US Justice Dept. Drafts Bill To Limit Social Media Discretion To Police User Content

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 24th September, 2020) The US Department of Justice said in a statement that it has submitted to Congress a draft legislation that may put constraints on popular social media platforms' discretion to police user content.

Acting at the direction of President Donald Trump, the Justice Department seeks to alter Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that gives immunity to online platforms from civil liability for third-party content and its removal.

"For too long Section 230 has provided a shield for online platforms to operate with impunity," Attorney General William Barr said in the statement on Wednesday. "We therefore urge Congress to make these necessary reforms to Section 230 and begin to hold online platforms accountable both when they unlawfully censor speech and when they knowingly facilitate criminal activity online."

The Justice Department said its initiative replaces vague terms that may be used to shield arbitrary content moderation decisions.

The initiative also proposes more specific language for greater guidance to social media platforms, users and courts, with a second category of amendments to incentivize platforms to address the growing amount of illicit content online.

"Platforms that purposely solicit and facilitate harmful criminal activity... should not receive the benefit of this immunity. Nor should a platform receive blanket immunity for continuing to host known criminal content on its services, despite repeated pleas from victims to take action," the Justice Department said.

Trump signed an executive order calling for a series of legislative and legal actions to prevent online censorship after Twitter applied a fact-checking label to his content alleging that mail-in ballots are a source of voter fraud as well as otherwise censored his and his sons' tweets.