WASHINGTON—Today, NetChoice raised serious privacy concerns with the reintroduction of the See Something Say Something Online Act from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and John Cornyn (R-TX). The bill would amend Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act such that online platforms could lose some legal liability protections if they don’t report content that simply could be related to drug, terrorism or violent criminal activity.
“This bill would pressure websites to hand over our personal information and chats to law enforcement – making the problems revealed by Twitter files look quaint,” said Carl Szabo, Vice President and General Counsel at NetChoice. “Illegal content is already exempt from Section 230 protections, so this law is unnecessary and comes with collateral harms. This legislation merely strong-arms online platforms into handing over the correspondence of civil rights and parents groups to law enforcement simply because speech and chat websites would need to take a better-safe-than-sorry approach to maintain protection from liability.”
“Social media should not become an arm of the police,” continued Szabo. “If the See Something, Say Something Online Act becomes law, this legislation would skirt Fourth Amendment protections and turn online platforms into a tool for law enforcement, upending our constitutional protections from government.”
Please contact Krista Chavez at press@netchoice.org with press inquiries.