Spencer Finley

Politics Editor

sjf5814@psu.edu

Recently, digital broadcasting giant Spotify has come under criticism for its lack of moderation of its platform. The cause of the recent controversy was podcaster and former wrestler Joe Rogan, who had an anti-vaccine doctor on his show as a guest and who has been the subject of controversy for some time now for spreading various kinds of COVID-19 related disinformation. Several prominent figures, including the members of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and Joni Mitchell, pulled their music from Spotify because the platform did not remove Rogan’s show for spreading COVID-19 vaccine disinformation. Singer India Arie also removed her content from the service because of Rogan’s history of using racial slurs and making racist remarks. Spotify appears unlikely to act against Rogan unless more influential figures make threats similar to those of Neil Young and his bandmates. This, however, begs the question: why are these companies not held accountable for allowing the spread of disinformation on their platform, and why are celebrities left to try and force these companies to grow a conscience? 

The answer to this question can be found in the form of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.” What this means is that websites cannot be treated as the publisher of views on the internet, and this applies in all sorts of instances- it here would apply to Spotify, and is what allows the organization to give people like Joe Rogan a platform; it is also the reason that Twitter, Facebook, and other websites could not be held liable for disinformation that circulate on their sites. 

This doesn’t just apply to COVID-19-related disinformation; this applies to political fake news as well. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the online conspiracy movement known as Qanon had been on the rise on mainstream social media companies like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter since 2017 as of January 6, 2021. At its core, Qanon is an online conspiracy theory which holds that global elites in politics, the media, and entertainment industries are Satan-worshiping pedophiles who use children in their Satanic rituals, and that Donald Trump was leading a movement to flush these people out. This movement caused real-life damage; Qanon had a notable presence at the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021. More importantly, Qanon was a major player in the war on truth, a major influence on the beliefs of the Republican Party and helped amplify and grant validity to Former President Trump’s lie that the 2020 Election had been stolen because of voter fraud in key swing states. While more has been done to stop the conspiracy theory from spreading since the attack on the U.S. Capitol, the companies acted too slowly to make a difference in time.

This pattern can be seen earlier than that as well. During the 2016 Election, for example, the Pizzagate conspiracy, a sort of precursor to Qanon, held that Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager, John Podesta, were running a child sex trafficking ring out of the basement of Comet Ping Pong in Alexandria, Virginia. The disinformation began to be disseminated on 4Chan, and moved quickly to more mainstream sites like Reddit, Facebook and Twitter, where little was done to stop the spread of the conspiracy theory before it was too late. You may have heard about the result of this disinformation- a North Carolina firefighter went up to Comet Ping Pong with an AR-15, threatened guests and staff at the restaurant with his rifle, and used said weapon to try and gain access to the nonexistent basement of the shop. Not only did this man cause severe distress to guests and staff at the restaurant, but buying into this disinformation landed him time in jail. 

By now, the pattern emerging must be evident: social media companies allow some sort of disinformation to flourish, people get radicalized or deceived, some catastrophic event occurs where people get hurt and then the companies try too late to implement half-hearted moderation policies. It seems obvious that these companies should be held to account for allowing harmful disinformation to spread; however, because of Section 230, the companies cannot be held liable for allowing the disinformation which precipitated said catastrophe in the first place. However, the law is not set in stone. Section 230 is not the Constitution or one of the 27 Amendments- it is just a law like any other and can be repealed by an act of Congress with only a simple majority. However, big tech is today so universally unpopular that repealing Section 230 to increase accountability might have bipartisan support. Therefore, given the plausibility and great benefits of repealing the law, Section 230 can and should be done away with.

Some readers may object that doing this would imperil their First Amendment rights, as corporations would necessarily have greater power and incentive to censor users in order to avoid allowing disinformation to spread, which might put them in a position to be sued or otherwise punished. However, this fear is based on a gross misunderstanding of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from jailing, fining, or otherwise punishing individuals for the things they say- it does not guarantee that the individual cannot be punished by private entities for their remarks. For example, if an employee of a company were to call their boss a racial slur, while the government could not imprison or fine the individual for using bigoted and offensive language to describe their boss, they could still be fired by the boss whom they just insulted. Further, even the right to say what you want without the government punishing you has limitations. Starting with Schenck v. U. S., the right to free speech has been limited depending upon the context and content of speech. If it appears likely that a person’s remarks were responsible for initiating mob violence, for example, they can be charged with a crime. 

Given that repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act would force companies to moderate content more aggressively, and given that such moderation would not violate an individual’s right to free speech, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ought to be repealed.