Section 230 is a portion of US law that protects internet content providers from being liable for information that is posted on their sites. For example, if terrorists post content on Twitter, Twitter is not liable for having hosted that content. It has proved controversial in recent years, with politicians from both parties critizing it. However, their criticisms have often come from different directions, and there are many who still support keeping the current policy and view it as key for protecting free speech and innovation. In addition, passing any controversial legislation through the current Congress could be difficult.
The last time that it was modified was by the FOSTA-SESTA bills in 2018, which amended it to no longer protect sex trafficking. Some proposed bills that would modify it include the EARN-IT Act of 2020, the SAFE TECH Act, and the Justice Against Malicious Algorithms Act.
Will Section 230 be modified before the end of the 118th Congress, on January 3rd, 2025? This includes any type of modification, including amendments, regardless of the scope or impact. An executive order or state law would not be sufficient to count, but a law that causes it to be interpreted differently would count. For example, a law that introduces a commission that can remove Section 230 immunities from a specific company would count.
Related questions
https://www.axios.com/pro/tech-policy/2023/06/14/hawley-blumenthal-bill-section-230-ai
Hawley and Blumenthal's "No Section 230 Immunity for AI Act" would amend Section 230 "by adding a clause that strips immunity from AI companies in civil claims or criminal prosecutions involving the use or provision of generative AI," per a description of the bill from Hawley's office.
This bipartisan bill to strip Section 230 protection from generative AI use would count for a modification, making the market resolve YES.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/08/tech/senators-section-230-reform/index.html
US senators said Wednesday that bipartisan support is growing for revising a federal immunity law for tech platforms and websites known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a warning aimed squarely at large social media platforms.
https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/28/21273241/section-230-explained-supreme-court-social-media
In 2018, two bills — the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) — were signed into law, which changed parts of Section 230. The updates mean that platforms can now be deemed responsible for prostitution ads posted by third parties. These changes were ostensibly meant to make it easier for authorities to go after websites that were used for sex trafficking, but it did so by carving out an exception to Section 230. That could open the door to even more exceptions in the future.
Amid all of this was a growing public sentiment that social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook were becoming too powerful.
@ShitakiIntaki The key is that the change has to come from Congress, so I believe that would be only statutory changes. There theoretically could be some weird effect like Congress passing a law that doesn't strictly modify Section 230 but requires a regulatory change that does affect Section 230, and that weird case would count for YES since the effect originated with Congress.
@Gabrielle my understanding is that the key element for resolution is that an act of Congress brings about or is otherwise involved in the change and that the change is not carried out by the executive or judicial branch, to the exclusion of the legislative branch.
@ShitakiIntaki Yep, I believe that matches my intention.
I'm interested in this since I suspect that any meaningful long-term reform will have to come from Congress. Reform led by the executive branch would be limited and just be reverted in a few years when there's a new president, so I'm not very concerned about that type of change. Trump actually tried this with the "Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship", which was rescinded by Biden.
I'm also excluding judicial change of the law, but after today's unanimous ruling it looks like the Supreme Court does not have interest in modifying the law anyway.