Restricting Tech’s Legal Shield in the USA
In this article, David McCabe reports how sceptical the legislation regulators are making an effort to reign in some of the key tech companies in the United States of America. He views this issue as the rise of a totalitarian government in the USA trying to impose restrictions pertaining to how tech internet companies should air their information. He begins by saying that the President of the USA and his allies are falsely making criticisms of the Major tech companies in the USA by making it a frequent talking point as he soldiers on for his re-election (David, 2020). The uproar came about when the Justice Department of the United States of America through AG William Barr proposed restriction of the freedom of tech internet companies such as Twitter Inc., Google, Alphabet Inc. and Facebook Inc. from freely sharing information.
According to the article, the proposal of restricting the freedom of sharing information by these companies originated from the vitality the companies have had lately on the President’s conduct on social media. The online internet companies have rules obligating the users of their platforms not to post misleading or criminating information. Owing to these rules, Twitter conducted a fact-finding notice to one of the posts on voter fraud that was posted by the President. Having investigated the post, the company found out that the post indeed contained potentially misleading information. Some day’s later twitter attached another post about Minneapolis violent protests posted by President Trump responding to George Floyd’s killing in the police custody. This post also violated the company’s rules. The company, therefore, posted a notice that the post was glorifying violence and not in line with their platform rules (David, 2020). Facebook, on the other hand, did not comment on the President’s post on the protest, terming it a speech that was politically oriented. However, they removed some coronavirus statements and some campaign ads posted by the president from their platform because they deemed that ads were against their rules. These actions made President Trump sign an executive order compelling the federal agencies to regulate the freedom of media. The Department of Justice, therefore, proposed to congress to limit the protection of the internet. The proposals aim at getting rid of section 230 legal immunity.
However, the proposal to repeal the law on communication has been opposed by several individuals including the tech companies through their lawyers, NetChoice vice president, David McCabe, and Elizabeth Banker the internet association trade group deputy director. These group of individual’s claim that the criticism made by President Trump and his allies were politically inclined and not genuine. Repealing or changing this section will limit the freedom of the tech industry to provide genuine and truthful information to the Citizens of the USA as provided in the law.
The representatives of online platforms also argued against the review of the law saying that section 230 has played a significant role in flourishing and promoting online speech and has contributed to significant growth of the internet platform. Without protection, it would be difficult to sustain the internet economy scale, which has enhanced faster sharing of information. The representatives of the internet companies also point out that section 230 has enhanced moderation of how content is delivered in the internet platforms. NetChoice Vice president Carl Szabo said that restricting the internet online company’s freedom is not all about stopping crimes but majorly aimed at advancing political interests. Szabo also argued that it was not in order for the President and his allies to decide what is appropriate and not appropriate for the users of the internet who follow the rules. Elizabeth Banker, who is the deputy general counsel of the Internet Association of Trade Group, also opposed the move to restrict the freedom of the state by repealing section 230. She reasoned that good faith efforts of moderating the facets of the law by removing the cyberbullying, platform manipulation and misinformation from section 230 would result into several lawsuits against the company’s hence eliminating individual’s freedoms to share information on these platforms. He even said that by removing the law, individual or forums would flood with litigations even by and individual giving slight comments on the post from others hence limiting users’ freedom.
Senator Ron Wyden, a legislator who also helped in the drafting of the communications legal protection law, opposed the review of the law saying that Republicans are only working refs to win the forthcoming elections. He went on saying that the internet companies in the social media should not be threatened with retribution because of content fact-check because this is their right and a way of managing the contents that are posted in their platforms (‘Get Facts on the Technology of Tomorrow’, 2020 Therefore the proposals fronted by the republicans to repeal the law is aimed at forcing the private companies in the internet social media platform to host hate speech, misinformation, slime and lies online without having the freedom to exercise the company internal rules. This kind of freedom restriction on the online internet platforms is uncalled for and should not be allowed in the independent sectors like communication that are meant to convey the right information to the citizens without favour or biasness. The basis of reviewing section 230 put forward by the Republican Party of the United States of America accusing the tech companies of political bias was also refuted by the Democrats. This is because the accusations put forward by the republicans on the tech companies were unfounded and misleading and is a method crafted to limit the freedom of online internet companies and the several users who use the platforms to share information.
This article is important to the global community because it helps control how individuals using internet online platforms should make comments that are in line with the new restrictions that are yet to be passed. This would help them avoid facing lawsuits in the USA because of the contrary communication. The outside influences like UNHRC and UNESCO members can help in changing the direction the country has taken on restricting internet online platforms. These United Nations bodies protect human rights and help promote scientific innovations, respectively (Rosado-González, Sá & Palacio-Prieto, 2020). They can come in to convince the administration of the USA to abide by the international laws in information sharing. The article is neutral because it presents two sections arguing against and for the restriction of the freedom of online internet companies.