scammy companies from existing. Then there was this guy, Christopher McKenna, from an organization ("Protect Young Eyes!") dedicated to moral panics, telling all sorts of unbelievable anecdotes about evil predators stalking young people on Instagram and "grooming" them. Remember, that actual data on this kind of activity shows that it's actually quite rare (not zero, and that's not excusing it when it does happen, but the speaker makes it sound like every young girl on Instagram is likely to be at risk of sex trafficking). He also asks the government to require an MPAA/ESRB-style "rating" system for apps -- apparently unaware that laws attempting to require such ratings have been struck down as unconstitutional, and the MPAA/ESRB ratings only exist through voluntary agreements.

There's also... um... this:

It's the app where every kid, regardless of age, has access to the Discover News section, where they are taught how to engage in risky sexual behavior, such as hookup, group, anal, or torture sex, how to sell drugs, and how to hide internet activity from parents using "incognito mode."

He's describing Snapchat. I've used Snapchat for years and, uh, I've never come across any of that. Also, the complaint about incognito mode is... pretty messed up, considering how that's a tool for protecting privacy. This is all straight from the standard moral panic playbook. Also, he claims that Twitter has "hardcore porn and prostitution was everywhere" -- which is also news to me (and I use Twitter a lot). He also whines that VPNs are too easy to get -- and then later whines that it's "too hard" to protect our privacy. Um, hiding VPNs will harm our privacy. It's like a hodge podge of true nonsense.

There was also John Clark from NCMEC -- the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. NCMEC actually does good work in helping platforms screen out and spot child porn. However, Clark contributes to the scare-mongering about just how awful the internet is. He also flat out lies. At one point during the panel, Senator Ted Cruz asks Clark about FOSTA and what it's done so far. Clark flat out lies and says that FOSTA took down Backpage. This is false. Backpage was taken down and its founders arrested before FOSTA was even signed into law.

The only semi-reasonable panelist was the last one, Stephen Balkam, from the Family Online Safety Institute. While McKenna mocks the idea that "parents have a role" by pointing out that parents can't watch over their kids every hour of every day (duh), Balkam points out that what we should be doing is not watching over our kids all the time, but rather training them and educating them to know how to be good digital citizens online and to avoid trouble. But that kind of message was basically ignored by the Senators, because what fun is actually respecting our kids and teaching them how to be smart internet users. Instead, most of panel focuses on crazy anecdotes and salacious claims about internet services that make them sounds a hell of lot more insane than any of those platforms actually are.

Later, Senator John Kennedy asks the guy from "Protect Young Eyes" if Apple can build a filter that will magically help parents block kids from ever seeing sexually explicit material. McKenna stumbles and admits he has no idea, leading Balkam to finally have to jump into the conversation (he's the only panelist that no Senator had called on throughout the entire ordeal) to point out that all platforms have some forms of parental controls. But Kennedy cuts him off and says "but can it be done?" Balkam stutters a "yes," which is not accurate -- since Kennedy is asking for something impossible. But then Kennedy suggests that Congress write a law that requires companies like Apple and Google to install filters (something that's already been ruled unconstitutional).

Kennedy's idea is... nutty. He includes the obligatory "I don't know how any of this is done" comment before suggesting a bunch of impossible ideas.

Could Apple, for example, design a program that a parent could opt into, and the instructions to Apple would be "design a program that will filter all information that my daughter or son may see that would be sexually exploitative"? Maybe "filter all pictures or written references to human genitalia." Can that be done? ... Isn't that the short way home here?

[....]

So could we write legislation, or promulgate a rule, that says "here's the thing that a reasonable parent would do to protect his or her child from seeing this stuff." And we do that in conjunction with somebody that has the obvious expertise. And you filter everything. I don't know how to do it. I can't write software. Maybe it's to prevent any pictures of human genitalia. Or prohibit any reference to sexual activity. I don't know. The kids aren't gonna like it, but that's not who we're trying to please here. Why couldn't that be done?

Well, the Constitution is why it can't be done Senator. Also, basic understanding of technology. Or the limits on filter technology. Block all mention of sexual activity? Sure, then kids will use slang. Good luck keeping up with that. Block all pictures of genitalia -- then say good buy to biology texts online. Or pages about breast cancer. This is all stuff that lots of people have studied for decades and Kennedy is displaying his ignorance about the Constitution, the law, the internet, the technology, and just about everything else as well. Including kids.

Balkam points out that there are lots of private companies already making such filters, but Kennedy keeps saying "can we write a law" and "can we require every device have these filters" and Balkam looks panic'd noting he has no idea about whether or not they can write such a law (answer: they cannot, at least not if they want it to pass Constitutional muster).

Senator Blackburn... brings up Jeffrey Epstein. Who, as far as we know... didn't use the internet to prey on girls. But according to Blackburn, Epstein proves the problems of the internet. Because. Senator Hawley then completely makes up a claim that YouTube is deliberately pushing kids to pedophiles and refuses to do anything about it. He claims -- incorrectly -- that Google admitted that it knows it sends videos of kids to pedophiles (and, he claims, allows the pedophiles to contact the kids) and that it deliberately has decided not to stop this. This misrepresents... basically everything once again.

Senator Thom Tillis then grandstands that it's all the parents' fault -- and if a kid gets a mobile phone and lies about his age, we should be... blaming the parents for "giving the kids a lethal device." No hyperbole and grandstanding there, huh? He's also really focused on "lethality." He later claims that the internet content itself is "lethal."

Towards the end, the Senators all gang up on Section 230. Senator Cruz asks his FOSTA question (leading NCMEC's Clark to falsely state that it was necessary to take down Backpage), and then Blumenthal calls 230 "the elephant in the room" and suggests that there needs to be a "duty of care" to get companies to do anything. It seems like Hawley is already gone by this time, but no one seems to point out that any such duty of care would likely lead to much greater censorship on these platforms, in direct contrast with his demand that the companies censor less.

Nevertheless, Senator Graham closes the hearing by saying that he thinks the companies need to "earn" their CDA 230 protections (which is part of Hawley's nonsense bill). Graham suggests that Congress needs to come up with "best business practices" and platforms should only get 230 protections if they "meet those best business practices."

Who knew the Republican Party was all about dictating business standards. What happened to the party of getting government out of business?

Who knows what will actually come out of this hearing, but it was mostly a bunch of ill-informed or mis-informed, technologically illiterate grandstanding, moral panic nonsense. In other words, standard operating procedure for most of Congress.

Filed Under: angela campbell, christopher mckenna, duffie stone, john clark, john kennedy, josh hawley, lindsey graham, moral panic, stephen balkam, ted cruz, think of the children
Companies: facebook, google, ncmec, snapchat

Supposedly Disadvantaged Conservatives Not Exactly Rushing To Support Josh Hawley's Anti-Section 230 Bill

from the how's-that-working-out dept

Senator Josh Hawley's ridiculous and unconstitutional bill to remove CDA Section 230 protections from internet giants was clearly designed to appeal to conservative voters who have been fed a nonstop myth that the big internet platforms are "targeting" them for their conservative views, when the reality is that the platforms are mostly targeting trolls, harassers, Nazis, and assholes. If those factors are disproportionately impacting Republicans, then perhaps that's more an issue for the Republican party than the internet platforms.

Either way, given that the myth that platforms are "targeting" conservatives has some traction, it seems likely that Hawley thought the conservative movement and conservative organizations would likely rush in to support his nonsense bill. It appears he miscalculated. FreedomWorks, the organization closely associated with the Tea Party movement put out a tweet mocking Hawley for thinking "conservatives are too stupid to realize he's trying to kill free speech online."

The group Americans for Prosperity put out a very strong statement against Hawley's proposal:

“Senator Hawley’s misguided legislation sets the table for stricter government control over free expression online. Eroding the crucial protections that exist under Section 230 creates a scenario where government has the ability to police your speech and determine what you can or cannot say online. Senator Hawley has argued that some tech platforms have become too powerful, but legislation like this would only cement the market dominance of today’s largest firms. This bill would punish success in the next generation of innovative startups and prevent them from achieving their full potential. Lawmakers should reject this legislation.”

Over at CATO, John Samples highlights how Hawley's own bill seems to go against conservative ideals:

Sen. Hawley’s bill seeks to undermine an older American conservatism. Not long ago, the Reagan legacy spoke powerfully to conservatives. Of course, the Reagan administration ended the Fairness Doctrine and in general, supported markets free of government regulation. Some now believe that times have changed and the ideals of 1980 no longer should guide conservative thinking. If that was “then,” Sen. Hawley is definitely “now.” But if conservatives are turning their backs on timeless ideals like free markets and free speech, what could conservatism mean beyond political necessity and the rage of transient majorities?

But perhaps the best response from a traditional conservative to Hawley's nonsense comes from David French at the National Review. As he notes, Hawley's bill is an "unwise, unconstitutional mess." The article should be required reading for any "conservative" who thinks Hawley's bill makes sense.

In reality, it’s a bill that would inject the federal government directly into the private social-media business and grant it enormous power over social-media content. It would enable public censorship in the name of limiting private control.

French also does a great job laying out why Section 230 makes sense -- even highlighting an argument I made decades ago, that Section 230 is simply locking in common sense in how to properly apply liability:

Section 230 codifies online a concept we easily understand in the offline world. For example, if you attend a congressman’s town-hall meeting, and he instructs his audience that their comments are limited in time, that they cannot use profanity, and they should remain on topic (moderating the platform), does that transform their speech into his speech?

If I’m in a public university classroom, where the professor can rule discourse with an iron fist, are my comments his comments — even if he shuts down students he doesn’t like or imposes strict rules of civility and decency?

But there’s a difference between student-classroom comments and a college newspaper publishing a student symposium, where it selects, edits, and fact-checks the submissions. These distinctions have become so obvious over time that we scarcely discuss them, and these distinctions exist online as well. In many ways, Section 230 — far from creating a “special break” for computer services — codifies common sense. My Facebook comment is fundamentally my speech.

Indeed, there was a time when I used to argue we shouldn't need a Section 230 at all since it was such common sense... but after seeing so many people perplexed by the internet and suing the middleman, rather than those actually responsible, I've come to appreciate the procedural benefits of Section 230.

However, the point that French raises above, about how Section 230 is codifying common sense is important in another way as well: in debunking the other big myth that Section 230 is somehow a "gift to the tech industry." It is not, and has never been. Over and over again people wrongly insist that this is some "special privilege" to the big internet companies. Hell, Hawley himself just tweeted that it's some sort of "special immunity." It's not "special." It's just properly applying liability in a common sense way. We wouldn't need it if people didn't keep falsely blaming internet services for the actions of their users, but as long as people like Josh Hawley want to blame the wrong party, then it's what we'll end up with.

And, of course, French highlights just how obviously unconstitutional Hawley's bill is:

Hawley’s standard is most assuredly not the viewpoint-neutrality standard seen in First Amendment case law. It’s a carnival funhouse version that would invite an enormous amount of bureaucratic meddling. For example, conservative sites and posts often do very well on Facebook, in part because of its older user base and partly because conservative Facebook users have gotten quite good at creating viral content. Will a Kamala Harris administration decide that disproportionate conservative success violates political neutrality?

Laws that purport to regulate First Amendment–protected speech bear a special burden of precision and clarity. They have to clearly explain what is prohibited and permitted. Vague or overbroad laws violate the Constitution in part by failing to provide fair notice of government standards. Hawley’s bill, as written, is extraordinarily vague. Terms such as “disproportionate” are very hard to define. Disproportionate to what? User percentages? Population percentages? User engagement? The standard is extraordinarily malleable.

I am sure that there will be some "conservatives" who will come out in favor of Hawley's bill, but so far, it appears that many conservatives are pointing out how anti-conservative it is. Hilariously, it seems that the main thing linking those who support Hawley's effort is not any particular ideology other than blind hatred for internet companies, and an attitude that anything that hurts the big internet companies must surely be good, just because. That's one way to make laws, but it's certainly not a principled one, nor a good one.

Filed Under: bias, cda 230, conservatives, free speech, josh hawley, section 230

Guy Pushing Hawley's 'Viewpoint Neutrality' Concept In The Media Used To Write For White Supremacist Site

from the the-must-host-nazi-content-law? dept

Senator Josh Hawley's law to wipe out CDA 230 protections for internet platforms unless they apply to the FTC for a special certificate, which they can only get if they show 'clear and convincing evidence" that their moderation practices are "politically neutral," is dumb in many, many ways. But one of the most ridiculous parts is that it literally requires internet platforms to give extra weight to Nazis, and to punish any site that does not give the Nazis a platform. NetChoice made this point with its statement on the bill:

Sen. Hawley’s “Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act,” would force online platforms to host politically extreme content that most of us would prefer to avoid online, such as views and videos produced by the KKK.

The bill itself does this by saying that you could not receive such a certification (to get Section 230 protections) if you had a policy that would:

"... negatively affect a political party, political candidate, or political viewpoint."

That, of course, would include things like the American Nazi party. Or politicians espousing blatantly racist positions. Some have suggested that this was done on purpose by Hawley, though I'd hoped to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Still, in a bit of inauspicious timing, just about the time that Hawley was releasing his bill, Buzzfeed published an article about a former Republican operative with close ties to a bunch of white nationalists, who has been publishing anti-tech opinion pieces in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. One of those WSJ opinion pieces? It was entitled Keep Twitter Accountable Without Censorship with the subhed: "Social-media companies should lose their liability exemption if their rules aren’t viewpoint-neutral." Sound familiar?

The co-author of that WSJ piece is Mark Epstein. As Buzzfeed notes:

But Epstein, who worked for the conservative commentator Pat Buchanan, was a key figure in nativist and white nationalist political circles from the mid-2000s to the early 2010s. In 2006, he founded the now-defunct Robert A. Taft Club alongside [noted white nationalist Richard] Spencer and Kevin DeAnna, another leading white nationalist. Invited speakers to that club included influential white supremacist Jared Taylor and the journalist John Derbyshire, who would eventually be fired from the National Review in 2012 for a racist column.

Epstein also helped run Youth for Western Civilization, a far-right student group, founded by DeAnna and Taylor, whose members included white separatist and neo-Nazi Matthew Heimbach. From 2004 to 2009, Epstein, under his full name, wrote for VDare, where his posts came with provocative headlines like “[Howard] Dean Is Right - GOP Is "The White Party." So?”; “It Depends On What Your Definition Of "Jim Crow" Is”; and “White Refugees And Culture.”

Epstein, for what it's worth, denies being a white nationalist or even having white nationalist beliefs, though you can read what he wrote and make up your own mind about his positions.

So, yeah, it's not the greatest look for Hawley's bill that the intellectual underpinnings supporting it come from someone at least closely associated with white nationalists, even as he denies being one, and one of the main impacts of the bill would be effectively forcing social media platforms to host Nazi content. And, yes, as some will point out, Nazis have free speech rights too. But no private platform has any obligation to host their deranged ideology and propaganda.

Filed Under: content moderation cda 230, josh hawley, macus epstein, mark epstein, politically neutral, viewpoint neutrality, white nationalists

Forget 'Breaking Up' Internet Companies, Senator Josh Hawley Says They Should All Die Because They're Too Popular

from the say-what-now? dept

We've had our issues with politicians like Senator Elizabeth Warren whose plans to "break up" big internet companies don't seem to make much sense, but it appears that Senator Josh Hawley has decided to take things to another level of insanity altogether. In an op-ed for USA Today, Hawley makes the argument that Facebook, Instagram and Twitter should all die. And while there are plenty of people who appear to support a dead Facebook in response to that company's long history of sketchy practices, that's not really the reason Hawley wants them dead.

He wants them dead because they're too popular. Hawley cherry picks some evidence to suggest that using social media is bad for our health.

And in order to guarantee an audience big enough to make their ads profitable, big tech has developed a business model designed to do one thing above all: addict.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram — they devote massive amounts of money and the best years of some of the nation’s brightest minds to developing new schemes to hijack their users’ neural circuitry. That’s because social media only works — to make money, anyway — if it consumes users’ time and attention, day after day. It needs to replace the various activities we enjoyed and did perfectly well before social media existed.

This hearkens back to nearly every other overblown, ridiculous moral panic of yesteryear. Television, radio, video games, novels, comic books, dungeons and dragons, pinball, rock and roll. They've all received this nutty treatment. Even chess.

"A pernicious excitement to learn and play chess has spread all over the country, and numerous clubs for practicing this game have been formed in cities and villages. Why should we regret this? It may be asked. We answer, chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements, while it affords no benefit whatever to the body. Chess has acquired a high reputation as being a means to discipline the mind, but persons engaged in sedentary occupations should never practice this cheerless game; they require out-door exercises--not this sort of mental gladiatorship."

Or, remember the report from 1909 by the "NY Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children"

This new form of entertainment has gone far to blast maidenhood ... Depraved adults with candies and pennies beguile children with the inevitable result. The Society has prosecuted many for leading girls astray through these picture shows, but GOD alone knows how many are leading dissolute lives begun at the 'moving pictures.'

Hawley's piece is one and the same with those previous moral panics. It's kind of amusing for a guy who claims to be a "free market, less government intervention" conservative to now stand up and argue for literally shutting down private enterprises because they're popular, but politics and hypocrisy go hand in hand.

Of course, to make his point, Hawley wants to tie popular social media to another moral panic: "drugs!"

Let’s be clear. This is a digital drug. And the addiction is the point. Addiction is what Mark Zuckerberg is selling.

Like other drugs, this one hurts its users. Attention spans dull. Tempers quicken. Relationships fray.

And those are the benign effects. The Journal of Pediatrics recently noted a surge in attempted suicide: more than double the attempts over the last decade for those under 19, with a tripling among girls and young women 10 to 24. The study’s authors can’t prove social media is to blame, but they strongly suspect it plays a critical role. Congress has a duty to investigate that potential link further.

Meanwhile, as we noted just earlier this week, another comprehensive study did not find any evidence to support the idea that social media is driving depression. But who needs facts when you have a moral panic to sell.

Filed Under: addiction, drugs, health crisis, josh hawley, moral panic, popularity, social media
Companies: facebook, instagram, twitter

Missouri's Newest Senator Apparently Can't Read The Law, Pushing For Greater Censorship

from the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

Missouri's incoming Senator, Josh Hawley, has been getting some attention as being a "fierce critic" of big internet companies. Specifically, in his role as Missouri State Attorney General, he famously launched an investigation into Google, sending a subpoena that had many of the same hallmarks found in the subpoena Mississippi's Attorney General Jim Hood sent to Google years earlier, that was later revealed to have been drafted by MPAA lawyers as part of their Project Goliath, in which the MPAA deliberately used a NY Times article about using state AGs to attack competitors to do just that. As a reminder, a judge eventually found that subpoena to be in bad faith and Hood withdrew it.

Still, given that Hawley specifically campaigned on being willing to "stand up to big tech", it's really no surprise that he's now going around yelling about Twitter temporarily suspending a user (who happens to play on the same red/blue team as Hawley). The problem is that Hawley -- who as a lawyer, Attorney General, and incoming Senator should be expected to know the law -- actually gets its entirely backwards.

Hawley here is not just misreading CDA 230, he's literally getting the law backwards. The key part of CDA 230 says:

(c) Protection for “Good Samaritan” blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liability No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of—

(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1).

There is nothing in the law, whatsoever, that says you only get CDA 230 immunity if you are "a forum for a true diversity of political discourse." Nothing at all. If that were the law, then it would exclude CDA 230 protections from... almost every site. Including tons that Hawley probably supports.

And as a detailed article at the Verge highlights, removing CDA 230's protections will lead to significantly more censorship. People are so confused about CDA 230, and it's unfortunate because the law is not hard to understand. It's almost as if many are deliberately misrepresenting what's in the law. CDA 230 says that interactive computer services are not liable for what 3rd parties write on their platforms and that they cannot be made liable based on their moderation choices.

Without that protection, companies would have the incentive to censor much more broadly, because if they left content up that potentially violated the law, the platforms themselves could be held liable for it. So it is utterly bizarre that Hawley (or his soon to be colleague Ted Cruz) continue to get this aspect of the law so wrong.

They continue to insist the law says the exact opposite of what it does, and what they support would create the world they are currently complaining about (even though it doesn't currently exist). As Reason points out, if Hawley were to get his own wish, it would actually lead to more purges of conservatives on social media.

The whole situation is so perplexing. Either it's all grandstanding, to give their base some "anti-big-tech" messaging, or they're literally ignorant. Neither is a good look.

Filed Under: cda 230, censorship, free speech, josh hawley
Companies: twitter