WASHINGTON — In another bid to challenge big tech, Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.), Mazie Hirono (D-Hi.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have announced that they reintroduced the Safeguarding Against Fraud, Exploitation, Threats, Extremism and Consumer Harms (SAFE TECH) Act as a proposed fix to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
This bill would seriously threaten freedom of expression on the internet and online creators’ ability to monetize content while additionally subjecting the companies that own popular tech platforms to far more frivolity in potential litigation. Reps. Kathy Castor of Florida and Mike Levin of California have introduced the companion bill in the House of Representatives. The bill would amend Section 230 and “allow social media companies to be held accountable for enabling cyber-stalking, online harassment, and discrimination on social media platforms.”
Sen. Warner, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said that his bill is necessary to correct the statute’s shortcomings.
“When Section 230 was enacted over 25 years ago, the internet we use today was not even fathomable,” Sen. Warner said in a recent press release. “This legislation takes strides to update a law that was meant to encourage service providers to develop tools and policies to support effective moderation and allows them to finally be held accountable for the harmful, often criminal behavior that exists on their platforms.”
“Our legislation is needed to safeguard consumers and ensure social media giants aren’t shielded from the legal consequences of failing to act. These common-sense protections are essential in today’s online world,” Sen. Blumenthal said in the same press statement.
YNOT reported about Warner et al. initially introducing the SAFE TECH Act in 2021. At the time, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) participated in an interview with Tech Crunch where he said that the SAFE TECH Act “would devastate every part of the open internet, and cause massive collateral damage to online speech.” Wyden likened the bill to a full repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Also in 2021, the Electronic Frontier Foundation said that SAFE TECH Act “is a shotgun approach to Section 230 reform” and it would amend the law “through the ever-popular method of removing platform immunity from liability arising from various types of user speech.”
Mike Masnick of Techdirt.com has termed the SAFE TECH Act a total “dumpster fire of cluelessness” adding that “it is one of the worst Section 230 bills” he’s ever seen. “It is difficult to explain just how bad this bill is concisely because it has so many bad ideas crammed into one single bill,” Masnick wrote of the Act in 2021.
