Section 230 Faces Possible Stealth Repeal

LOS ANGELES—The 24-year-old law known as the “First Amendment of the Internet” has been under attack from both sides of the political aisle all year. Now, as Congress proceeds with what would normally be an uneventful “lame duck” session, Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act may actually be repealed by Congress in under-the-table fashion, according to a report by the tech site The Verge.  Both the outgoing president, Donald Trump, and President-Elect Joe Biden have called for the full repeal of Section 230 — a law which allows for controversial content to be posted online by protecting platforms from legal liability over user posts. The repeal of Section 230 could be a disaster for the online adult industry, as well as for online free expression in general, because as First Amendment lawyer Lawrence Walters told AVN, it could “result in restrictive content moderation rules or elimination of the platforms, themselves.” But Trump on Tuesday called for a clause repealing Section 230 to be included in the otherwise routine National Defense Authorization Act. The NDAA is a bill that must be passed at the end of each year, to continue funding for the military — including all  aspects of military life from servicemember salaries, to health insurance, to food in military commissaries. The bill is usually passed routinely on a bipartisan basis, because without it, the United States military would largely shut down. But on Tuesday Trump announced that unless the NDAA includes the repeal of Section 230, an issue that would seem to have little relation to military operations, he will veto the NDAA bill. Now, according to a report by the political news site Axios, at least some Republican senators are willing to accede to the demand, and slip Section 230 repeal into the NDAA — a bill that is considered a “must pass” by both parties. Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, has “proposed that his bill limiting Section 230 protections be included in the National Defense Authorization Act,” according to the Axios report. Wicker and South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham have sponsored a bill titled the Online Freedom and Viewpoint Diversity Act that would “modify” Section 230, though stopping short of full repeal.  But some Republicans, according to Axios, have proposed shaping a compromise between Wicker’s bill and the more moderate Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act (PACT), which has support from both Republicans and Democrats.  The bipartisan bill contains provisions, such as increased transparency requirements for social media sites, that are broadly supported by digital civil liberties advocates. But it also would scale back the Section 230 protections for platforms over third-party content. Photo By Erlend Bjørtvedt / Wikimedia Commons