230 document.
Photographer: Molly Cranna for Bloomberg BusinessweekSection 230 Was Supposed to Make the Internet a Better Place. It Failed
A tiny federal statute in 1996 transformed the web into a wildly lucrative business, and became Big Tech’s favorite liability shield. It’s now under attack from all sides.
One afternoon in July, Ted Cruz banged a gavel on the dais, calling to order a hearing of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution. The day’s first witness was Karan Bhatia, a top policy adviser for Google. He gazed up at the panel of senators, alarm creeping into his expression, like a 10-point buck hearing the sudden crack of gunfire.
When elected officials start appending the prefix “big” to the name of an industry, it’s never a good omen. Big Tobacco. Big Oil. Big Pharma. Big Soda. “Sometimes tech companies talk about their products and the effects of those products as though they are forces outside of Big Tech’s control,” Cruz said. “As we’ve heard time and time again, Big Tech’s favorite defense is, ‘It wasn’t me. The algorithm did it.’ ”