Hillicon Valley: Senate Republicans, DOJ target Section 230 | Facial recognition under the spotlight | Zoom launches E2E encrypted beta

by Chris Mills Rodrigo and Maggie Miller - 06/17/20 6:42 PM ET

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Welcome! Follow our cyber reporter, Maggie Miller (@magmill95), and tech reporter, Chris Mills Rodrigo (@chrisismills), for more coverage.

230 PROBLEMS: Senate Republicans and the Justice Department unveiled proposals Wednesday that would scale back legal protections for social media platforms targeted last month by President Trump in an executive order.

The legislative and administrative moves take aim at a portion of a 1996 law that gives internet companies immunity from lawsuits for content posted on their sites by third parties and allows them to make “good faith” efforts to moderate content.

The provision, known as Section 230, has recently come under sharp criticism from the right, with Republicans accusing Silicon Valley of abusing the legal protection to censor conservative content.

In an attempt to erode some of those protections, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) introduced a bill Wednesday that would make it easier for individuals to sue platforms that carry out improper moderation policies.

The Limiting Section 230 Immunity to Good Samaritans Act, co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Marco Rubio (Fla.), Mike Braun (Ind.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.), would require companies to prove a “duty of good faith” in their content moderation in order to receive Section 230 protections.

Violating that duty would be treated as worthy of damages, entitling plaintiffs to $5,000 for each affected user, along with attorney’s fees.

The measure would apply only to “edge providers,” which the bill defines as platforms with more than 30 million users in the U.S., or 300 million globally, and with over $1.5 billion in global revenue.

The Justice Department also put forward a proposal Wednesday, urging Congress to dramatically reduce Section 230’s scope.

The proposal would deny Section 230 immunity for content dealing with child exploitation, terrorism and cyber-stalking. It also recommends stripping protections from platforms that facilitate or solicit unlawful content or activity by third parties.

The DOJ called on Congress to make other changes to the statutory language, such as removing the “otherwise objectionable” phrase that allows platforms to engage in content moderation and replacing it with “unlawful” and “promotes terrorism.”

Another proposed change would add a statutory definition of “good faith” that requires content removal be consistent with terms of service and be accompanied by a “reasonable explanation.”

Wednesday’s proposals come less than a month after Trump’s executive order and reveal how Republicans plan to go after tech companies.

Trump’s order, among other things, directs an agency within the Commerce Department to file a petition with the Federal Communications Commission to clarify the scope of Section 230.

The order implies that a new rule could make social media platforms liable for claims based on third-party content as well as their efforts to moderate their platforms, but does not have the legal authority to change the law passed by Congress in 1996.

A lawsuit has already been filed against the order, and many more are expected.

Read more about the effort here.

CUT THE CABLE: A group of federal agencies has recommended the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) deny a request by a Chinese government-linked company to directly connect the U.S. and Hong Kong through an underwater communications cable.

The agencies — known as Team Telecom and made up of the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense — said the FCC should deny a request made by the Pacific Light Cable Network (PLCN) to connect Hong Kong and U.S., citing concerns that the cable would enable the Chinese government to access American data.

According to the Justice Department, one of the main investors in PLCN is the Pacific Light Data Company, a subsidiary of the fourth largest telecommunications provider in China.

The agencies cited concerns around cyber vulnerabilities to underwater sea cables that could make them easy to exploit.

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement that the recommendation to the FCC showed the U.S. is “committed to securing our critical infrastructure, which is essential to our national security.”

“To maintain the security and prosperity of our digital economy, it is vital to ensure that undersea communications cables are secure,” Wolf said. “Routing undersea cables through Hong Kong would provide the People’s Republic of China with a strategic opportunity to collect the private information of our citizens and sensitive commercial data. Hong Kong is subject to intrusive Chinese government laws that put the demands of information by the Chinese Communist Party ahead of the privacy of U.S. consumers.”

U.S. officials have long been concerned about allowing Chinese telecom companies access to American networks, pointing to a 2017 intelligence law that requires Chinese companies and citizens to disclose data to Beijing if requested.

The Justice Department cited the Chinese intelligence law in opposing the cable between Hong Kong and the U.S., saying it should instead skip over the city due to mainland China’s control over Hong Kong.

Team Telecom did, however, give the green light to PLCN’s application to connect Taiwan, the Philippines, and the U.S., pointing to those portions of the project being controlled by subsidiaries of Google and Facebook.

FREE FOR ALL: Video conferencing platform Zoom announced Wednesday that it would offer a beta version of end-to-end encryption for both free and paying users beginning in July.

Zoom previously had contemplated only offering such encryption to paying customers and not those using its free video conferencing tool. While the company boosted encryption for all users in April following widespread security and privacy concerns, it initially was not certain if it would roll out the much stronger encryption for nonpaying customers.

Beginning in July, hosts of Zoom meetings will be able to toggle the encryption service on and off since it limits some users from joining meetings, and account administrators will be able to enable or disable the enhanced security program at the account and group level.

Zoom CEO Eric Yuan announced the news in a blog post on Wednesday, writing that the encryption program would “balance the legitimate right of all users to privacy and the safety of users on our platform.”

Yuan wrote that Zoom had consulted with government representatives, civil liberties groups and child safety advocates, among others, in putting together and rolling out the encryption program.

“This will enable us to offer E2EE [end-to-end encryption] as an advanced add-on feature for all of our users around the globe — free and paid — while maintaining the ability to prevent and fight abuse on our platform,” Yuan added.

The company posted its encryption program on GitHub in May in order to solicit feedback from customers, cryptographers, nonprofits and other groups. Zoom posted an updated version of the encryption program on GitHub on Wednesday.

The focus on enhancing encryption came after Zoom began facing a wave of security and privacy concerns in March as a huge influx of individuals began using the video conferencing tool for everything from work meetings to classes to happy hours during COVID-19 shutdowns.

BLOCKED POLITICS: Facebook users are gaining the option to opt out of seeing political ads on the platform entirely, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday.

The social media giant, which has more than 2 billion users worldwide, will begin rolling out a feature that allows individuals to turn off all social issue, electoral or political ads from candidates and super PACs. The option will also be available on Instagram, the photo-sharing app owned by Facebook.

“For those of you who’ve already made up your minds and just want the election to be over, we hear you — so we’re also introducing the ability to turn off seeing political ads,” Zuckerberg wrote in a USA Today op-ed. “We’ll still remind you to vote.”

The move comes less than five months away from the 2020 elections and as Facebook weathers continued scrutiny from lawmakers and advocacy groups over its policies surrounding misinformation. Facebook’s current ad policy exempts political ads from fact-checking.

Critics, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, have repeatedly called on the company to do more to moderate what they view as dangerous content on the platform.

The option to turn off political ads altogether will be available for a portion of U.S. users starting Wednesday, the company said in a blog post. The option will apply to social, issue, electoral or political ads with the “Paid for by” political disclaimer on them. The company is planning to make the option available in countries where it has enforcement on ads about social issues, elections and politics in the fall.

The step was made as part of a larger initiative from the company to boost voter registration this year. Facebook is pledging to help up to 4 million people in the U.S. register to vote by November.

Facebook has defended its decision to allow political ads to contain misinformation as an effort to promote free speech. The company’s policies bar content that causes imminent physical harm or suppresses voting, but Zuckerberg has held that Facebook’s moderation should not work as an “arbiter of truth” when it comes to remarks shared by politicians.