Edge and tech heavyweights face growing policymaker scrutiny and regulatory risk, analysts and others said Monday, but most doubted there's a near-term threat of major U.S. government intervention that would realign the internet marketplace. "It is remarkable how quickly the discussion has changed, putting large tech companies on the defensive," emailed Doug Brake, telecom policy senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
Senate Commerce Committee members and others signaled a continued willingness Tuesday to work toward a compromise version of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (S-1693) amid sometimes emotional testimony. Much of what lawmakers and witnesses said at the hearing revealed a continued divide over S-1693 and House companion HR-1865, which would amend Communications Decency Act Section 230. HR-1865/S-1693 has drawn substantial opposition from the tech and civil liberties communities, which perceive the bill as undermining protections for online platforms that host user-generated content and make them liable for information posted by third parties on their sites (see 1708010011 and 1708110022).
The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), which seeks to clarify Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (see 1709070033), is "sufficiently narrow" to help child sex trafficking victims get justice and help civil attorneys and state attorneys general hold entities that participated in the trafficking responsible, said prepared testimony provided by National Center for Missing & Exploited Children General Counsel Yiota Souras. She will speak at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday on S-1693 alongside Santa Clara University School of Law professor Eric Goldman and Internet Association General Counsel Abigail Slater, both with concerns, and California AG Xavier Becerra.
The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act that would change a key part of the Communications Decency Act will get a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Tuesday. Witnesses include bill opponents Santa Clara University School of Law professor Eric Goldman and Internet Association General Counsel Abigail Slater, and supporter National Center for Missing & Exploited Children General Counsel Yiota Souras. Since introduced in early August, S-1693 has been a lightning rod for the tech and civil liberties communities, which claimed the proposed change to Section 230 would undermine protections for online platforms that host user-generated content and make them liable for information posted by third parties on their sites (see 1708010011, 1708110022 and 1708110022). "With the threat of overwhelming criminal and civil liability hanging over their heads, Internet platforms would likely turn to automated filtering of users’ speech in a big way," blogged Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Technologist Jeremy Gillula and activist Elliot Harmon Wednesday. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations Chairman Rob Portman, R-Ohio, sponsored the bipartisan bill, which attracted 27 co-sponsors. He led a nearly two-year probe into Backpage.com that in January resulted in a scathing report alleging the online classified advertiser was complicit in facilitating underage sex trafficking on the internet (see 1701100001). Experts who follow the case said it's unclear if DOJ is pursuing charges against Backpage. CoStar Group, Oracle and 21st Century Fox are tech or multimedia companies that back the bill. In a letter released Wednesday by Portman, 21st Century Fox's Chip Smith, executive vice president-global public affairs, said the "narrow and tailored legislation" properly targets bad actors. He said the bill's critics are using "hyperbole and scare tactics" to say its enactment would end free speech and innovation on the Internet. Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., sponsored companion bipartisan legislation (HR-1865) that garnered 126 co-sponsors. The 10:30 a.m. Senate Commerce hearing will be in 253 Russell.
Google is manipulating search results over the issue of proposed legislation that would change Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (see 1708010011, 1708110022 and 1709070033), returning links that favor information from organizations that oppose the bill, alleged Consumer Watchdog in a Monday news release. When searching for "Section 230," the consumer group said three of the top four links returned under the news tab were articles from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which opposes the bill. But competing search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo provided "links to articles presenting all sides of the issue," CW said. Google appears "to be stacking the deck to favor their own purposes,” said CW Privacy Project Director John Simpson, whose organization backs the bill. "This claim is completely false," a company spokeswoman responded. "We have never re-ranked search results to manipulate political sentiment. We always strive to provide our users with the most authoritative, useful, relevant answers to their queries. A site’s ranking on Google Search is determined using hundreds of factors to calculate a page’s relevance to a given query." Proponents say the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (S-1693) would help victims get justice without affecting tech innovation, while the tech industry, including Google, and civil liberties groups say the bill would hold tech companies liable for user-generated content without curbing online sex trafficking.
Critics of a popular Senate bill aimed at amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to hold online platforms liable for sex trafficking ads (see 1708010011) said it's a slippery slope that could lead to more changes such as tech companies being responsible for issues like countering violent extremism. But, during an R Street Institute panel Thursday, advocates said 230 has become a major hurdle for victims to take those responsible to court.
The First Amendment constrains what government can do to limit free speech, but it doesn't put any such restrictions on companies like GoDaddy, Google and Twitter that refused to host the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer (see 1708180005, 1708150001 and 1708140044) or share advertising revenue with "hateful videos" after the Charlottesville, Virginia, protests, blogged American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow Daniel Lyons Friday. "And this is exactly as it should be," he wrote. "Absent some contractual provision to the contrary, companies should not be compelled to carry speech with which they disagree." Others said such actions have "somewhat disrupted the net neutrality narrative," said Lyons. But Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act not only shields service providers and ISPs from content written by others, it also protects the providers if they restrict access to material they find offensive, he added.
Decisions by Cloudflare, GoDaddy and Google not to manage neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer (see 1708150001 and 1708140044) are "dangerous" because they can have "far-reaching impacts on speech around the world," blogged Electronic Frontier Foundation Executive Director Cindy Cohn, Senior Global Policy Analyst Jeremy Malcolm and International Director Danny O'Brien. The actions followed Aug. 12 clashes between white nationalists and counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. Companies have the right to decide what speech does and doesn't appear on their platforms and are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, said EFF: But "precedents being set now can shift the justice of those removals." Access Now similarly blogged Thursday about the issue and provided recommendations.
A bipartisan coalition of 50 state and territorial attorneys general is urging lawmakers to amend Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to clarify that state officials have authority to investigate and prosecute online child sex traffickers. In a letter from the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG), the state officials said federal enforcement alone can't stem such online activities and they want Congress to consider the proposed change. House and Senate lawmakers proposed bills that essentially would eliminate federal liability protections for websites that help violate federal sex trafficking laws and also empower state law enforcement officials to take action. tech and civil society groups said the proposed changes to Section 230 are too broad and would curb free speech (see 1708010011 and 1708110022). The NAAG letter was addressed House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and Senate Communications Subcommittee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking member Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. AGs from the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and all states, except for Connecticut and Massachusetts, signed.
The tech community will oppose any revision of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, regardless of the revision, said a senior aide to Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who's one of more than two dozen co-sponsors of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (see 1708110022). Lawmakers say S-1693 would narrowly amend CDA to curb online sex trafficking and wouldn't affect legitimate actors. Technology and civil society organizations say it will restrict internet free speech (see 1708010011). Lee's aide said industry incorrectly thinks the bill would "open the door" for more changes: "Based on that reasoning, Congress wouldn’t have inserted the existing exceptions to Section 230 immunity, concerning obscenity and sexual exploitation of children, and those haven’t broken the Internet.”