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Content liability
Tech platforms are notneutral. Turning them into censors does not solve that problem
GOOGLE marked its 20th birthday this week. It celebrated in fitting style-being lambasted by politicians in Washington. Its failure to send a senior executive to a congressional hearing, over Russian use of tech platforms to meddle in the presidential election in 2016, was tone-deaf. Like Facebookand Twitter, whose top brassdid showup, Google wields too much influence to avoid public scrutiny. A vital debate is underway overwhether and howtech platforms should be held responsible for the content they carry. Angering legislators increases the chance of a bad outcome.
Backwhen Google, Facebook, Twitter and others were babies, the answer that politicians gave on the question of content liability was clear. Laws such as America's Communications Decency Act (CDA), passed in 1996, largely shielded online firms from responsibility for their users' actions. Lawmakers reasoned that the fledgling online industry needed to be protected from costly lawsuits. Theywere to be thought of more as telecoms providers, neutral venues on which customers could communicate with each other.
That position is hard to maintain today. Online giants no longer need protection: they are among the world's most...