Posted on 02/20/2020 6:07:39 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Attorney General William Barr recently raised questions about whether major technology companies should remain largely immune from litigation regarding its user-generated content, adding that the technological landscape has changed much in recent decades.
Barr stated his concerns during a Feb. 19 Justice Department workshop on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The act, which was passed in 1996, states that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
Online companies such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter are protected by Section 230 as it largely exempts them from liability involving content posted by users of their platforms, although they can be held liable for content that violates criminal or intellectual property law.
“No longer are tech companies the underdog upstarts; they have become titans of U.S. industry,” Barr said. “Given this changing technological landscape, valid questions have been raised on whether Section 230’s broad immunity is still necessary, at least in its current form.”
Some of Barr’s concerns relate to the apparent stretching of the statute’s original purpose. He said the statute’s immunity has since been extended to conduct such as “selling illegal or faulty products to connecting terrorists to facilitating child exploitation.”
“Online services also have invoked immunity even where they solicited or encouraged unlawful conduct, shared in illegal proceeds, or helped perpetrators hide from law enforcement,” Barr said.
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
Please tell us of the last small company antitrust was applied against.
Our problems are with large companies. The law was written when these were tiny.
You are chasing an ephemeral problem. It doesn’t apply.
Section 302 doesn't protect them from anti-trust laws. If they're monopolies go get 'em.
I want to know how big FR has to get before Jim loses control of his private property.
I've had others suggest 1M users as the threshold, but at exactly what point would you like the feds to step in?
Any time there is unequal enforcement of a contract or terms.
I'd have to go look but I'd bet a lot of money that the Terms of Service of all of the companies you're concerned about say they "reserve the right" to delete stuff, not that they have to do it if it violates their guidelines.
Those are the terms the user agreed to and they weren't violated.
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