In the US senate, Republican senator from Missouri Josh Hawley introduced a new and controversial legislation called the 'Ending Support for Internet Censorship Act'.
It's an update to existing laws that could potentially end social media as we know it. And even change the nature of discourse on the Internet forever.
The bill is an amendment to Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, introduced in the Internet's infancy in 1996. Essentially, that Act exempted websites from being liable for illegal content posted there. Today that means, if someone posts child porn on Facebook, it's the company's responsibility to take it down but they can't be held legally responsible for it being posted in the first place.
At the time the Act was voted in, it was meant to encourage investment in Internet services. Today, it still serves to act as a buffer between the culpability of platforms and their users. Don't misunderstand, that's a good thing, which we'll explain in a moment
US Senator Josh Hawley
What the new amendment then proposes is a raw deal for tech companies. It basically ends that exemption unless these sites can prove their platforms are free of political bias. In theory, it might sound sensible. In practice though, it's an arm-twisting tactic that could either destroy social media as we know it, or turn it into a cesspool of hate.
The big problem here is the specific wording of that "political bias" clause. What it means is that social media companies have to submit to external audits by the government to prove their algorithms and moderator policies. But that "audit" is the purview of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), under a US government that has already repeatedly condoned, and often encouraged, violent racism, homophobia, religious extremism, xenophobia, and worse.
So what it translates to is that social networks will have two choices. (1) They can moderate every single post, photo, video, before it goes up, cutting away "liberal" views as often as they do hate speech from the far right or (2) leave it all as is, verbal abuse, harassment, and trolling be damned.
Reuters
That's the choice, because without one of those two methods they can then be sued or fined for every incidence of illegal activity that every briefly occurs on their platform, no matter how fast they take it down. And yeah, they're either way going to have to keep moderating.
So what does that mean for the rest of us? Well, it's important to note that this bill is restricted in its reach. Specifically, it only pertains to "companies with more than 30 million active monthly users in the US, more than 300 million active monthly users worldwide, or who have more than $500 million in global annual revenue." That means YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and who knows how many others.
If companies agree to effectively not police hate speech, that means you'll be experiencing all of it in all its glory. Well, for however long you can tolerate that anyway. And that sort of shit has caused genocides before.
Reuters
The other possibility is that everyone (in the US at least) gets censored based on what the FTC says. And that could mean a China-like system of online censorship, because "free of political bias" is a conveniently vague description.
And yet, this is something Hawley's office has the gall to call it a "sweetheart deal".
The fact of the matter is, tech companies don't want to get sued, they don't want to be liable for every user on their platform. And yet, it's impossible for social networks to function as they do right now while also policing every single post before it makes it online. Take YouTube for instance, where an estimated 400 hours of content are uploaded every single minute. How in the hell do you police that?!
Of course, tech companies aren't going to bear the responsibility just so you can get content. That means these sites might have to change fundamentally, seeing as they're all based in the US. Maybe instead of user-created content YouTube will instead become more like Netflix, with only approved and verified stuff making it online.
And that's just your entertainment, it doesn't even address what happens to people that make their money off these sites. Social media managers, influencers, news publications, all of them will face a massive hit.
It's still unclear if the amendment has a chance of passing in the US Senate. That being said, Big Tech isn't giving up the ghost without a fight.