Do you think social media companies suppress your free speech?
Social media companies enjoyed a liability shield based on the idea that they provided a neutral platform for content. The purpose of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, according to Attorney General Bill Barr, was “to allow websites that were serving as, essentially, bulletin boards for diverse third-party content coming on, to say that you’re not responsible for the content of that third-party information. And it also tried to encourage these companies to take down things like child pornography or human trafficking advertising and things by saying, if you act to remove this kind of objectionable material, you won’t be liable for taking it down.”
Attorney General Barr continued, “Now it’s (social media’s purpose) been completely stretched to allow what have become really behemoths who control a lot of the flow of information in our society to engage in censorship of that information and to act as editors and publishers of the material.”
On the other side of the argument, supporters of the original Section 230 claim that changing the Section to make social media platforms more like publishers responsible for their content, makes those platforms subject to liability laws. They would no longer enjoy legal protections. Social media platforms want the right to “help” their readers determine truth from misinformation, or what they perceive to be misinformation.
I do not want social media companies to enjoy protections that belong to neutral platforms while acting as editors or publishers that decide whether my content is “true” or “not true.”
This is Common Sense Civics and Citizenship.??
