A senior House Republican on Thursday introduced legislation aimed at reforming the liability protections enjoyed by Big Tech companies. The bill would ensure that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are not shielded against legal complaints when they knowingly share illicit content, such as child pornography.
Rep. Jim Banks, an Indiana Republican who is chairman of the Republican Study Committee, has introduced the Stop Shielding Culpable Platforms Act to clarify Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a provision that protects social media companies from liability for content posted by their users. Most Republican proposals to reform Sec. 230 are focused on allegations of anti-conservative bias and censorship on social media, but Banks’s bill instead targets the distribution of illegal online content.
“Tyranny means knowingly breaking the law without fear of legal repercussions. No wonder Big Tech feels empowered to ban the President of the United States, supposedly to protect their users, while turning a blind eye to child pornography,” Banks said in a statement.
“Section 230 has placed them outside and above the law. It’s past time for Congress to roll back Section 230’s most egregious and expansive special legal protections. Republican Study’s bill is a good place to start,” Banks added.
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The bill allows social media companies to be sued for illegal content shared on their platforms by ensuring that Section 230 is not interpreted to prevent platforms from being treated as a distributor of content.
