Sen. Marsha Blackburn promised to reform a law that protects innovation and free speech on the internet in an effort to give conservatives “recourse” against large technology firms.
“Bringing this kind of specificity to Section 230 is going to be helpful to conservatives, it is going to give you a form of recourse, it is going to cause Big Tech to know we are no longer giving them the benefit of the doubt, that what we are doing is holding them to account,” Blackburn said.
Blackburn explained her proposals for Section 230 reform during an event at the Media Research Center on Thursday, arguing that Big Tech is “hiding behind an ‘opaque shield’” when it censors conservatives and that the regulations should protect “innovators.”
Section 230 provides broad liability protections for internet publishers, from Facebook to the comments section of a blog. “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,” the law states. In essence, a publisher cannot be held responsible for the content that a user posts online.
The senator described the current internet regulations as being a “sword” for Big Tech, which those companies use to censor or discriminate against conservative voices on their platforms. Her proposed reforms would “condition the content moderation liability shield on an objective reasonableness standard.”
“It should be a shield for new companies, but this is more of a sword for Big Tech companies, and what we are doing with Section 230 reform is clarifying who can use it, when they can use the liability protections, how they can use them, and what they’re going to apply to,” Blackburn told the panel.
“And we’re changing language, removing otherwise objectionable language that has caused or allowed Big Tech to say, ‘Well, we find this, that, or the other objectionable’ and being specific in the way we’re reforming and changing Section 230. We’re also defining who is an information content provider. So being specific in individuals and entities that are content providers so that you have a site and somebody puts something in the comments section that a platform does not like, then they can’t take you down for that,” she said.
Blackburn, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Roger Wicker, all Republicans, have proposed changes to the law that would make sweeping changes to the manner in which speech is regulated on the internet, including changing the circumstances in which companies can enjoy civil liability protections and altering the definition of an “internet content provider.”
“The polished megaplatforms we associate with online research and debate exert unprecedented influence over how Americans discover new information, and what information is available for discovery,” Blackburn said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the new legislation.
Conservatives have railed against what they deem as a double standard on social media. President Trump’s tweets are regularly flagged by Twitter for containing “manipulated media” or violating Twitter’s policy on “glorifying violence.” In the second instance, users can see the tweet but cannot reply, retweet, or respond. Twitter also puts a disclaimer on the tweet itself.
What is this all about? https://t.co/AAmBGgHhyR
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2020
….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 29, 2020
A Chinese virologist who said she had evidence that COVID-19 was started in a Wuhan lab and that China’s claims about a “wet market” in Wuhan were a “smokescreen” was suspended from Twitter, and videos of her appearance on Tucker Carlson Tonight were marked as “false information” on Facebook and Instagram.
