Trump Administration Ramps Up Pressure on Section 230
TLDR: The Trump administration is pressuring federal agencies to comply with an executive order that would change a bedrock Internet law in order to address supposed bias from major Internet platforms. President Donald Trump has been pushing agency officials in recent months to weaken the framework—known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—that lets companies host and moderate users’ content without the fear of being sued into bankruptcy. While much of the attention around Section 230 focuses on major Internet companies, the law is especially critical for startups, which would be disproportionately impacted by policy changes in this space.
What’s Happening This Week: The White House is continuing to push federal agencies to regulate the content moderation practices of online companies, part of an ongoing effort by the Trump administration to weaken Section 230.
According to a recent report, President Donald Trump personally pushed Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joseph Simons in a recent Oval Office meeting to take action against the alleged censorship of conservatives by online platforms. The pressure on the FTC chairman comes after President Trump issued a May 28th executive order on “preventing online censorship.” Simons told a Senate panel earlier this month that the FTC lacks the authority to enforce the president’s directive.
The executive order—which President Trump issued after Twitter fact-checked his misleading tweets about mail-in ballots—pushed the FTC to consider whether platforms’ content moderation decisions differ from those platforms’ stated policies in ways that constitute unfair and deceptive practices. The order also directed the Commerce Department to ask the Federal Communications Commission to consider several questions around Section 230, including when online companies should be allowed to qualify for Section 230 liability limitations. Earlier this month, the FCC moved ahead with the Trump administration’s petition and opened it up to public comment.
Why it Matters to Startups: The U.S. startup community—particularly early-stage companies that host user-generated content—would be disproportionately affected by changes to Section 230. Whether it’s spam, misleading information, hate speech, or simply irrelevant content, Section 230 grants companies of all sizes the ability to host and manage their users’ content as they see fit.
Undermining this bedrock Internet law, largely on partisan grounds, would open up early-stage startups to disastrous lawsuits. One frivolous lawsuit could bankrupt an emerging startup by forcing it to pay thousands of dollars in legal fees—even if they end up winning. Changing Section 230 would ensure that only the biggest, most financially secure companies can afford to host user content.
As it stands, Internet platforms already face competing demands from lawmakers when it comes to hosting and moderating user-generated content. The Trump administration and some Republican lawmakers have argued that platforms are too aggressive in their moderating efforts and allege that social media sites are censoring users’ speech. Other policymakers say that major platforms are not doing enough to moderate objectionable content and have called for policies that would push platforms to find and take down more content. Both of these approaches, however, ignore the realities of content moderation, which is expensive, time consuming, and ultimately imperfect.
Section 230’s current framework gives online platforms the ability to host user-generated content without the constant threat of litigation, while also providing them with the flexibility they need to moderate a wide range of legal—though still questionable—content. Platforms can create their own communities and create rules that make sense for their users. Instead of changing Section 230, policymakers should recognize the importance of the law—especially for the vibrant and diverse startup ecosystem, and the Internet users that rely on it.
On the Horizon.
Protocol and the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) are holding a virtual event tomorrow at noon to discuss ways of enabling the technology of the future.
