Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Kerr is taking the first step towards eroding the vital legal protections Big Tech enjoys. If successful, the Post has learned that some of the world's most profitable companies could potentially make billions of dollars in market value. .
Since being chosen by President Trump to run the agency, Carr's actions to sell Paramount sales to Skydance against CBS's ruthless partisan concerns have violated the FCC's “public interest” rules. , attracting the most attention.
However, his still-unusual plan to undermine the so-called “section 230” protections of major tech and social media companies is the most broad meaning, depending on how they are written and interpreted by the courts. You may have.
Not only is the social media business (now known as X) of major tech companies like Facebook and Twitter relying on this “responsibility shield” to billions of dollars in honorable posts and other alleged liability. Saves integration costs.
Investors loaded with stocks such as Google, Microsoft, Amazon and even Apple can be affected depending on how much they weaken all sorts of liability the 230 protects.
Congress passed the provisions of Section 230 as part of the Communications Determination Act of 1996. Essentially, it provided technology with a path to third-party posting to the platform.
The idea was that lawsuits over honour and other defamation created by third parties could undermine new economic innovation.
Moreover, unlike traditional media, they are simply conduits of unbiased information.
They do not operate as traditional publishers by hosting message boards, chat rooms and should not accept the responsibility that comes with them.
However, my sources say that Kerr believes the world has changed dramatically since the early days of the Internet.
Social media has replaced chat rooms.
The operators of these sites make all kinds of editorial decisions.
Meta's Facebook is not a fair repository of opinions and news.
Remove phone calls to remove child pornography and commit violent behavior, and Facebook can always make a decision about what it allows on the platform.
Facebook Censorship
In other words, it is a de facto publisher.
Facebook literally censored a speech questioning the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine.
Both platforms have curbed coverage of posts from the election year Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
According to my sources, reliance on Big Tech's Section 230 is clearly important.
Amazon cannot sue for slanderous book reviews despite being given to the sale of the author's book. Microsoft claimed in court that 230 protected it from improperly removing ads caught in its anti-spam software.
For 230, the court dismissed a lawsuit against Apple over fraudulent apps in the app store.
Conservatives regularly complain that 230 allows Google-owned YouTube to censor right-leaning content. Google's search engines are underscoring content while downgrading right-leaning news sources.
Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, publishes the results without results based on the almost progressive political views of the volunteers who provide the content, critics argue.
Even generative AI can lean towards Section 230 for liability relief.
By intentionally calling balls and strikes, Kerr believes that the technology platform is acting more like the New York Times than simply visually visualizing blind information, and traditional publishers and business. You should bear honor and other potential liability as well.
The way he gets there is a great unknown among the telecommunications lawyers I spoke to.
The FCC has a majority of new GOPs led by Carr, but is the top regulator of new and old media.
There is legal authority to interpret Section 230 and changes the previous guidance that gave Big Technology a vast protection.
He can undermine or eliminate the shield by issuing so-called advisory opinions.
It will then be up to the court to decide whether to use his guidance when weighing the case in Section 230.
There are many possibilities, especially in cases before a conservative judge.
In other words, a case of a major technology that has been previously rejected in the summary judgment may “stand” in the court and move towards discovery, depending on how the judge interprets the FCC dict. there is.
Litigations are by no means cheap, so tech companies can settle rather than fight.
It's difficult to estimate the damage this could have on a big technology, but some wise legal types I talk about say that liability can be enormous.
Of course, all sorts of crazy things are everywhere on the web. If you feel that you're the unfair type of person posting something on Wikipedia or YouTube, you're targeting a deep pocket of the platform as opposed to a troll that makes a lot of sense.
There is a double threat to publicly-published high-tech companies.
Sundar Pichai-led Google, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook and others have stocks that are darlings in the market. Additionally, new potential legal liability presents market risk.
Many investors may just drop off their shares if Section 230 protection is put in full force to get ahead of what comes.
