Tell Congress that blowing up Section 230 is
Submit Comment Please type your opinion of Trump's executive order to continue.
Please type your opinion of Trump's executive order to continue.
Ever since former President Trump threatened to veto a major defense funding bill over Section 230, a law that protects social media companies from liability for what their users post, this legal clause of just 26 words has become a political football, with President Joe Biden and some of his senior advisors also chiming in that Section 230 be repealed. After January 6th and the increased pointing of fingers towards these companies for online disinformation and conspiracy theories, Democrats have joined Republicans (for entirely different reasons) in introducing a wide array of legislation to attack, “reform”, or entirely remove Section 230.
This will be disastrous for the internet as we know it.
Section 230 allows Facebook, Reddit, Discord, and other social media companies to publish what you and I post online without being sued out of existence. And while it's true that these Big Tech companies routinely abuse this power, getting rid of this important law will only make online censorship worse. Do you really think Twitter will let you say what you want about the President if the Justice Department could arrest Jack Dorsey because of your mean memes? Do you really think Twitch will let you post videos criticizing the latest overhyped piece of garbage if Activision and EA can file lawsuits over your bad review? Of course not.
Getting rid of Section 230 is a terrible idea. Continued attacks on Section 230 from are misguided and will lead to more censorship and curbing of free speech, which will be disastrous for marginalized communities as well as smaller internet platforms that do not have the legal manpower and content moderation armies that Facebook, Google, and Twitter do. Right now, we have the freedom to use the Internet to tell it like it is. So use that freedom. Don't hold back.
Fill out the form above now to tell your lawmaker what you really think about this outrageous attack on Internet freedom.
Internet companies are free to host our edgy jokes, unpopular political opinions, memes, videos, stories, poems, vacation photos and more thanks to Section 230 This law contains the "26 words that created the Internet," which state:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.
Without Section 230, tech companies like YouTube, WhatsApp, TikTok, and Snapchat will be legally responsible for everything people like you and me do on their platforms. They'd rather censor everything we say than risk expensive lawsuits, or penalties from the FCC.
To get concrete, Section 230 is the law that allows you to post “Mitch McConnell is a fascist turtle” without Mitch McConnell suing the site you post it on out of existence. It’s the law that allows people to post videos of police violence online and makes it really hard for the government to censor them. It’s the law that lets people criticize politicians, CEOs, and other powerful people who would rather we all shut up.
From SOPA/PIPA to SESTA/FOSTA to the repeal of net neutrality we’ve seen over and over again just how dangerous it can be when politicians who don’t understand the Internet try to regulate it, or turn it into a political talking point for their re-election campaigns. Killing off Section 230 is a dangerous idea that is gaining steam in Washington, DC. We need to smack it down. Now.
There’s no question that Big Tech companies have amassed tremendous power to limit expression, spread dangerous misinformation, silence dissent, and manipulate public opinion. These are serious problems that impact our lives, and it’s long past time the government took action to address this dangerous behavior by enacting strong legislation to prevent corporate data harvesting, banning abusive practices like microtargeted advertising, and taking on Silicon Valley’s monopolistic business practices at their root. But this Trump executive order, and similarly misguided proposals from Democrats to rip up Section 230, won’t do any of that. Instead, they’ll make these problems worse.
If the government doesn’t like how social media websites moderate content, the government can simply shut those companies down. That might seem like a good idea when someone you support is in the Oval Office, but political power changes quickly. No matter what your political beliefs are, we should all be able to agree that letting governments and corporations restrict the free flow of information is a bad idea.
Use this page to submit your comment to lawmakers in Congress and bureaucrats in the FCC letting them know exactly how you feel about the idea of blowing up Section 230. The best part is that you have the right to say whatever you want! Let’s keep it that way.