CHARLESTON, W.Va. – U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) today
participated virtually in a Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Committee hearing entitled “Does Section 230’s Sweeping Immunity Enable Big
Tech Bad Behavior?” During the hearing, Senator Capito and Committee members
heard from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Facebook
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The hearing examined
legislative proposals to modernize the decades-old law, increase transparency
and accountability among big technology companies for their content moderation
practices, and explore the impact of large ad-tech platforms on local
journalism and consumer privacy. The hearing also provided an opportunity to
discuss the unintended consequences of Section 230’s liability shield and how
best to preserve the internet as a forum for open discourse.
Last week, Senator Capito spoke directly with Mark Zuckerberg about these issues, as well as broadband deployment
in West Virginia. As a result of Senator Capito’s consistent efforts, Facebook
has begun building fiber optic cable across the state to connect data centers
in Columbus, Ohio and Ashburn, Virginia. Click
here for more
details.
HIGHLIGHTS:
ON CONTENT MODERATION: “The topic today is on objectionable content and how
you make those judgements…In Section 230, the term is ‘objectionable content or
otherwise objectionable.’ Would you be in favor of redefining that more
specifically? That’s awful broad, and that’s where I think many of these
questions become very difficult to answer.”
ON SECTION 230 HELPING
SMALL COMPANIES: “You’ve expressed
the need to have Section 230 protections because of the protections that it
gives to small innovators. Well you sit in front of us and I think all of us
are wondering how many small innovators are there and what kind of market share
could they possibly have when we see the dominance of the three of you? … How
can a small innovator really break through and what does Section 230 really
have to do with that ability? I’m skeptical on the argument, quite frankly.”
BACKGROUND:
Section 230 of the Communications
Decency Act states, “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” (47 U.S.C. § 230). In other
words, online platforms such as Facebook or Twitter are not liable for
publishing third-party content. While there are important exceptions, Section
230 gives broad protection, allowing online free speech to thrive.
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