Joe Biden, in an interview with The New York Times before his election, said that Section 230 “must be repealed immediately.” Donald Trump also promised to eliminate the outdated law. However, the law is still in effect.
Section 230 is part of the 1996 Communications Ethics Act that provides Internet platforms such as Google and Facebook with immunity from being considered as a publisher for any user-provided information, protecting these companies from lawsuits. Essentially, this means that Internet platforms are not responsible for the content published on their resources, which means that misinformation can spread without any consequences.
New York entrepreneur Yuri Mosha founded “Committee for Protection against Defamation, Discrimination and Harassment on the Internet.” The committee's primary goal is to repeal Section 230.
The committee created the Stop FakeNews resource, which hosts a register of sites that publish false information and disseminate distorted facts regarding people and events in the world. “Stop FakeNews” also provides a list of criteria by which the user can independently determine the degree of unreliability of the data offered to him on a particular resource.
Over the past 5 years, the number of pseudo-media that distort or invent facts has increased significantly. The purpose of such media sites is obvious. Character assassination can undermine the achievements and reputation of specific public figures. And, with the help of such “levers,” it became possible to extort significant sums from people in exchange for deleting or refuting previously published facts.
In 2023, a US court for the first time decided to block more than 100 sites from the “Stop” list FakeNews», which posts false information and fake news.
This unprecedented judicial act is designed to limit American citizens from the activities of cyber scammers on the Internet who are trying to make money by falsifying facts and publishing pre-distorted information.
The only way to prevent Google from indexing sites with fake news is a court.
“Of course, this court decision is a big event for us. But it is important to change Law 230 so that Internet platforms can remove fake information without trial,” says Mosha. “This is a really big problem, we live in the 21st century, and many American laws are very outdated.”
