Commerce asks FCC to narrow protections for web platforms
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration asked the Federal Communications Commission this week to narrow its interpretation of a law that shields internet platforms like Facebook and YouTube from certain lawsuits over the content they host.
The request, which stems from an executive order that President Donald Trump signed in May, is part of a growing push by the president and his allies, who say that tech companies are removing or suppressing conservative content. Despite evidence that conservative sites and figures perform well online, the president, along with much of his conservative base, have repeatedly criticized the platforms over instances in which conservative content was removed or otherwise moderated for violating a platform’s rules.
In a petition Monday, the Department of Commerce asked the commission to clarify that the law, known as Section 230, does not protect a platform when it moderates or highlights user content based on a “reasonably discernible viewpoint or message, without having been prompted to, asked to, or searched for by the user.” It would also limit the circumstances under which platforms are protected from liability over their users’ content.
Kayleigh McEnany, the White House spokeswoman, said in a statement Wednesday morning that the president wants the FCC “to clarify that Section 230 does not permit social media companies that alter or editorialize users’ speech to escape civil liability.”
The petition is now in the hands of the FCC, an independent agency currently led by a Republican chairman, Ajit Pai, who was appointed to the position by Trump.
“The FCC will carefully review the petition,” said Brian Hart, a spokesman for the commission.
The request comes as the chief executives of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are scheduled to testify before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. While the hearing is part of the panel’s ongoing antitrust investigation into the companies, it is likely that some Republicans on the committee will ask the executives about how their platforms treat
right-leaning content.
Trump’s petition is the latest twist in an ongoing debate in Washington over the future of Section 230, a provision of the Communications Decency Act that has long protected platforms from certain types of lawsuits over user-generated content. It also protects platforms from being sued over how they moderated content they find objectionable.