Website Liability Reform Worries Smaller Players

While Facebook has said it is open to liability reform that would make websites more accountable for posted content, smaller players are concerned that they wouldn’t be able to afford the costs of expanded liability.

Congress is currently weighing changes in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields sites from most liability suits over content. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission could make a proposal on the matter as soon as Wednesday, Bloomberg reported.

But smaller online players like Etsy and Tripadvisor are concerned that losing protections provided by Section 230 will open them up to lawsuits over user-posted content. They also worry about being able to cover the costs of increased monitoring of content.

“The Hill is focused on addressing perceived abuses or lapses in responsibility by Big Tech, but one-size-fits-all policy prescriptions may actually embolden those larger platforms at the expense of smaller and mid-sized platforms like Etsy,” said Jeffrey Zubricki, Etsy’s director of U.S. government relations, according to Bloomberg.

On Dec. 15, Esty and other mid-sized Internet companies announced they had formed Internet Works, a coalition they say “will work with Congress to promote the benefits of Section 230, a provision of the Communications Decency Act.”

According to Bloomberg, smaller websites are particularly concerned that legislators are too focused on major players like Facebook and Google while they mull changes to the law.

Tripadvisor, which relies heavily on user-posted comments for content, told the FCC recently that it needs the protections provided by Section 203 to ensure the integrity of user comments. It said that about 5 percent of its posts were rejected in 2018 because they were deemed irrelevant, biased, or inauthentic.

“Review sites such as Tripadvisor could easily become nothing more than only-positive advertising glimpses” because “hosting critical or negative views would create a substantial risk of legal liability,” Tripadvisor said in a filing, per Bloomberg.

Google’s owner Alphabet is also wary about changing the law.

At a hearing of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation in October, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai asked lawmakers to be “very thoughtful” about any changes to Section 203, Bloomberg said.

“We all share the same goal: free access to information for everyone, and responsible protections for people and their data,” Pichai told lawmakers, according to Bloomberg. “We support legal frameworks that achieve these goals.”

Meanwhile, Facebook and Google are encountering a bevy of antitrust lawsuits in addition to probes by European and American regulators. For example, Facebook faces an antitrust suit backed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and 46 states, while Google has been hit by an antitrust suit filed by a group of 38 state attorneys general.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post reported that Facebook has proposed easing antitrust concerns by letting a rival company license access to its code and its users’ network of relationships to foster the easier development of a competing social platform.

Facebook made the offer to federal and state investigators who were preparing two antitrust suits against it, according to the news report. However, the Post said investigators ended up turning down the concept, which was among a collection of proposed solutions the company put forward earlier this year. The paper said regulators thought the idea didn’t completely address antitrust concerns.

In August, Reuters reported that Facebook has advocated for a law that would simplify the process of moving videos and pictures to a competing site. The support came before a planned Sept. 22 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hearing on the matter.