There's a problem on the internet (well, lots of them, but we're talking about just one for purposes of this post): online sex trafficking. Where there's a problem, Congress looks for a solution, but when it comes to the internet they tend to be really, really bad at it and apply a sledge hammer where a scalpel is called for. We're seeing it again with the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA, with another version Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act [FOSTA] in the mix). The Senate is planning on taking the bill up next week, a bill that undermines the Communications Decency Act and specifically, Section 230 of it, which protects online platforms from liability for some types of speech by their users. Think Facebook, Twitter, Daily Kos, etc.
Here's the problem, as explained by Slate's Mike Goodwin:
Writ small, SESTA and FOSTA have always been ostensibly about sexual services offered on online classified-ads platforms ... But the legislative language is written broadly enough to reach online services that aren’t classified-ad platforms of any sort—it appears to apply to public and private online forums and even emails and direct messages. Some observers, including me, think this breadth is intentional—some companies and industries with their own beefs against internet companies want SESTA to be enacted as a precedent to whittle away other protections for internet services. [...]
Internet policy experts hoped that, at minimum, that clean version of FOSTA would replace SESTA. What happened instead is the FOSTA-SESTA package, in which House lawmakers have incorporated the worst provisions of both bills in ways aimed at making internet companies more subject to prosecution and lawsuits and more prone to censor users’ speech online. This combined bill has consequences not just for the companies but also for those who use these companies’ services.
The very real fear is that all forms of social media will crack down on community members' speech, including "the plethora of nonprofit and community-based online groups that serve as crucial outlets for free expression and knowledge sharing." And when that happens, the most marginalized voices will be among the first to be silenced.
Protecting victims of sex-trafficking is a completely laudable goal. Over-legislating to clamp down on free speech online is not, but that's what Congress is about to do.