Big Tech can no longer be allowed to police itself

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Still, Big Tech realises the cognitive dissonance involved in censoring online activity while continuing to portray itself as the town square. See, for example, the recent Electronic Frontier Foundation statement fretting about the slippery slope of censorship. The industry simply does not have the ability, or the right, to self-police any longer. In a world where Big Tech has the power not only to fan the flames of hate speech and fake news, but also remove it when and where it likes, it is clear that the internet is a fundamentally different place than it was in 1996 — one that needs fundamentally different rules.

The conversation about what those rules should look like is heating up. Olivier Sylvain, an associate professor of law at Fordham University, notes that as the business model and power of technology change and grow, so too should the law.

“The concept of immunity in 230 as originally conceived is no longer relevant in a world in which the largest tech firms are engineering an environment in which they can extract all kinds of information about users for their own profit,” says Prof Sylvain. He recently proposed that the CDA be recrafted to “shield providers from liability for third-party user online conduct only to the extent such providers operate as true passive conduits”.

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