26 words at stake for internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter

Democrats and Republicans in Congress are taking aim at a controversial law that shields internet platforms including Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. from lawsuits over content posted by users. The measure — just 26 words known as Section 230 — now faces its biggest reckoning since it was included in the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Calls to revise it grew in the months before the November election and intensified after the deadly attack on Congress by then-President Donald Trump’s loyalists. Trump and his GOP allies claim Section 230 gives companies leeway to censor conservative speech, an assertion he repeated on Sunday at a right-wing gathering in Florida. Democrats accuse the same Internet platforms of failing to curb misinformation and hate speech, arguing that Trump’s posts on election fraud fueled the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. Even some on Wall Street are pointing fingers at the shield after market turbulence caused by a horde of retail investors using online chat forums targeted stocks like GameStop Corp. While industry lobbyists have urged a cautious approach, a House panel has already summoned the chief executive officers of Facebook, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Twitter to testify at a March 25 virtual hearing on misinformation…
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