OTI Submits Statement for the Record in Congressional Hearing on the PACT Act

Today, the Senate Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet held a hearing entitled, “The PACT Act and Section 230: The Impact of the Law that Helped Create the Internet and an Examination of Proposed Reforms for Today’s Online World.” The hearing examined the important role of Section 230 in promoting and disseminating speech online, and the history, evolution, and expansion of Section 230’s protections for online platforms. Additionally, the hearing focused on the provisions in the Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency (PACT) Act, a bill introduced by Senators John Thune (R-S.D.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii).

New America’s Open Technology Institute (OTI) submitted a statement for the record commending the bill’s strong transparency requirements while also raising a number of concerns around the bill’s other provisions including the carve-out from Section 230, procedural requirements for platforms, and the empowerment of federal agency actors to enforce civil actions. The statement laid out the need for significant changes to the bill—as well as further discussion around the outlined sections of the bill—to avoid broad censorship by platforms seeking to avoid liability. In addition, the statement points out how removing Section 230 immunity from federal agency enforcement of civil actions raises many unanswered questions.

The following quote can be attributed to Koustubh “K.J.” Bagchi, senior policy counsel at New America’s Open Technology Institute:

“We commend the PACT Act’s authors for introducing a bill that is a significant improvement over other recently introduced proposals to amend Section 230. However, we remain concerned that the bill threatens to stifle free expression online and allow federal actors to police online content. We look forward to working with these offices to rein in these threats and provide more specificity to avoid unintended consequences. The digital space has changed significantly since the passage of Section 230 into law, and we need tools to hold platforms accountable while still protecting free expression online. But we should engage in thoughtful dialogue to ensure that any new laws promote both accountability and free speech, and to avoid having the same conversations around content moderation practices years from now.”