A conservative policy expert on Friday called President Trump’s push to repeal a key legal protection for tech companies “an existential threat to their business model.”
Rachel Bovard, senior director of policy at the Conservative Partnership Institute, said on Hill.TV’s “Rising” that repealing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act would force platforms to change “the way they do business.”
“What Section 230 is…it protects these tech giants,” she said. “It’s their legal immunity and it allows them to remove content without recourse and it also protects them from getting sued for anything that’s posted on the platform by the user.”
“Now, this is an existential threat to their business model,” she added of GOP efforts to repeal the law.
Trump this week threatened to veto the annual defense policy bill if it did not include a repeal of Section 230. The 1996 law that gives online platforms liability protection for content posted by third parties while allowing them to moderate content in “good-faith.”
On Thursday, lawmakers unveiled a compromised defense bill that excluded Trump’s demanded repeal.
Trump and his Republican allies argue that Section 230 allows social media companies to discriminate against conservative content, although this has not been substantiated.
Watch part of Bovard’s interview above.
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