<
div class=”field field–name-body field–type-text-with-summary field–label-hidden”>
<
div class=”field__items”>
<
div class=”field__item even”>
As Congress appears ready to gut one of the internet’s most important laws for protecting free speech, they are ignoring how that law protects and benefits millions of Americans’ ability to speak online every day.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee is holding a hearing on Wednesday on a bill that would end 47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”) in 18 months. The authors of the bill argue that setting a deadline to either change or eliminate Section 230 will force the Big Tech online platforms to the bargaining table to create a new regime of intermediary liability.
As EFF has said for years, Section 230 is essential to protecting individuals’ ability to speak, organize, and create online.
Congress knew exactly what Section 230 would do – that it would lay the groundwork for speech of all kinds across the internet, on websites both small and large. And that’s exactly what has happened.
Section 230 isn’t in conflict with American values. It upholds them in the digital world. People are able to find and create their own communities, and moderate them as they see fit. People and companies are responsible for their own speech, but (with narrow exceptions) not the speech of others.
The law is not a shield for Big Tech. Critically, the law benefits the millions of users who don’t have the resources to build and host their own blogs, email services, or social media sites, and instead rely on services to host that speech. Section 230 also benefits thousands of small online services that host speech. Those people are being shut out as the bill sponsors pursue
[…]
Content was cut in order to protect the source.Please visit the source for the rest of the article.
Read the original article: