WASHINGTON — Congressional Democrats introduced the Online Consumer Protection Act (OCPA) earlier this month in another bid to take on Section 230 reform. Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-Illinois) and Kathy Castor (D-Florida) are the primary sponsors for the Act, focusing on the “shortcomings” found in the current law. Schakowsky is the chair of the Consumer Protect and Commerce Subcommittee for the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Castor is a member of the same committee.
“For too long technology companies have allowed harmful content to spread across their platforms in violation of their promises to consumers,” Schakowsky said. “Worse, they have used Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to shield themselves from illegal conduct on their websites that they knowingly facilitate.”
That’s why, according to her office, Schakowsky and Castor are working towards legislation that would mandate new layers of compliance for virtually any high-traffic website operator.
“My colleague, Kathy Castor, and I have introduced the Online Consumer Protection Act to hold these companies accountable and ensure that if it’s illegal offline, then it’s also illegal online,” Schakowsky added.
The primary goal of the bill appears to push the argument that websites, including social media platforms, aren’t accountable to consumers or their users and that thus the OCPA is needed to hold thousands of online platforms to higher accountability standards.
“Overly broad court rulings around Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act [of 1996] and other pro-tech laws have insulated online platforms from accountability to consumers and left Americans with a feeling of helplessness online,” indicates a “fact sheet” that was released with the act’s introductory text on May 10.
Section 2 of the act, entitled “Terms of Service Required for Social Media Platforms and Online Marketplaces” states that “each social media platform or online marketplace shall establish, maintain, and make publicly available at all times and in a machine-readable format, terms of service in a manner that is clear, easily understood, and written in plain and concise language.”
Based on this language, Mike Masnick of Techdirt opined that the OCPA “will create a massive amount of silly busywork and paperwork for basically any website” and “will create a liability deathtrap for many sites.”
The bill states: “For social media platforms, the consumer protection policy required by subsection (a) shall include—(A) a description of the content and behavior permitted or prohibited on its service both by the platform and by users; (B) whether content may be blocked, removed, or modified, or if service to users may be terminated and the grounds upon which such actions will be taken; (C) whether a person can request that content be blocked, removed, or modified, or that a user’s service be terminated, and how to make such a request; (D) a description of how a user will be notified of and can respond to a request that his or her content be blocked, removed, or modified, or service be terminated if such actions are taken; (E) how a person can appeal a decision to block, remove, or modify content, allow content to remain, or terminate or not terminate service to a user, if such actions are taken; and (F) any other topic the Commission deems appropriate.”
This suggests that whoever drafted this legislation has never consulted or ever heard of a content moderation or trust and safety team backed by the platforms in question. The legislation appears to be attempting to codify trust and safety standards that are already in place across the internet, without the need for the federal government to compel such measures. The proposal shows no insight, let alone the consultancy of actual experts in Section 230 and technology liability.
The OCPA seems less like a serious effort to reform the law and more like another ploy for media coverage of a hot button issue on the part of its sponsors. There’s no specificity as to how the act will protect compliant platforms, let alone how this potential policy change will impact platforms, be they ‘mainstream’ platforms like Facebook and Twitter, or adult platforms like Pornhub, OnlyFans, LoyalFans, or ManyVids.
As Masnick argued in his post, all the things listed as requirements in the bill are “the kinds of things that most companies do already because you need to do it that way. But it’s also the kind of thing that has evolved over time as new and different challenges arise, and locking the specifics into law does not take into account that very basic reality. It also doesn’t take into account that different companies might not fit into this exact paradigm, but under this bill will be required to act like they do.”
