Sen. Eric Schmitt unveils bill to end government internet censorship

WASHINGTON — Missouri GOP Sen. Eric Schmitt will introduce legislation Wednesday that would outlaw government-requested censorship of lawful online speech — restarting discussion of how to accomplish the lofty goal after earlier ideas stalled.

Schmitt’s COLLUDE Act would strip Big Tech platforms of legal immunity for third-party content under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 if they cooperate with government demands to remove First Amendment-protected speech.

“Big Tech executives have no business acting as censors on behalf of the federal government, and accountability is coming for those who sought to silence those whom they disagreed with,” Schmitt said.

“Freedom of speech is a foundational aspect of our republic and must be jealously guarded,” he added.

Schmitt was elected to the Senate this past November after four years as Missouri’s attorney general. In his previous role, the Republican used litigation to unearth details about federal pressure on social media companies to censor speech.

The COLLUDE Act‘s full name is the Curtailing Online Limitations that Lead Unconstitutionally to Democracy’s Erosion Act.

Although it faces an uphill climb in the Democrat-held Senate, Schmitt’s proposal offers a fresh idea for heading off federal efforts to police so-called disinformation on subjects such as COVID-19 and alleged political corruption, after repeated instances of censored perspectives later gaining broad acceptance as fact.

Section 230 is a foundational law from the early digital age that allows companies to avoid being sued for content created by third-party users, effectively preventing social media and other firms from being held liable for hosting defamatory postings or other content that could otherwise have them hauled before civil courts.

The new legislation would amend Section 230 to deny protection to firms that act on government censorship requests or those issued by third parties acting on government demands — creating a major financial incentive for tech executives to adopt a forcefully pro-free speech stance.

The bill would only allow companies to act on official content-removal requests for “a legitimate law enforcement purpose or a national security purpose.”

In theory, reforming or eliminating Section 230 has bipartisan support — though Democrats and Republicans have different visions of the aftermath. Such reform could still serve as a future vehicle for Schmitt’s proposal

President Biden in September reaffirmed his support for scrapping Section 230 protections, but said he thought platforms should be liable for bigoted and hateful content.

“I’m calling on Congress to get rid of special immunity for social media companies and impose much stronger transparency requirements on all of them,” the president said at the time.

Many Republicans rallied to repeal Section 230 in October 2020 after Twitter and Facebook censored The Post’s reporting on an abandoned laptop that contained documents linking Joe Biden to his son Hunter’s business relationships in China and Ukraine.

During his final weeks in office, President Donald Trump vetoed a $740 billion defense bill because it did not repeal Section 230, among other grievances — including that the bill sought to block his drawdown of troops in Afghanistan and forced the renaming of 10 military bases that honor Confederates.

Trump said in his veto message that the bill “fails even to make any meaningful changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, despite bipartisan calls for repealing that provision. Section 230 facilitates the spread of foreign disinformation online, which is a serious threat to our national security and election integrity. It must be repealed.”

Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) in 2021 introduced a bill that seeks to stop partisan censorship by companies like Facebook and Twitter by declaring the platforms “common carriers,” a term also used for companies like railroads that must transport goods without discrimination.

Hagerty’s 21st Century FREE Speech Act would repeal Section 230 and require transparency in moderation practices while declaring any “interactive computer service” with “more than 100,000,000 worldwide active monthly users” as a common carrier that could not discriminate by viewpoint.

The bill also would mandate that platforms publish “accurate” moderation and account suspension information.

A different approach is promoted by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), sponsor of the Bust Up Big Tech Act and Trust-Busting for the Twenty-First Century Act, which would force some companies to break up to avoid monopoly power.