Since the inception of social media the government has granted these companies special protection under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Providing immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) who publish information provided by third-party users: 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. The statute in §230 further provides "Good Samaritan" protection from civil liability for operators of interactive computer services in the removal or moderation of third-party material they deem obscene or offensive, even of constitutionally protected speech, as long as it is done in “good faith”.

This “good faith” gave them the power to moderate 3rd party posts for being obscene or offensive, however there is no definition of these two terms attached to their immunity. These platforms originally offered to provide an online arena for the free exchange of ideas and debate, within the guidelines established, but with no definition of obscene or offensive to reign in their censorship we see users banned, pages removed, and posts censored which are neither obscene or offensive (or wouldn’t be considered such by the general public), they’re merely disagreeable to the owners of the platforms. This is not moderating. It’s censoring.

Early in this “new” social experiment these platforms remained mostly apolitical and allowed for political discourse amongst their users. As time progressed, and the political divide widened, we have seen the owners of these platforms openly choosing sides, and opposing views censored/removed/banned by these platforms.

We have witnessed political campaign pages removed and banned because they wouldn’t fall in line with the views of the platform owners.

Now, we have seen these platforms hiring “independent” fact checkers who regularly censor information easily proven true, but there is no appeal process if snopes or politifact censors your information.

We have witnessed factual posts removed with no explanation from the platform owners.

These acts are well outside of any “good faith” afforded them by this immunity. They are now blatantly acting as publishers and should no longer be afforded protections under Section 230. They should not be allowed to act as a publisher and remain protected as a platform. 

Our request is either these social media be forced to act as a platform or their immunity be revoked for violating Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.