How not to fix social media bias against conservatives. Jeffrey Wrestling writes:
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., introduced a bill this week to require large internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter to apply to the Federal Trade Commission for certification that their moderation practices do not favor one political party. Without such certification, the platforms would not be able to assert Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA 230) as a defense in litigation against them for defamatory or otherwise illegal user content. In other words, unless the platforms are certified, they would be liable for the content their users post. […]
CDA 230 solves what is known as the moderator’s dilemma. Under law, platforms cannot be held liable for the content that users post on those platforms unless they knew or should have known about the content. However, by engaging in good-faith moderation efforts to limit harmful content and tailor users’ experience, platforms are construed to have knowledge of any content that they have not removed. This led to a dilemma: Platforms must either moderate users’ posts and risk being held liable for their content, or refuse to moderate at all in order to avoid liability. Congress passed CDA 230 to resolve this dilemma by stating that platforms are not publishers of user-generated content, even if they take steps to moderate the content.
Sen. Hawley’s proposal effectively recreates this dilemma. Under his bill, to refuse certification, the FTC need not show that the platform actively engaged in moderation practices designed to hurt a viewpoint, but rather that its practices “disproportionately restrict[] or promote[] access to, or the availability of, information from a political party, political candidate, or political viewpoint.” This means that, if a platform wants to moderate user content, it will have to take a rigid stance against all content so as to ensure that the FTC decides, by clear and convincing evidence, that the platform did not moderate it in a politically biased manner. In other words, legitimate speech — conservative and liberal alike — will suffer because platforms will worry that failing to remove questionable content may appear to disproportionately affect a viewpoint.
[Jeffrey Wrestling, “Hawley’s Attack on Section 230 Hurts Conservatives,” R Street Institute, June 24]
