The Senate is taking aim at something called Section 230.
Elizabeth Nolan Brown, a senior editor at Reason Magazine, says:
“Section 230 is more important than the first amendment for online speech.”
That’s because Section 230 protects online platforms from getting in trouble for publishing your opinion. It’s basically the law that made the internet what it is today. Without it platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Hacker News and others wouldn’t be able to operate as they do.
So of course, both the left and right want to destroy it.
One bipartisan attempt to reform the law is called “the See Something Say Something Online” Act, which is a really scary piece of legislation that would put the DOJ in charge of filtering internet comments and posts, and allow everyone to submit “suspicious activity reports” against any website. This would not only be weaponized against those with views others don’t like, but it would also create a mountain of bureaucracy on the internet, and essentially eliminate free speech. It would also be a completely opaque reporting system not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.
Will decentralized social media be the solution to such attempts to shut down freedom of speech on the internet? Jack Dorsey, Charles Hoskinson, and Dan Larimer think it might.
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Follow Elizabeth Nolan Brown here: https://twitter.com/ENBrown
Elizabeth's article on the See Something Say Something Online Act: https://reason.com/2021/02/02/see-something-say-something-online-act-punishes-big-tech-for-not-snitching/
That New Federal Agency ("star commission") will be run by people owned by foreigner powers.