Roundup of the House Commerce Committee Hearing on Section 230

Yesterday, the House Energy & Commerce Committee (the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and the Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Commerce) held a hearing called “Fostering a Healthier Internet to Protect Consumers.” The hearing page. This post rounds up some links from the event:

Committee memos:

• The Democrats’ memo.
• The Republicans’ memo. The Democrats’ memo is mostly vanilla. In contrast, the Republicans’ memo is terrible. It is filled with inaccuracies, anti-tech venom, and talking points typically associated with the “libs.” TechFreedom’s must-read rejoinder to the Republicans’ memo.
• Rep. Walden’s opening remarks.

Witnesses’ written testimony:

• Steve Huffman, Reddit
• Danielle Keats Citron, Boston University
• Corynne McSherry, EFF
• Hany Farid, UC Berkeley
• Katie Oyama, Google
• Gretchen Peters, Alliance to Counter Crime Online

Some commentary in conjunction with the hearing:

• Elliot Harmon, EFF, Changing Section 230 Would Strengthen the Biggest Tech Companies. Lots of good lines, including:
  • “If lawmakers weakened Section 230, they wouldn’t just be threatening those spaces — they would risk kicking some people completely off the internet. Without Section 230, platforms would effectively have to determine the risk of a user before that user would ever be allowed to speak.”
  • “Future legislation to erode Section 230 might do nothing more than further harden Facebook and Google from meaningful competition.” For more on this point, see my Balkinization post.
• Sophia Cope, EFF Urges Congress Not to Dismantle Section 230
• Eric Goldman, The PLAN Act Proposes to Amend Section 230 to “Protect”…Landlords and Hotel Chains?
• Eric Goldman, Top Myths About Content Moderation
• Robert Winterton, Section 230 Should be in Our Trade Agreements. Here’s Why.
• Matt Schruers, Myths and Facts about Section 230

See also Project Disco’s compendium of Section 230 resources.