White House wants to discuss Section 230 after Musk buys Twitter

On the day Elon Musk finalized the deal to acquire Twitter Inc, the White House announced it would support reforming section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).  

Section 230 protects social media platforms from liability resulting from content on their sites. Without Section 230, a social media company would be considered a “publisher” and could be held responsible for anything users say on the platform, leaving it open to volleys of lawsuits. 

President Donald Trump long held that Section 230 needed to be reformed, even signing an executive order to that effect in May 2020. 

“Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube wield immense, if not unprecedented, power to shape the interpretation of public events; to censor, delete, or disappear information; and to control what people see or do not see,” said Executive Order 13925. 

The EO also singled out Twitter, which practiced “selective censorship” against Trump and his supporters. 

“Twitter now selectively decides to place a warning label on certain tweets in a manner that clearly reflects political bias,” it continued. “As has been reported, Twitter seems never to have placed such a label on another politician's tweet. As recently as last week, Representative Adam Schiff was continuing to mislead his followers by peddling the long-disproved Russian Collusion Hoax, and Twitter did not flag those tweets. Unsurprisingly, its officer in charge of so-called ‘Site Integrity’ has flaunted his political bias in his own tweets.” 

But nearly a year later, Biden revoked the executive order and maintained immunity for the social media giants. 

At a Monday press briefing, however, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed that Biden “has long argued that tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause” and that he “has been a strong supporter of fundamental reforms to achieve that goal, including reforms to Section 230.” 

Later during the press briefing, Psaki said the White House would support reforming the act, a stance not previously taken by the Biden administration. 

“But there are also reforms that we think Congress could take and we would support taking, including reforming Section 230, enacting antitrust reforms, requiring more transparency,” said Psaki.