Government overreach warped a law to protect the internet. Now Congress might let it die. Here’s why.



Why does Section 230 exist? Section 230 shields tech companies from liability for the user-generated content they host. If you listened to the 230 absolutists here (one of whom even has a 230 tattoo), the story of 230 might sound like a divine creation story.

In the beginning, God created Section 230. Now, the internet was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the blessings of liberty were hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be Section 230,” and there was Section 230.

So why would Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) even think about sunsetting this law, potentially returning the internet to the world of darkness? In the real story of Section 230, the government created Section 230. And that story begins with good intentions but ends with government overreach.

Let us begin with the good intentions. Imagine that, hypothetically, a rapist and human trafficker becomes a popular social media influencer on X. And one of his victims tweets that he is a rapist and human trafficker. The influencer then files a frivolous defamation lawsuit against not just the victim—but also against X for hosting her tweet.

In that situation, X can invoke the legal shield of Section 230, and the judge will dismiss the lawsuit. But that is only where the story begins, not where it ends.

Imagine that you’re in high school, and you learn from your classmates that there’s child porn of you on Twitter. Multiple people contact Twitter to take it down, and you even provide Twitter a copy of your ID when asked, but it still doesn't take it down — until a federal agent intervenes.

You sue Twitter, alleging that it violated federal child pornography laws. Twitter does not even attempt to contest that allegation. Instead, it invokes the legal shield of Section 230, and the judge dismisses your claim.

That, in a nutshell, is the real story of Doe v. Twitter: “Twitter does not argue that Plaintiffs have failed to allege a violation of Section 2252A but contend this claim is barred by CDA § 230 immunity. The Court agrees.”

In tech policy, we must analyze the full scope of a law. In Moody v. NetChoice (2024), the court chided both sides for confining their battle to the “heartland applications” of a law and for ignoring the “full scope” of the law’s coverage.

And while the 230 absolutists will defend Section 230 based on its heartland applications — defamation and other forms of tort liability — the full scope of Section 230 touches every single federal and state law, including federal child pornography laws.

Section 230 is the government. It’s a special immunity for the tech industry that’s created by the government. Under normal circumstances, the story of Doe v. Twitter should be a story where injustice triumphs because of government overreach.

Yet, when Sen. Graham and Sen. Durbin attempted to narrowly reform Section 230 for child porn alone, they were met with an apocalyptic reaction from both D.C. lobbyists and D.C. think tanks. And the worst culprits were the (corporate) libertarians who supposedly hate government overreach.

Perhaps that explains why both senators are now trying to sunset Section 230: to obtain leverage for 230 reform. In D.C., the easiest path is one where the Congress does nothing. Today, Section 230 stays the same if nothing happens. Sen. Graham and Sen. Durbin lack meaningful leverage — even if they are attempting to reform 230 for child porn alone.

But if Section 230 sunsets on January 1, 2027, it gets repealed if Congress does nothing. Now Sen. Graham and Sen. Durbin hold the leverage. And while I could speak for hours to debunk the bad (or even bad-faith) arguments against 230 reform, those bad arguments also lose their power when the people making them lose their leverage.

No immunity for child porn does not mean, for example, that a tech company would be directly liable for every piece of child porn that a user posts. No federal or state law imposes such strict liability — in part because that would be unconstitutional under Smith v. California (1959). For all this talk of how Section 230 is “the Internet’s First Amendment,” repealing Section 230 would not repeal the actual First Amendment.

No immunity for child porn does mean, however, that if any incident like Doe v. Twitter were to repeat itself, government overreach would not block the victims from seeking justice.

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RFK Jr. blows Tucker Carlson’s mind; says what NO politician will admit



The Biden administration has never been a fan of political dissidents, and RFK Jr. is living proof.

“Thirty-seven hours after he took the oath of office, President Biden’s White House opened up a portal for the FBI to begin to have access to social media posts on all the different social media sites,” RFK explained in an interview with Tucker Carlson.

“The FBI then invited in the CIA, DHS, the IRS, and CISA. CISA is this new agency that is the center of the censorship industrial complex that is in charge, making sure Americans don’t hear things that their government doesn’t want them to hear.”

Those agencies, as well as agencies like the CDC, were given access to social media sites to change posts and shadow-ban users.

“I lost my Instagram account; I had almost a million followers. They say it was for ‘misinformation,’ but they could not point to a single post that I ever made that was factually erroneous,” RFK explains.

In emails, Facebook was recorded pushing back and saying RFK wasn’t factually incorrect, so they had to come up with a new word for what RFK was doing.

“Malinformation, which is information that is factually true but nevertheless inconvenient for the government,” he says, to which Tucker responds, “That’s illegal.”

“The White House was overtly telling them that if they didn’t comply, that their Section 230 immunity was in jeopardy,” RFK adds.

Dave Rubin of “The Rubin Report” isn’t surprised but is disturbed.

“It should be noted that even if RFK Jr., with his 1 million followers on Instagram, was sharing misinformation,” Rubin says, “it's not illegal.”

“It would be against the First Amendment,” he adds.


Want more from Dave Rubin?

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[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-22-at-2.17.40 PM-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Screenshot-2024-05-22-at-2.17.40%5Cu202fPM-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]In their zeal to protect Democrat politicians, judges are destroying the progress made by their predecessors.

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Stacey Abrams' group loses fight against True the Vote's election integrity efforts



Fair Fight, an activist group founded by twice-failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, sued True the Vote over its efforts to bolster the integrity of the 2020 election. Fair Fight alleged the election watchdog had violated the Voting Rights Act's protections against voter intimidation.

Despite the Biden Department of Justice pressing its thumb on the scale in favor of Fair Fight, an Obama-appointed federal judge dealt Abrams yet another defeat Tuesday, ruling in favor of TTV.

Background

TTV, a Texas-based group involved in Dinesh D'Souza's "2000 Mules" film as well as a legal battle with the China-linked election software group Konnech, called into question the eligibility of over 364,000 voters before the January 2021 runoff election for two critical U.S. Senate seats in Georgia. The stakes were high as theclose election would determine control of the Senate, and TTV figured there was good reason to suspect the voters had been ineligible to cast ballots owing to a change in residency.

According to one of Fair Fight's trial experts, TTV had a hand in ultimately challenging 250,783 supposed Georgia voters across 65 counties.

Fair Fight filed a complaint against TTV on Dec. 23, 2020, alleging the election integrity group intimidated voters "through a multi-pronged approach: challenging voters' registrations based on unreliable information; recruiting citizen watchdogs and U.S. Navy SEALS to watch voters return their ballots and monitor polling places; and, offering a $1 million reward to incentivize its supporters to find evidence of alleged illegal voting."

Scott Berson, one of the plaintiffs, claimed during the trial that he returned to Georgia's Muscogee County after completing a master's degree at Auburn University to discover that his eligibility to vote in the upcoming races was in question, reported the Associated Press.

"It was a very discouraging and frustrating thing to hear," said Berson.

In January 2023, the Biden Department of Justice filed a brief in the suit on behalf of Fair Fight, attempting to poke holes in TTV's defense, particularly its sense that its voter challenges didn't amount to intimidation under state law.

Even with the DOJ's intervention, Abrams' group couldn't eke out a win.

Ruling

Judge Steve Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia indicated in his 145-page order that "no action taken by the Defendants in this case constitute voter intimidation."

While critical of TTV's list of possible ineligible voters, suggesting it "utterly lacked reliability," Jones acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence to show that "any voter in Georgia was reasonably intimidated by Defendants' actions."

Jones noted that the ultimate decision to cause a voter to provide additional information regarding their eligibility to vote in a particular county was up to the county boards of election.

"This intermediary between the challenger and the eligibility inquiry ... creates a significant causation issue for Plaintiffs case," wrote Jones. "It impugns the direct connection between the alleged intimidating conduct by Defendants and the voter allegedly intimidated, and breaks the chain of causation for purposes of establishing liability for voter intimidation."

Jones concluded, "Not only have Plaintiffs failed to overcome the fact that their actions did not result in any direct voter contact or alone include or direct county Boards of Elections to pursue an eligibility inquiry, but there is no evidence that Defendants’ actions caused (or attempted to cause) any voter to be intimidated, coerced, or threatened in voting."

Responses

Like its founder who has exhibited a tendency to deny legitimate results, Fair Fight didn't take the loss well.

"We believe True the Vote used Donald Trump's Big Lie as the basis to launch eligibility challenges against more than 364,000 Georgians ahead of the runoff—many of whom were Black, brown, and first-time voters," Fair Fight executive director Cianti Stewart-Reid said in a statement.

"Efforts by conspiracy theorists and anti-voter extremists to strip eligible voters from the rolls through mass voter challenges and aggressive voter purges are one of the biggest threats to our democracy and upcoming elections in 2024," added Stewart-Reid.

Fair Fight may be especially sore because Judge Jones rejected another of its lawsuits in September. Abrams' Fair Fight Action claimed in a complaint that Georgia had "grossly mismanaged" the 2018 election, depriving some citizens of their right to vote. Jones figured otherwise, stating, "Although Georgia's election system is not perfect, the challenged practices violate neither the constitution nor the VRA."

TTV president Catherine Engelbrecht said of the victory, "Today's ruling sends a clear message to those who would attempt to control the course of our nation through lawfare and intimidation. American citizens will not be silenced."

Jake Evans, lead TTV attorney, stated, "This decision is monumental. It vindicates True the Vote in totality and establishes that eligibility challenges under Section 230 are a proper method to ensure voter rolls are accurate. I am grateful to help achieve this great victory."

The election integrity group made clear that it "remains steadfast in its mission to support trustworthy elections and looks forward to assisting citizens in future such lawful efforts."

— (@)

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