[jcranmer]

I think that's the point of this bill. They force Facebook et al. to get certified bias-free in a manner that basically makes it impossible to get that certification. So then they get the headlines saying "FCC finds Facebook is biased!!!111"

The bill would be more palatable to me if they simply dropped the immunity, without any certification process. But then demonstrating bias would require winning civil lawsuits, which requires demonstrating damage suffered by the bias and also convincing 12 members of the jury in a unanimous vote... which is unlikely to happen, I think.

(Addendum: actually, the real point of the bill may be to just say "Facebook/Twitter/Google is biased, and I'm doing something about it!" and ignore any actual chance of it making law or being reasonable. It's not like many people actually read details of bills to understand what it does and doesn't say.)

[throwawaygh]

> The bill would be more palatable to me if they simply dropped the immunity, without any certification process. But then demonstrating bias would require winning civil lawsuits, which requires demonstrating damage suffered by the bias and also convincing 12 members of the jury in a unanimous vote... which is unlikely to happen, I think.

No. Killing 230 entirely would allow Twitter and Facebook to be as politically biased as they want.

However, if one of their users libels you, then you could sue Facebook in addition to that user.

And if any Facebook user posts child porn, even for a short period of time, relevant parties at Facebook could face criminal charges for distribution.

You couldn't sue Facebook for being politically biased, but Facebook would be responsible for actual crimes that its users commit.

Hawley's bill says "you won't be responsible for the illegal stuff your users do (i.e., you get 230 protections), but only as long as you keep my political appointees happy."