May 17, 2024
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Congress unveils plan to hold entire internet hostage annually with Section 230 sunset to extort Big Tech
By Robert Romano
“It would require Big Tech and others to work with Congress over 18 months to evaluate and enact a new legal framework that will allow for free speech and innovation while also encouraging these companies to be good stewards of their platforms. Our bill gives Big Tech a choice: Work with Congress to ensure the internet is a safe, healthy place for good, or lose Section 230 protections entirely.”
That was House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) in a May 12 oped in the Wall Street Journal outlining their proposed draft legislation, the “Section 230 Sunset Act,” that would end Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protections on Dec. 31, 2025 for millions of interactive computer services, including websites, e-commerce stores and other small businesses.
The legislation simply states, “This section shall have no force or effect after December 31, 2025.” No alternative is presented.
Instead, per McMorris-Rodgers and Pallone’s oped, “Big Tech [has] a choice: Work with Congress to ensure the internet is a safe, healthy place for good, or lose Section 230 protections entirely.”
In other words, it’s “Nice internet you have there, shame if anything were to happen to it.”
By sunsetting Section 230, it naturally holds out the prospect for its renewal — for the right price. In the meantime, millions of websites, e-commerce stores and other interactive computer services are to be held potentially liable for the actions of their user networks if Big Tech does not or cannot pay the toll. That would break the internet.
Section 230 applies to interactive computer services which are defined as "any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions..."
Here's the problem: Repealing or even sunsetting Section 230 impacts every website and application in America with user databases with the ability to log in, post content and products and/or make purchases, which number in the millions, and it also impacts every user on those websites, which number in the hundreds of millions.
Have customers on your e-commerce store? Post products on eBay or Indiegogo or Amazon? Or maybe users simply enjoy posting on X.com, Facebook or Truth Social, contributing to Wikipedia or Ballotpedia, or making videos on YouTube or Rumble? Or perhaps you are politically active on old bulletin board style sites like Free Republic or Democratic Underground, or simply like posting in the comments sections on news sites?
The fact is, whether you are just a user, a small business or a Big Tech social media or e-commerce firm, you and everything you do on the internet will be impacted negatively by the additional regulations planned by Congress, and there will be even more censorship than we are already seeing, if this bipartisan legislation passes, which considering the bipartisan draft already in place, has already been agreed to behind closed doors by at least a few leaders in both parties.
In the meantime, as Congress turns up pressure on Big Tech social media and other platforms to make them "safe" for children, those platforms will increasingly attempt to crack down in a bid to fend off further regulation, resulting in false positive strikes occurring via the algorithms, exacerbating the digital cancel culture that has been running rampant for years against anyone who dares to speak out against the current political establishment.
The core protections of websites and other applications in question — which protect free speech on the internet — were enacted by Congress in 1996, including Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
47 U.S.C. Section 230(c)(1) forms part the internet’s liability shield, stating, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
Subsections (c)(2)(a) and (c)(2)(b) form the other part of that protection, stating, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described…”
These simultaneously grant a broad liability exemption for websites and other interactive computer services from whatever users happen to post on their websites, and grants the companies power to remove items at their discretion they find objectionable. The delicate balance this creates shields websites and other applications from lawsuits, allows for user networks to exist and otherwise protects the First Amendment rights of those websites by giving them the final say over what goes on their platforms.
In sum, Section 230 means the interactive computer services you use every day cannot be sued for what the users are doing on those networks. If the liability shield is removed, that won't mean less censorship, it will mean platforms will not be able to afford to host your content because it could be a massive liability.
Not even Elon Musk, one of the richest men in the world, might still be able to afford to host X.com.
Again, the bill sunsets Section 230 protections Dec. 31, 2025. The idea is to hold the entire internet, millions of websites with users, hostage every year to force whatever new concessions Congress wants from Big Tech. That's the extortion. Millions of websites taken hostage to exact a toll from a few. That's insane.
This creates an emergency situation by sunsetting current protections for all websites whereby a few Big Tech firms are forced to the table to negotiate on behalf of the entire internet. Whatever concessions the Big Tech firms agree to will then be applied to the entire internet, and if that creates new competitive barriers for entry into digital markets and increases costs or results in unacceptable further censorship, too bad.
Congress might even choose to make the Section 230 sunsets periodic so that the extortion can continue and be repeated for years on end, with Congress acting as the thumb-breaker.
These are the same members of Congress who unanimously passed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency bill to censor websites and platforms in 2018 without any deliberation, and more recently overwhelming passed legislation forcing divestiture of any website or application "determined by the President to present a significant threat to the national security of the United States" under the guise of the TikTok ban in the recent emergency foreign aid supplemental.
That is who will decide what the post-Section 230 world will look like. The fact is, internet freedom has never been greater jeopardy. And you had better start paying attention — before it’s too late.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/05/congress-unveils-plan-to-hold-entire-internet-hostage-annually-with-section-230-sunset-to-extort-big-tech/
Maryland U.S. Senate Dilemma: Never Trump Hogan versus Far-Left Democrat Alsobrooks?
By Rick Manning
I face the same dilemma that many Trump supporting conservatives face — what to do when a Never Trumper who opposes many of your priorities gets the GOP nominee.
In my case the self-proclaimed Never Trumper is former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.
It is difficult to rationalize voting for former Governor Hogan as he abdicated any claim that becoming the Party nominee should override other concerns when it comes to defeating Democrats after the primary election in 2022.
Two years ago, then-Governor Hogan’s anointed candidate to replace him lost the GOP nomination to a Donald Trump supporting state legislator. Hogan’s first reaction was to attack the just nominated Republican. On ABC’s This Week in 2022, Hogan attacked the Republican nominee as “a conspiracy theory believing kind of nut job.”
But Hogan didn’t stop there, when he declared to Jake Tapper on CNN in 2022, "I can tell you I'm not giving up, it just makes me want to double down and fight back against what I think is kind of a hostile takeover of the party that I love."
Well, Larry, the shoe is now on the other foot.
It will be difficult to vote for a “Republican” who spent more time attacking President Trump when he was in office than he has spent attacking Joe Biden. It will be difficult to vote for a “Republican” who is politically to the left of Mitt Romney and has aspirations of undermining the Trump agenda should they both get elected. And it will be difficult to vote for a “Republican” who will be the first to go on the left-wing media networks to denounce any conservative GOP nominee, creating the story, “GOP split on Trump Supreme Court Nominee”. And that is what Senator Larry Hogan would do.
Larry Hogan does not believe in party fealty, yet he benefitted from that when he ran for Governor after serving as ground-breaking Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich’s appointment secretary eight years earlier.
I did vote for Hogan in his two successful bids for Governor, but truthfully, that was mainly because I like and admire the man who was his Lieutenant Governor, Boyd Rutherford.
In 2024, Larry Hogan stands alone. And from what I see, he is more likely to be a “No Labels” Senator than a Republican one.
On the other hand, the Democrats have nominated a typically liberal candidate, Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, who won because the Democrat machine, led by the Governor who Hogan cleared the path for in 2022, delivered.
On Larry Hogan’s side, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is so enamored by having a Never Trump voice in the media, that it is rumored in D.C. political circles that they will spend up to $75 million to elect the former Governor.
The general election will likely revolve around the issue of who hates Trump most with Larry replaying his support for Trump’s impeachment as proof of his ‘bravery’ to stand against his Party.
Ironically, the only thing going for Larry in the general election is how awful a Senate Democrat Majority would be should their Party retake the House of Representatives and retain the presidency.
The two Democrat Senators who blocked attempts to end the filibuster and the cascade of far-left policies which would have become law are gone. Neither Arizona’s Kirsten Sinema nor West Virginia’s Joe Manchin will be in the Senate blocking 50 Democrats plus Vice President Kamala Harris from packing the Supreme Court, making the District of Columbia a state, massively increasing taxes, shuttering speech, ending state voter identification requirements where they exist, and prohibiting the sale of the internal combustion engine due to ‘climate’.
Voting for Larry Hogan would be based upon the fear of the havoc his opponent could create in a majority, and listening to the silent mantra which still runs in the deepest recesses of my brain, that any R is better than any D.
In some perverse way it is a plus that Hogan is honest about his hatred for Trump. He is honest that he will seek to undermine Trump’s agenda and will likely vote against more Trump nominees than any other Republican due to his view that anyone who supports him is a whack job. And he will be John McCain-like in his use of the Washington Post to attack President Trump in his bid to be viewed as virtuously courageous by those who will never accept him.
So with those low expectations for Hogan, he really couldn’t disappoint me.
Never Trump Hogan or a far-left standard issue Maryland Democrat Alsobrooks, that is the question? And I have no idea how I will answer it.
Rick Manning is the president of Americans for Limited Government and a former Town Councilman in Chesapeake Beach, Maryland.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/05/maryland-u-s-senate-dilemma-never-trump-hogan-versus-far-left-democrat-alsobrooks/
‘Unbelievable’ Lead for Trump among Young People and Hispanics – Can it be Trusted?
By Manzanita Miller
The latest New York Times poll of battleground states, which includes detailed cross tabs on various voter demographics, shows former President Donald Trump up by six points over incumbent President Joe Biden in a head-to-head race, and holding nearly “unbelievable” leads among swing voters.
These polls are no doubt capturing an intense backlash against Biden over contentious issues like the Israel-Hamas war, the border crisis, and crushing inflation – however the groups turning against Biden at the highest rates today have been malcontent for some time.
Young people, Hispanics and independents are all seen turning away from Biden in vast numbers compared to how these groups divvied their votes in 2020. However, it is possible some of these voters are over-estimating their willingness to walk away from Democrats in November.
Comparing the latest Times poll to the organization’s October 2023 battleground state poll, it is evident that the anti-Biden sentiment among swing voters has been brewing for some time.
Trump leads Biden 46 percent to 43 percent among young voters in the latest Times poll, with 11 percent refusing to commit. Interestingly, these numbers have been quite consistent for Trump. Last October, Trump earned 46 percent of the vote among 18–29-year-olds, but Biden earned 47 percent. Trump’s numbers with Gen Z have thus been relatively stable in polling for over six months, and Biden’s lead has shrunk slightly. Compared to 2020 though, the shift toward Trump is massive. Biden won under thirties by 24 points in 2020.
How about Hispanics? The current Times poll shows Trump leading among Hispanics 45 percent to 39 percent with 16 percent undecided, a moderate shift toward Trump compared to October. Last fall Biden lead Trump 50 percent to 42 percent, and only three percent were unsure. Trump has gained very slightly with Hispanics since October, but Biden has lost eleven points in seven months. Even last fall, Biden was already far below his 2020 margins with Hispanics, a group he won by 33 points four years ago.
The numbers are even worse for Biden with independents. Trump currently leads Biden by nine points among independents, up from a single point in October. Trump leads Biden 48 percent to 39 percent in the current poll, with a full 14 percent undecided. In October, Trump led Biden by one point, 45 percent to 44 percent, and eight percent remained uncommitted. Trump has gained slightly since October with independents and Biden has lost around five points in that time. However, the share of uncommitted voters has nearly doubled.
What we do know is that when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is thrown into the mix, Kennedy earns the highest share of support from the precise demographics Biden has lost double-digits with – young people, Hispanics, and independents. What this implies is that these voters are authentically unhappy with Biden’s platform and have been for some time. If given the opportunity they claim they would throw their support behind Kennedy – a political “mixed bag”, who gathers support from leftists and some independents and conservative leaners.
That said, when Kennedy is not an option, swing voters still claim they will desert Biden and support Trump by double-digits compared to 2020.
What we can boil the numbers down to is this: Trump has been making incremental gains with swing voters over the past four years, and those gains have held and slightly increased over the past six months. The largest shifts over the past six months have been away from Joe Biden, and an increase in the share of undecided voters.
Trump’s numbers with Gen Z have ever so slightly increased compared to October but remain fairly stable. Trump’s numbers with Hispanics have increased slightly but Biden’s numbers have declined significantly. With independents, Trump’s numbers have increased slightly, and Biden has lost slightly but the share of undecided voters has risen substantially. All three groups have withdrawn their support from Biden by double digits compared to 2020.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/05/unbelievable-lead-for-trump-among-young-people-and-hispanics-can-it-be-trusted/
Sunsetting Section 230 is an attack on free speech and will end the free and open internet as we know it
May 16, 2024, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement urging Congress to reject legislation by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) and Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-N.J.) that would sunset Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act:
“Congress is treading into dangerous territory with the announced sunset of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act being considered. Section 230 guarantees free speech on the internet. Without it, old-style bulletin boards like Free Republic and other alternative voices would have never been allowed to exist in the first place.
“Section 230 allows interactive computer services including e-commerce stores and other small businesses to operate without fear of liability from their user networks collectively consisting of millions of individuals, who also can freely post content, products and communicate with their peers. This is essential infrastructure for interstate commerce and for the free and open internet that the bill fails to offer any alternative for consideration.
“Before Congress acts, they need to understand that neither Truth Social, X nor Rumble would survive in their current forms if this bill passes. Passage of this legislation would have a chilling effect on free speech by demanding censorship of all non-government-sanctioned points of view.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2024/05/sunsetting-section-230-is-an-attack-on-free-speech-and-will-end-the-free-and-open-internet-as-we-know-it/