A bill proposed by U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., would strip social media platforms from the liability protection they rely on to shield themselves from lawsuits generated because of users’ posts.
Currently, a law known as Section 230, which is part of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, shields them from that liability. If it becomes law, Klobuchar’s bill would create an exception to that law. “The bill’s introduction follows a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which found that a significant amount of false information about vaccines comes from 12 social-media users,” The Wall Street Journal said.
In the past few weeks the Biden administration has been accusing Facebook of allowing those “dirty” dozen to post what President Biden called “outrageous information” about the COVID vaccine.
The law, which would apply only to formally-declared public health emergencies, would designate U.S. Health and Human Services as the judge of what constitutes health misinformation.
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal July 22, 2021