Faultline tuned into something a little different this week, casting our attention to the Reimagining Section 230 live stream organized by technology newsletter Protocol and featuring Democratic Senator Mark Warner as the headline act.
Warner waxed lyrical about his obviously blinkered take on the sweeping changes ahead for Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act – a long-standing law that essentially protects social media platforms from being sued as a result of user-generated posts. Warner’s abrasive attitude towards the two Protocol journalists tasked with questioning him was not a surprising attribute of a businessman turned politician, nor was his ability to downright dodge questions and interrupt at will.
But something of a shocking revelation was that Warner openly – and probably inadvertently – admitted that he has only engaged with two technology companies when consulting about how to go about sculpting his bill for a revoked Section 230. Those two companies are Facebook and Google – internet incumbents that have more than enough influence over the daily lives of US citizens without slapping influence all over US law.
“I am in regular contact with Facebook at the most senior levels. I am in ongoing conversations with Google, although sometimes they choose not to show up at our hearings,” he said. Not a start-up in sight, evidently.
He counteracted this criticism by claiming, in the late 90s, it was all about protecting start-ups, but Section 230 has since transformed into a way for the world’s largest internet companies to brush proper moderation of platforms under the carpet – ignoring repeated misuse and abuse of their dominant positions. We are not disputing this, but surely prominent people like Warner should be figuring out ways to factor start-ups into the debate, to share this level of protection in Section 230 as a possible lifeline of defense for smaller platforms that is being abused by behemoths.
Warner played the Swiss card, saying some people believe his party’s bill doesn’t go far enough, while others say it goes too far. Everyone seems to agree that Section 230 has served its time, yet the real issues stem from how two decades of internet evolution means that a single sweeping successor to Section 230 is virtually impossible.
What Warner was keen to hammer home was how his party’s legislation does not restrict anyone’s right to free speech. “What I don’t want is giant providers continuing to use Section 230 as this get of jail free card. Our safe tech act does not give platforms broad immunity against civil rights. There will be no immunity in laws that address stalking, cybersecurity, or intimidation. There will be no immunity against injunctive relief in courts,” voiced Warner.
Protocol’s Issie Lapowsky argued exactly that, stating that removing Section 230 altogether would essentially remove the fast track option before arriving at the first amendment, and the likes of Facebook have the money and the lawyers to fight the first amendment, whereas smaller platforms do not.
Warner saw red from this moment, effectively ending the interview on the spot. He had a few final comments on how he believes Section 230 has been used and abused by the most powerful companies in the world, and threw in a bizarre analogy about provision of paid content versus advertising-funded content (the latter being more troublesome). “If you have paid content that advertises a gun market, but illegally sells machine guns that are banned by law, and the platform company has enough knowledge to know that, should it not have enough responsibility to know that?” said Warner.
Once Warner had signed off in a blaze of “we have a fundamental disagreement,” we did hear from an actual internet technology company in the form of Twitter, represented by Lauren Culberston, Head of US Policy, who straight up acknowledged that the industry is not aligned with law makers.
This is reflective of what Culberston called a major trust deficit. This deficit has pushed Twitter to impose four principles – transparency, procedural fairness, user privacy, and usage choice and algorithmic choice.
“The thing lawmakers need to consider is competition. Without competition you entrench the largest incumbents and limit the ability to innovate. To be better at enforcing rules we have to have space and flexibility and that’s how we approach Section 230,” she continued.
Unfortunately, Culberston was not willing to get into any specific bills beyond saying Twitter has “had conversations.”
Prior to Warner’s appearance, there was also a recorded cameo from Dane Snowden, the newly appointed President and CEO of the Internet Association, who dreams of soccer teams being able to have an active social media presence without being sued due to the online behavior of angry soccer moms.
“Users and content are at the heart of Section 230. Our desire to engage with policymakers on both sides of the aisle is because we share goals of a safe and common internet. We want an online community that is civil and respectable. It is not in our interests to allow services to be overrun by bad actors. Willingness to engage will be a hallmark of my leadership,” Snowden stated.
He simplified these opposing sides of the aisle to moderate more versus moderate less, or stop big brothering the internet versus start parenting the internet.