A recent court decision in Brazil makes social media platforms liable for speech, meaning censorship and deplatforming will be the norm.
In February, Democratic and Republican Senators, led by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), introducido a bill known as the STOP CSAM Act which would not only target encrypted messaging services but would also sunset the civil and criminal protections granted to online services via Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Gutting Section 230 has long been a dream of certain technophobic politicians who want to “hold Big Tech accountable” for speech published on their platforms.
En el Centro de elección del consumidor, we’re produced tons de contenido about why Section 230 has been vital to the growth of the free-flowing and lightly regulated Internet, ensuring these platforms can be free from liability claims allowing them to deliver millions of online services and websites.
You simply wouldn’t have unfettered speech and all types of innovation if online services had to constantly police their platforms by law to ensure they wouldn’t get caught in the dragnet of litigation-hungry lawyers looking to score a buck, or overzealous prosecutors looking to shut down speech they don’t like.
If we want an example of what a Section 230-less society would look like, we only need look to Brazil.
From the AP:
The majority of justices on Brazil’s Supreme Court have agreed to make social media companies liable for illegal postings by their users, in a landmark case for Latin America with implications for U.S. relations.
Brazil’s top court decided to rule on two different cases to reach an understanding on how to deal with social media companies as reports of fraud, child pornography and violence among teenagers become rampant online. Critics warn such measures could threaten free speech as platforms preemptively remove content that could be problematic.
Gilmar Mendes on Wednesday became the sixth of the court’s 11 justices to vote to open a path for companies like Meta, X and Microsoft to be sued and pay fines for content published by their users. Voting is ongoing but a simple majority is all that is needed for the measure to pass.
Brazil’s Supreme Court ruling puts social media and digital firms on the hook for anything written on their platform, now making running a message board or a website with a comment section as perilous as running a food stand without a permit on a busy downtown street.
Without the liability protections, social media users in Brazil are sure to face the consequences of a completely neutered online experience. If you thought social media censorship was bad before, and deplatforming went too far, expect this to be 1,000 times worse now that every word written on a website could land an online company in court.
What will this mean for users wanting to post their political commentary on Facebook, publish literary reviews on Substack, or criticize their local mayors on YouTube? These platforms will be required by law to strike whatever they see as potentially damaging or prone to lawsuits and prosecution. It sounds like online hell.
Expect VPN downloads to surge in Brazil even as I write these words. Previous attempts by judges to block the social media platform X/Twitter in Brazil caused VPN downloads in the country to spike nearly 1600%, despite the threat of a large fine.
The cautionary tale of Brazil’s experiment in making platforms liable for user-generated speech should give many US politicians pause. If we want an Internet hellhole with prosecutors and lawyers scanning pages for objectionable content, we’re in for a world of trouble. Let’s continue to keep Section 230 in place and avoid Brazil’s fate.
Yaël Ossowski es subdirectora del Consumer Choice Center.
