Changing Section 230 Won't Fix Politicians' Issues With Section 230

In the week leading up to a potentially extremely consequential election, Congress is once again setting its sights on its favorite whipping boy, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Section 230 clarifies that users are responsible for the content they post online, not the websites that host it. Yet, this simple law was the subject of a hearing which brought the CEO’s of Twitter, Google and Facebook to the hill to be questioned over the law. These companies have been blamed for everything from increasing hate speech online, promoting election disinformation, and censoring conservative speech.

Seemingly sensing the winds of change are blowing against them, some of the companies brought to the hill have acquiesced that Section 230 will be reformed and will support some changes to the law. What exact changes to the law they will support remains unclear, but what does have clarity is that this tactic is a monumental mistake.

The problem is supporting the reform of Section 230, or even changing the law, will do nothing to get Congress off their back, as any change to the law will fail to address the concerns of those demanding reform. If anything, changing Section 230 will only exacerbate those problems, leading to further scrutiny and calls for reform.

Examine the standard Democratic and Republican complaints. Democrats are concerned that there is far too much hate speech, disinformation, and fake news allowed on various platforms. They want the websites to proactively remove more content they believe is poisoning the civil discourse. Republicans, meanwhile, are upset that websites are removing too much content. Twitter blocked the posting of the Hunter Biden laptop story for days, leading to claims of election interference. Similarly, posts from the satirical Babylon Bee have also been subject to removal. These actions place no doubt in the minds of many on the right that big tech is out to censor them.

Listening to these complaints, it seems Section 230 is the cause of both too much and not enough content being removed? How can this possibly be? One thing is certain--the problem is not Section 230. The problem lies with the fact that platforms aren’t conforming to one side or the other’s content moderation preferences. But rather than admitting that, both sides are using Section 230 as a pretext to haul the companies before Congress and question them on moderation decisions.

It’s likely that our political leaders already know this. If, by chance, they were able to agree and Section 230 disappeared tomorrow, websites would be left with two choices. They can moderate at an incredibly high rate to attempt to avoid liability, thus angering Republicans. Or, they can choose to not moderate at all, leaving any conspiracy theory, offensive speech or disinformation up, which would certainly anger Democrats.

Any other proposal that attempts to cut the baby in half will similarly fail to leave both sides happy, and we will be stuck right back where we started. Giving in to these political demands is a mistake. The Congressional approval rating remains dramatically low, while technology companies are more popular than ever in wake of COVID-19. The general public does not care about this issue, and reforms will not fix the problems of those that have a bone to pick with certain tech companies. Any changes to Section 230 will not only fail to get Congress off their back, but they also threaten the very internet ecosystem that has made them rich and enriched the lives of people across the globe.

Congress should leave Section 230 alone, and tech companies should be prepared to fight back against the disinformation spouted about the law.

The law is working exactly as intended.

Eric Peterson lives in New Orleans where is he the Director of the Pelican Center of Technology and Innovation