The U.S. Department of Justice announced a legislative proposal on Wednesday seeking to reform the legal immunity of Internet companies, which has once again increased after U.S. President Donald Trump took action earlier this year to crack down on tech giants.
The proposal aims to curb Article 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides protection for large Internet platforms such as Alphabet’s Google and Facebook from responsibility for content posted by users. The proposal needs to be approved by Congress to take effect, and will not be implemented until next year at the earliest. A number of similar proposals are being circulated among members of Congress. These proposals also seek to limit the aforementioned immunity. It is unclear whether the US Department of Justice will support any of them.
The main provision of this proposal by the US Department of Justice is that when Internet companies “maliciously spread illegal materials or review content, Article 230 should not protect them from the consequences of their actions.”
The proposal proposes a series of reforms to ensure that Internet companies are open and transparent when deciding to delete content, and to determine when they should be held accountable for their modified speech. In addition, the proposal also revised the existing definition of Section 230 in more specific language in order to provide more guidance to users and courts, and seek to incentivize online platforms to address illegal content and promote clearer federal civil enforcement actions.
US Attorney General William Barr issued a statement stating that the government is urging “Congress to implement these necessary reforms to Article 230 and begin to hold online platforms accountable when they illegally review speech and deliberately facilitate online criminal activities. “.
In June of this year, the US Department of Justice proposed that Congress legislate to restrict this immunity. Prior to this, Trump signed an executive order in May to seek new supervision of the content review decisions of technology companies and support the repeal or weakening of Article 230.
Twitter has repeatedly put warning labels on Twitter messages posted by Trump, saying they contain potentially misleading information about mailed votes.
In May, Trump directed the US Department of Commerce to submit a petition requesting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to restrict the protection measures under Section 230. Earlier, Twitter warned earlier in May that Trump’s allegations of mail vote fraud were unsubstantiated and required fact-checking. A group representing major Internet companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Google urged the Federal Communications Commission to reject the petition, saying it was “misled, lacks legal basis, and constitutes serious public policy concerns.”
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