Hawley Doesn’t Understand Section 230 — Or Is Just a Partisan Hack

He also claims that big tech and the woke left are censoring him, despite the fact that he’s about to become a published author and is a staple of Fox News shows as a guest.

Hawley is publishing an upcoming book, entitled The Tyranny of Big Tech. The book, to some observers, is an extremely cynical and diluted attempt to sell his agenda to regulate large technology companies through Section 230 reform. He attempts to take his apparent victimization of somehow being always ‘censored’ and creates an imaginative world where he remains a target.

Yeah, he’s an idiot, but he’s no victim of censorship or ‘cancel culture.’ In fact, The Washington Post invited the senator on to their live stream earlier this week to discuss his new book and give him a platform to discuss his work to gut the Section 230 liability shield. Guess what happened? Hawley muffed his opportunity to make his case for repeal Section 230 and taking on big tech by trying to instigate a one-sided pissing contest with Post technology reporter Cat Zakrzewski.

When Zakrzewski asked Hawley about his position on President Joe Biden’s electoral win, the senator tried to claim that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to hear the merits of a lawsuit brought by political operators for former President Donald Trump seeking to throw out legitimate mail-in ballots.

“Senator, I just want to step in here if you’re going to challenge this on saying they didn’t hear the merits of the case,” Zakrzewski said in response to Hawley’s claims. “Because there was an appeals court that ruled that the case lacked merit, so it’s difficult for a court to rule on the merits when they don’t exist.”

There, Hawley went off the rails. Zakrzewski attempted to shift the discussion back to Hawley’s acceptance of President Biden as his commander-in-chief, he yelled at the reporter about she was wrong about how the court handled the case. He said that Zakrzewski “can’t have it both ways” and went on to claim ‘cancel culture.’

Hawley wined: “Listen, it’s an important point. Don’t try to censor, cancel, and silence me here!” Zakrzewski then said that the Post is giving the senator a chance to speak because “we’re hosting you here,” over the publication’s live stream. Of course, Hawley’s interview with The Washington Post is immaterial to some, but it speaks to his understanding, or lack thereof, of Section 230’s purpose.

Social media platforms aren’t the only beneficiaries of Section 230 third-party liability protections. E-commerce sites, mobile apps, cloud storage providers, and (of course) porn sites are protected from liability borought on by the actions of third-party users of their platforms. Certainly, platforms could be held culpable in some cases. A recent example of justified shared culpability could be seen in the case of the parent company of Snapchat being held partly responsible for deaths linked to a catastrophic car accident supposedly caused by the app’s speed filter. However, in most instances, the direct liability is held over the actual publisher or posting user of content that is potentially criminal in nature or obscene.

Hawley believes that Section 230 is a tool of the so-called liberal elite to suppress right-wing political ideology on social media platforms. The recent ruling of Facebook’s oversight board that the lifetime deplatforming and ban of former President Donald Trump was justified to protect the platform and the company from legal liability that it views as burdensome. The oversight board did ask Facebook to reevaluate the decision in the future, but the role of the company blocking the former president for life was ultimately justified under the existing case law confirming Section 230’s applicability. That’s besides the point though.

Hawley and other conservative and progressive allies of his who want to gut or reform Section 230 do so at the risk of harming much more than big tech behemoths like Facebook. From the perspective of Hawley, Section 230 has encouraged porn platforms to run amok without accountability for their actions. He has been openly supportive of controversial, one-sided reporting of New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof attempting to implicate adult industry powerhouses Pornhub and Xvideos in a moral panic. The senator has also openly expressed support for censorship against speech that may be counter to his perverted view of what free speech is. Hell, this man tried to get loot boxes in video games like Fortnite restricted because he thought it stimulated gambling addiction in children. (That bill went nowhere, even when the Republicans controlled the White House and Congress.)

Ultimately, Hawley is barking up the wrong tree and its going to harm millions of people who directly and indirectly rely on Section 230 protections — adult performers and indy studios included.