Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), long one of the Republican Party’s most consistent defenders of Section 230 on free speech grounds, is calling for the law’s protections to be stripped from major technology platforms, marking a sharp break from his libertarian stance on government intervention.
In a New York Post op-ed published Monday evening, Paul argued that companies such as Google and YouTube can no longer be trusted to act responsibly as stewards of online speech and should lose the legal shield that protects them from liability for user content. He framed the shift as a response to what he described as unchecked censorship and selective enforcement by Big Tech, saying platforms wield too much power over public discourse.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted in 1996, generally shields online platforms from being held legally responsible for content posted by users while allowing them to moderate or remove content they deem objectionable without being treated as publishers. The law has been credited with the growth of the modern internet by protecting websites from lawsuits tied to user speech, but it has increasingly come under attack from lawmakers across the political spectrum.
For years, Paul has historically defended Section 230 as a cornerstone of free expression and private property rights, arguing that government intervention would chill speech and innovation. Even when he personally clashed with platform moderation decisions, Paul argued that the answer was not regulation.
“Private companies have the right to ban me if they want to,” Paul said in 2021 after YouTube imposed a weeklong restriction on his official Senate account after he posted a video questioning the effectiveness of masks to prevent infection during the COVID-19 pandemic. He has reiterated that position, telling reporters that Facebook “is a private entity” and that “people who don’t like them” should simply “quit using them.”
That stance, Paul wrote, began to change after a recent dispute with YouTube that he said exposed the dangers of granting platforms broad legal immunity. For the past three weeks, Paul said, YouTube has hosted a video that he described as “a calculated lie,” falsely accusing him of taking money from Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, and has refused to remove it.
“I’ve formally notified Google that this video is unsupported by facts, defames me, harasses me and now endangers my life,” Paul wrote.
According to Paul, Google declined to remove the video, telling him the company does not investigate the truth of accusations made in content it hosts. “Google responded that they don’t investigate the truth of accusations … and refused to take down the video,” he wrote.
Paul argued that the response highlighted what he views as a contradiction in how platforms apply their moderation policies. While Google says it does not assess the truth of content, Paul noted that the company removed material during the pandemic that it deemed untrue, including skepticism toward vaccines, debate over the origins of COVID-19, and his own claims about the ineffectiveness of masks.
He described the allegation against him as effectively an accusation of treason, writing that it has fueled online calls for his death.
In his op-ed, Paul said the size and reach of today’s technology companies have changed the equation, arguing that platforms now act less like neutral hosts and more like powerful gatekeepers shaping political debate without accountability.
LONG-STANDING ONLINE LIABILITY SHIELD UNDER SCRUTINY BY LAWMAKERS
Paul said the episode ultimately pushed him to abandon his long-held defense of the liability shield itself. “This complete lack of decency, this inconsistent moderation of truthfulness, this conscious refusal to remove illegal and defamatory content has led me to conclude that the internet exemption from liability … should not be encouraged by liability shields,” Paul wrote, adding that he plans to pursue legislation aimed at rolling back those protections.
