WASHINGTON — Senators Richard J. Durbin, D-IL, and Josh Hawley, R-MO, joined survivors of online sexual exploitation on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol Tuesday to call on Congress to stop shielding big tech companies from any legal repercussions for harmful posts by users.
Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act establishes that online service providers aren’t the publishers or speakers of the material being posted.
In December, Durbin, along with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., formally introduced a bill to sunset Section 230 unless Congress renews it. Their bill has not reached the floor. But the senators said recent developments, such as a New Mexico jury ordering Meta to pay $375 million in civil penalties after finding the social media giant was liable for endangering children, offered a turning point in the fight.
“The dam is breaking,” said Durbin. “Lawsuits like those in New Mexico and California will keep on coming. If big tech is forced to face accountability and liability for the harm they do, they will change their behavior.”
In 2024, a major election year, big tech companies spent $61.5 million lobbying—the most they had spent in any year to date—according to Issue One, a nonprofit that seeks to reduce the role of money in politics.
“This press conference, this legislation, this moment, is about one simple principle, which is that no amount of profit by the big tech companies justifies destroying the lives of America’s children,” said Hawley. “I don’t care how much money they give to their stockholders. It doesn’t justify destroying the lives, the futures, the hopes, the dreams of our children.”
Seven other Democrat and Republican senators have co-sponsored the bill, the Sunset Section 230 Act. One of them, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn, said another similar bill he also sponsored may have better chances getting to the Senate floor.
“I would like to see the Kids Online Safety Act come to the floor, which has even stronger bipartisan support,” said Blumenthal, when asked about the chances of the Sunset Section 230 Act passing committee.
The Kids Online Safety Act and another bill Hawley and Durbin drafted called the Stop CSAM Act attempt to address child exploitation on online platforms without erasing Section 230. The latter legislation would enable victims to sue platforms that knowingly host child sexual abuse material and require an annual safety report from large tech companies.
After the press conference, a reporter from Medill News Service asked Hawley how he and his colleagues would get past the influential tech lobby.
“We unanimously passed the Stop CSAM Act out of the Judiciary Committee, which pierces the 230 immunity shield,” Hawley said in the Capitol. “I think it’s time to put people on the record and I’d like to give every senator the chance to take that vote.”