Trump administration proposes punishing sites for censoring lawful speech or hosting illegal content

The US Department of Justice has submitted a proposal to weaken Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a rule that protects websites and apps from liability for third-party content. The proposal would make it riskier for sites to remove offensive content and would remove sites’ immunity for hosting material related to terrorism, child sex abuse, or cyber-stalking. It would also remove some protections for sites that don’t sufficiently explain their content moderation policies.

The new rules are a concrete application of ideas the Justice Department floated months ago. They cover two orthogonal goals for Section 230 reform: pushing web platforms to more aggressively remove harmful (and sometimes illegal) content like harassment...

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