Facebook Official Says Section 230 Removals Lead to More Content Moderation

Removing liability protections from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act results in heavier content moderation, evidenced by impacts of a new anti-sex trafficking law (see 1806290044), Facebook Public Policy Manager Lori Moylan said at the Cato Institute Friday. Moylan said it’s likely some Conservative Political Action Conference attendees might argue that without Section 230 protections, Facebook “would no longer accidentally take down any conservative political speech,” which is “simply not true.”

At CPAC Friday, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was asked about the possibility of a 230 crackdown resulting in heavier content moderation. Congress should consider amending the section to prohibit “viewpoint discrimination,” Hawley said: “The goal is to give more speech, not less.” Silicon Valley is pushing a Democratic agenda and censoring conservative voices, he said, citing sweetheart deals like 230 and a “cozy” relationship between big tech and big government. He cited concerns from newly confirmed Attorney General William Barr about Silicon Valley concentration of ownership. Tech companies shouldn't be able to dictate the policy discussion, Hawley said.

Many have asked why Facebook doesn’t use a First Amendment standard for content moderation worldwide, Moylan said. That doesn’t work globally because “cultural sensitivities are incredibly different.” For example, Facebook’s nudity policy reflects a very “American point of view, much to the chagrin of our European counterparts,” she said. Moylan added that Facebook is still a “startup” and is learning, despite being 15 years old and having some 2.3 billion monthly active users.

A relatively small group of companies has incredible power to affect free speech, Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director Corynne McSherry said at Cato. The Santa Clara principles -- with proper notice and rights of appeal -- provide good guidance (see 1805070057), she said. Crafted by EFF, ACLU Foundation of Northern California, Center for Democracy and Technology and Open Technology Institute, the principles are "minimum" guidelines for industry transparency and accountability.

The U.S. should be “deeply afraid” of concentration of ownership in Amazon, Facebook and Google, said Open Markets Institute Fellow Matt Stoller, citing remarks from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claiming his platform is more like a government than a company. It's no longer a question of whether these companies are monopolies, Stoller said. But he dismissed as nonsense conservative claims that platforms are politically biased.

These companies are powerful, but that says nothing about whether society benefits from their zero-price services, countered International Center for Law and Economics Associate Director Kristian Stout. Facebook and Google compete for advertising revenue, while Google competes with Amazon as an e-commerce distributor, he argued.