Lindsey Graham's Latest Attack On Section 230: Reform It By 2023, Or We Take It Away
from the but-why? dept
I still am perplexed at why so many politicians hate Section 230. They've yet to provide any compelling reason at all. But, hate it, they do. Lindsey Graham, who has been at the forefront of senators wrongly attacking Section 230, has now decided to introduce yet another bill to attack Section 230. This comes just days after Graham tried to move forward on one of his many anti-230 bills, the Frankenstein's monster bill called the Online Content Policy Modernization Act, that simply grafted together two bad bills: the dangerous and unconstitutional copyright CASE Act with the Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act, that would basically force websites to host any hate speech.
The hearing was yet another of Lindsey Graham's flying circuses, with lots of grandstanding and misleading nonsense about 230, but after (as everyone knew going in) there wasn't enough agreement on just how to destroy Section 230, Graham withdrew the bill entirely:
This was all for show. He knew he was going to withdraw it, but wanted to get some extra attention and air time before he did.
And, apparently, he's decided that attacking Section 230 is good for business, so now he's back yet again with a new bill, which is basically a ticking time bomb for Section 230. If it became law, the bill would create a sunset for 230, saying that it goes away if there's no reform of the law by January 1, 2023.
Almost everything Graham says in his announcement about the bill is wrong or misleading. It's pretty stunning in just how wrong it is.
“The time has come for these largely unregulated Big Tech giants to either be broken up, regulated, or subject to litigation for their actions,” said Graham. “It’s time we put the Section 230 protections these companies enjoy on the clock.”
Except that Section 230 would basically do the opposite of what he claims here. Without 230 the biggest internet companies would survive, it's their smaller competitors that would face crushing liability. So, rather than breaking up "big tech giants" this move would strengthen any dominance they had. It also wouldn't lead to any "regulation," because taking away 230 doesn't magically increase government oversight of their businesses. Finally, they are already subject to litigation for their actions. 230 says that they're not subject to litigation for others' actions. That's the whole basis of the law.
You'd think that Senator Graham would know this by now. We've only told him exactly that a dozen times or more.
Graham noted that Section 230 was created in 1996, as a part of the Communications Decency Act, to allow then-fledgling social media companies to grow without fear of lawsuits. Those days have long since passed, as these companies are some of the most powerful in the history of the world.
This is also wrong. Section 230 was originally put in place in response to two particular lawsuits -- both involving very large companies. Cubby v. CompuServe, and Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy. CompuServe was owned by accounting giant H&R Block, while Prodigy was created as a joint venture between CBS and IBM. This was not about protecting "fledgling" social media companies. Those companies were, along with AOL, considered the "Big Three" internet companies in the 1990s.
Section 230 was put in place because of the questionable ruling in the Prodigy case, and the recognition (by Chris Cox and Ron Wyden) that on the internet, it would be good if different services could make different decisions on how they moderate, in order to create a wide diversity of spaces in which people could communicate. They realized (correctly) that with the threat of litigation hanging over services, they wouldn't provide such spaces. That has not changed. That remains absolutely the same.
“These companies have an enormous impact on the day-to-day lives of the American people and enjoy protections other industries do not have,” continued Graham. “Both Democrats and Republicans agree: the time has come for Section 230 to be reformed or eliminated.
It is also wrong to say no other companies have these protections. Every website and every user of every website also gets these protections. I don't know why this myth keeps popping up that this is some special gift "only" for big tech, but it's an out and out lie. And yes, Republicans and Democrats are all saying that 230 needs reform or elimination, but hilariously, they say so for opposite reasons. Republicans like Graham want to force sites to host hate speech and conspiracy theories, while Democrats want sites to be quicker to take down speech of lying political hucksters, like Lindsey Graham.
“My legislation will repeal Section 230 on January 1, 2023, unless Congress acts sooner. Congress will have two years to find an acceptable alternative or allow the legal liability protections to go away,” concluded Graham. “I’m hopeful that there will be bipartisan support for this approach.”
This... makes no sense. If Congress actually wants to reform or repeal Section 230 (as stupid and counterproductive as that would be), then why do they need this? If they don't... then why do they need this ticking time bomb? It literally makes no sense at all.
It is, in classic Lindsey Graham fashion, utter performative nonsense.
Filed Under: congress, intermediary liability, lindsey graham, section 230, sunset clause
