Professor Olivier Sylvain shared his expert opinion on Section 230 reform with Protocol.
Three top Democratic senators added to the stack of proposed Section 230 reforms Friday, introducing their own bill that creates narrow carve-outs for a range of online harms, dramatically limits the scope of behaviors that Section 230 covers and takes aim at illicit activity that online platforms directly profit from.
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Olivier Sylvain, a professor of law at Fordham University who also consulted on the bill, said Section 230 as written makes it difficult for plaintiffs to allege that platforms are responsible for serving ads in ways that could violate civil rights laws. One prominent example: when Facebook allowed advertisers to exclude users by race. Facebook settled a suit filed by civil rights advocates and has since made a slew of changes to prevent illegal discrimination in advertising. But Sylvain said the barriers to those kinds of suits are still too high, and they often don’t get to the discovery phase.
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Under the new legislation, Sylvain said, “Facebook and other intermediaries would still be able to litigate the question of whether or not they are violating” civil rights laws. “What you have under Section 230 is an immunity that never gets us to the question of whether they are responsible,” he added.