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Internet Association Endorses Internet Censorship Bill A trade group representing giants of Internet business from Facebook to Microsoft has just endorsed a “compromise” version of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), a bill that would be disastrous for free speech and online communities. Just a few hours after Senator Thune’s amended version of SESTA surfaced online, the Internet Association rushed to praise the bill’s sponsors for their “careful work and bipartisan collaboration.” The compromise bill has all of the same fundamental flaws as the original. Like the original, it does nothing to fight sex traffickers, but it would silence legitimate speech online . It shouldn’t really come as a surprise that the Internet Association has fallen in line to endorse SESTA. The Internet Association doesn’t represent the Internet—it represents the few companies that profit the most off of Internet activity. It’s shameful that a small group of lobbyists with an agenda of censor...

Senator Thune’s Bill Is Just As Bad As SESTA In advance of a markup of the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act ( S. 1693 ) (“SESTA”), scheduled for November 8 in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, Senator John Thune (R-SD) has floated a manger’s amendment [.pdf] that is intended to replace the current text of SESTA. Unfortunately, Sen. Thune’s bill is not an improvement over SESTA. Amendments to Section 230 Sen. Thune’s bill, like the current SESTA language, would expand Internet intermediary liability for user-generated content by weakening Section 230 immunity ( 47 U.S.C. § 230 ). Specifically, both bills would expose online platforms to state criminal prosecutions, and federal and state civil actions. As we’ve explained, these changes are not necessary because Section 230 is not broken . Section 230 strikes a reasonable policy balance that allows the most egregious online platforms to bear responsibility for illegal third-party content, while gener...