The law was passed in 1996 as a part of the Communications Decency Act, which encouraged the emergence of a new form of communication in the internet era.
Trump said that Section 230 must be immediately terminated for purposed of “national security”.
US President Donald Trump reiterated his demand to repeal Section 230, a piece of internet legislation, after a hashtag, targeting the outgoing commander-in-chief, continued to trend in the United States for hours. He cried foul, blaming Twitter for sending out “false trends”.
Trump also accused the micro-blogging platform of making up only “negative stuff”. In a subsequent tweet, the US president said that Section 230 must be immediately terminated for purposed of “national security”.
What is Section 230?
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was enacted to protect owners of any “interactive computer service” from liability for content published by third-party. The piece of legislation is considered extremely vital for social media networks since the firm can not be held accountable for the millions of content posted by users.
The law was passed in 1996 as a part of the Communications Decency Act, which encouraged the emergence of a new form of communication in the internet era. However, it doesn’t protect copyright violations, sex work-related material, and violations of federal criminal law. It also allows social media platforms to remove posts that are obscene or violate the company’s policies, so long as they are acting in “good faith.”
Republicans cry anti-conservative bias
During a Congressional hearing, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google were accused of anti-conservative bias on the social media platforms. Senator Roger Wicker, chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, called for an amendment of laws governing online speech, saying “the openness and freedom of the internet are under attack.”
Twitter continues to flag the tweets of US president in which he claims a win in the presidential elections. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has also defended the decision of the micro-blogging platform to not remove Trump’s tweets related to election results. In another hearing, the Twitter chief testified that the platform has removed some 300,000 election-related tweets between October 27 and November 11, representing 0.2 per cent of all election-related tweets.
