US plans to curb legal protections for tech giants

SUCH A BILL COULD MAKE IT HARDER FOR COMPANIES LIKE GOOGLE, FACEBOOK TO MODERATE CONTENT

WASHINGTON: The US Justice Department proposed on Wednesday that Congress take up legislation to curb protections that big tech platforms like Alphabet’s Google and Facebook have had for decades, a senior official said, following through on US President Donald Trump’s bid to crack down on tech giants.

The goal of the proposal is to push tech companies to address criminal content on their platforms and boost transparency for users when the outlets take down lawful material, the official said. But to become law, US lawmakers would need to propose and approve legislation based on the department’s recommendations.

The President, who has battled Twitter and other tech companies over alleged censorship of conservative voices, said in late May he would propose legislation that may scrap or weaken the law shielding internet companies, in an extraordinary attempt to regulate the outlets where he has been criticised.

Trump wants to “remove or change” a provision of a law known as Section 230.

Under the 1996 Communications Decency Act, Section 230 does not generally hold platforms responsible for what their users post and allows them to moderate the content of their sites as they see fit.

Carl Szabo, general counsel of NetChoice which counts Google and Facebook among its members, said any such bill would make it harder for companies like Google to moderate content to remove.