Congressman Who Was Sued For Blocking Constituents On Social Media Now Also Wants To Undermine Section 230

It's open season on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and everyone's got ideas. Not good ones, mind you. But ideas. The latest comes from Rep. Paul Gosar whose claim to fame is that six of his own siblings took out an ad to his constituents, telling them not to re-elect their brother. Gosar also has a bit of a checkered history of his own in terms of tolerating "free speech" online. Last year, he was sued for blocking constituents on social media -- leading him to agree to stop the practice in order to settle the lawsuit.

He's now introduced HR 4027, which is entitled the "Stop Censorship Act" (as opposed to Josh Hawley's Stop Internet Censorship Act). The full text of the bill is not yet up, but Gosar has put up a press release and Twitter thread about the bill, saying that it will revoke what he (incorrectly) says is the "unprecedented and unwarranted immunities given to Big Tech" and replacing it with an immunity only to remove "unlawful activity" and some sort of mandate to provide end users their own filter tools.

Rep. Gosar's legislation would revoke the unprecedented and unwarranted immunities given to Big Tech for the censorship of 'objectionable' content but retains immunities when acting in good faith to remove unlawful material or when providing users the option to filter: i.e, Google SafeSearch, Twitter Quality Filter or YouTube Restricted Mode.

Big Tech has been given blanket immunity by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They claim 'platform's discretion for removing content but claim 'publishers' aren't liable when they monetize their users' content. Despite their claims, Big Tech does not always foreclose on violent or obscene behavior; in fact, they often monetize it- but they do police political speech. Therefore, Big Tech's immunity should strictly be for good faith efforts to remove actual unlawful content.

First off, the description of Section 230 and what it does is simply wrong. It is neither unprecedented, nor is it unique to "Big Tech." Section 230 applies to everyone who hosts third party content. Second, the 1st Amendment would almost certainly bar Gosar's bill, as it appears to force companies to host content they might find objectionable (again, I find it incredible that the same party that insists bakers shouldn't be made to bake cakes for people they don't like is now insisting that internet companies must host speech that they disagree with).

While I actually like (and have repeatedly advocated for!) internet platforms to provide end users with tools to moderate their own content experience, to add that as a condition of granting immunity is ludicrous for a number of reasons -- not the least of which is most platforms (especially smaller ones) are unlikely to be able to afford such tools.

Either way, as with Hawley's bill, it's difficult to see this bill going anywhere or, if it does, passing even the most basic of Constitutional scrutiny. It's also hilarious, given that the original point of Section 230, written by Republican Rep. Chris Cox, was to encourage more platforms to choose to moderate their platforms to create "family friendly" spaces online. Now that same party is actively saying that platforms should never be able to moderate at all. Odd.