Senator Durbin Petulantly Promises To Destroy The Open Internet If He Doesn’t Get His Bad ‘Save The Children’ Internet Bill Passed
from the must-we-do-this-again? dept
Last week, we wrote about Senator Dick Durbin going on the floor of the Senate and spreading some absolute nonsense about Section 230 as he continued to push his STOP CSAM Act. His bill has some good ideas mixed in with some absolutely terrible ideas. In particular, the current language of the bill is a direct attack on encryption (though we’re told that there are other versions floating around). The methods by which it does so is in removing Section 230, enabling people to sue websites if they “intentionally, knowingly, recklessly, or negligently” host CSAM or “promote or facilitate” child sexual exploitation.
Now, sure, go after sites that intentionally and knowingly host CSAM. That seems easy enough (and is already illegal under federal law and not blocked by Section 230). But, the fear is that using encryption could be seen as “facilitating” exploitation, and thus the offering of encrypted communications absolutely will be used as plaintiffs to file vexatious lawsuits against websites.
And rather than fixing the bill, Senator Durbin says he’ll push for a full repeal of Section 230 if Congress won’t pass his problematic bill (for what it’s worth, this is the same thing his colleague Lindsey Graham has been pushing for, and it looks like Graham has looped Durbin into this very dumb plan):
If Congress doesn’t approve kids’ online safety legislation, then it should repeal Communications Decency Act Section 230, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told us last week.
Ranking member Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is seeking Durbin’s support for legislation… that would repeal Section 230, the tech industry’s shield against liability for hosting third-party content on platforms. Durbin told us he will see what happens with Judiciary-approved legislation on kids’ safety. “If we can’t make the changes with the bills we’ve already passed, 230 has to go,” Durbin said.
Durbin has already made it clear that he does not understand how Section 230 itself works. Last week, on the floor of the Senate, he ranted misleadingly about it while pushing for unanimous consent for STOP CSAM. He starts off with a tearjerker of a story about parents who lost children to terrible people online. But rather than blaming the terrible people, he seems to think that social media companies should wave a magic wand and magically stop bad people:
The emotion I witnessed during that hearing in the faces of survivors, parents, and family members were unforgettable. There were parents who lost their children to that little to the telephone that they were watching day in and day out.
They committed suicide at the instruction of some crazy person on the internet.
There were children there that had grown up into adults still haunted by the images that they shared with some stranger on that little telephone years and years ago.
So, first of all, as I’ve noted before, it is beyond cynical and beyond dangerous to blame someone’s death by suicide on any other person when no one knows for sure the real reason for taking that permanent, drastic step except the person who did it.
But, second, if someone is to blame, it is that “crazy person on the internet.” What Durbin leaves out is the most obvious question: was anything done to that “crazy person on the internet”?
And you think to yourself? Well, why didn’t they step up and say something? If those images are coming up on the Internet? Why don’t they do something about it? Why don’t they go to the social media site? And in many and most instances they did. And nothing happened and that’s a reason why we need this legislation.
So, a few things here: first off, his legislation is about STOP CSAM, yet he was talking about suicide. Those are… different things with different challenges? Second, the details absolutely matter here. If it is about CSAM, or even non-consensual intimate imagery (in most cases), every major platform already has a program to do so.
You can find the pages for Google, Meta, Microsoft and more to remove such content. And there are organizations like StopNCII that are very successful in removing such content as well.
If it’s actual CSAM, that’s already very illegal, and companies will remove it as soon as they find out about it. So Durbin’s claims don’t pass the sniff test, and suggest something else was going on in the situations he’s talking about, not evidence of the need for his legislation.
We say… STOP CSAM Act says, we’ll allow survivors to child online sexual exploitation to sue the tech companies that have knowingly and intentionally facilitated the exploitation.
Again, which platforms are not actually already doing that?
In other words one young woman told the story. She shared an image of herself an embarrassing image of herself that haunted her for decades afterwards. She went to the website. That was that was displaying this and told them this is something I want to take down. It is embarrassment to me. It happened when I was a little girl and still I’m living with it even today. They knew that it was on this website because this young woman and her family proved it, and yet they did nothing, nothing let him continue to play this exploitation over and over again.
Why how to get away with that they asked, and many people asked, I thought we had laws in this country protecting children what’s going on? Well, there’s a Section 230 which basically absolves these companies these media companies from responsibility for what is displayed on their websites on their social media pages. And that’s exactly what we change here.
Again, none of this makes any sense. If the imagery was actually CSAM, then that’s very much illegal and Section 230 has nothing to do with it. Durbin should then be asking why the DOJ isn’t taking action.
From the vague and non-specific description again, it sounds like this wasn’t actually CSAM, but rather simply “embarrassing” content. But “embarrassing” content is not against the law, and thus, this law still wouldn’t make any difference at all, because the content was legal.
So what situation does this law actually solve for? It’s not one involving Section 230 at all.
We say something basic and fundamental. If the social media site knowingly and intentionally continued to display these images, they’re subject to civil liability. They can be sued. Want to change this scene in a hurry? Turn the lawyers loose on them. Let them try to explain why they have no responsibility to that young woman who’s been exploited for decades. That’s what my bill works on. I’m happy to have co-sponsorship with Senator Graham and others. We believe that these bills this package of bill should come to the floor today.
Again, if it’s actually CSAM then it’s a criminal issue and the responsibility is on law enforcement. Why isn’t Durbin asking why law enforcement did nothing? Furthermore, all the major companies will report actual CSAM to NCMEC’s cybertip line, and most, if not all, of them will use some form of Microsoft’s PhotoDNA to identify repeats of the content.
So, if it’s true that this young woman had exploitative imagery being passed around, as Durbin claims, it sounds like either (1) it wasn’t actually illegal, in which case this bill would do nothing, or (2) there was a real failing of law enforcement and/or by NCMEC and PhotoDNA. It’s not at all clear how “turning the lawyers loose” for civil lawsuits fixes anything about that issue.
Again, Durbin seems to wholly misunderstand Section 230, issues related to CSAM, and how modern internet companies work. It’s not even clear from his speech that he understands the various issues. He switches at times from talk of suicide to embarrassing imagery to CSAM, without noting the fairly big differences between them all.
And now he wants to get rid of Section 230 entirely? Why?
The Communications Daily story about Durbin’s plans also has some ridiculous commentary from other senators, including Richard Blumenthal, who never misses an opportunity to be the wrongest senator about the internet.
Passing kids’ online safety legislation is more realistic than obtaining a Section 230 repeal, Senate Privacy Subcommittee Chairman Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told us in response to Graham’s plans. Blumenthal introduced the Kids Online Safety Act with Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., …“Passing a repeal of Section 230, which I strongly favor, is far more problematic than passing the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which has almost two-thirds of the Senate sponsoring,” said Blumenthal. “I will support repealing Section 230, but I think the more viable path to protecting children, as a first step, is to pass the Kids Online Safety Act.”
Of course Blumenthal hates 230 and wants it repealed. He’s never understood the internet. This goes all the way back to when he was Attorney General of Connecticut. He thought that he should be able to sue Craigslist for prostitution and blamed Section 230 for not letting him do so.
There are other dumb 230 quotes from others, including Chuck Grassley and Ben Ray Lujan (who is usually better than that), but the dumbest of all goes to Senator Marco Rubio:
Section 230 immunity hinges on the question of how much tech platforms are controlling editorial discretion, Senate Intelligence Committee ranking member Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told us. “Are these people forums or are they exercising editorial controls that would make them publishers?” he said. “I think there are very strong arguments that they’re exercising editorial control.”
I know that a bunch of very silly people are convinced this is how Section 230 works, but it’s the opposite of this. The entire point of Section 230 is that it protects websites from liability for their editorial decision making. That’s it. That’s why 230 was passed. There is no “exercising editorial control” loophole that makes Section 230 not apply because the entire point of the law was to enable websites to feel free to exercise editorial control to create communities they wanted to support.
Rubio should know this, but so should the reporter for Communications Daily, Karl Herchenroeder, who wrote the above paragraph as if it was accurate, rather than completely backwards. Section 230 does not “hinge” on “how much tech platforms are controlling editorial discretion.” It hinges on “is this an interactive computer service or a user of such a service” and “is the content created by someone else.” That’s it. That’s the analysis. Editorial discretion has fuck all to do with it. And we’ve known this for decades. Anyone saying otherwise is ignorant or lying.
In the year 2024, it is beyond ridiculous that so many senators do not understand Section 230 and just keep misrepresenting it, to the point of wishing to repeal it (and with it, the open internet).
Filed Under: ben ray lujan, chuck grassley, dick durbin, lindsey graham, marco rubio, richard blumenthal, section 230, stop csam
Comments on “Senator Durbin Petulantly Promises To Destroy The Open Internet If He Doesn’t Get His Bad ‘Save The Children’ Internet Bill Passed”
Durbin has always been an authoritarian cunt.
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The rare person who is both a cunt and a Dick.
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So a Dunt.
It should be Dick Turpin, not Dick Durbin, because he sounds like a highwayman: “Your internet or your encryption! Which is it gonna be?!”.
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The difference being that Dick Turpin never existed in real life.
Great, another boomer who has zero understanding of technology, and zero appetite to fucking learn about the thing he’s legislating, has decided he knows best.
There’s no way this can go badly.
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He was born in 1944, which I think puts him on the young end of the Silent Generation.
But he’s kind of right on the edge of the generational divide.
Durbin to rename his committee board to the “Committee of Echo Chambers.”
There are idiot senators but none should be allowed that as an excuse
And the ‘There are no honest and/or reality-based arguments against 230’ streak remains unbroken since the law’s inception…
In the year 2024, it is beyond ridiculous that so many senators do not understand Section 230 and just keep misrepresenting it, to the point of wishing to repeal it (and with it, the open internet).
With great power should come higher expectations. These are senators, I have no doubt that if they asked one of their staff they could easily get a dozen experts on the law in question on the line within the day so to the extent they ‘do not understand Section 230’ the do not deserve the benefit of the doubt in assuming that it’s not willful ignorance rather than an honest lack of knowledge.
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I think in some cases, they don’t understand. In others, it’s what they were bribed to do, thanks to that fantastic SOCTUS ruling known as FU (Citizens United), where they made bribing congress legal, because there is absolutely no way that could go tits up. le rage
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I mean, I have my issues with the Citizens United ruling, but it’s a little silly to suggest that big corporate donors influencing congressional policy was a new problem that suddenly sprung up in January 2010.
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Unfortunately, Citizens United is also the case that highlighted the disparity of power of the people as compared to the corporation.
People are not willing to believe that corps get to have 1A rights when they have enough money to not only buy their own 1A rights, but also deny others their rights.
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Your framing is deliberately obtuse.
Bribery always existed, but it had to be kept in the dark, and involved a lot of trading, so it was kept in check, to an extent.
Now, it’s just cutting a fucking check, so while you have a point, your statement lacks the context needed.
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Your face is deliberately obtuse.
Well, no, that’s bullshit. How old are you, that you seriously think open, legal corporate campaign contributions didn’t have a significant impact on policymaking prior to 2010?
Citizens United did make things worse, with the introduction of super PACs and the deregulation of anonymous contributions. Those are legitimate problems. But the idea that pre-2010 election law didn’t facilitate favors for donors — legal ones, not just the Jack Abramoffs of the world — is some serious historical revisionism.
Your condescension is misplaced and your description of pre-Citizens United US politics is either shockingly ignorant or an intentional attempt at gaslighting.
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And what about the Republican political money ECOSYSTEM created by Koch Industries et al?
That disgusting, Russia-enabling CANCER of an ecosystem existed way before Citizens fucking United. Hidden in plain FUCKING sight.
Re: Serious Rant Warning Folks - way more than 180 characters
Awesome.
“With great power should come higher expectations. These are senators, I have no doubt that if they asked one of their staff they could easily get a dozen experts on the law in question on the line within the day so to the extent they ‘do not understand Section 230’ the do not deserve the benefit of the doubt in assuming that it’s not willful ignorance rather than an honest lack of knowledge.”
Is this a quote you borrowed or one you devised?
It pretty much says it all, either way.
These men and women “of state”, absolutely have to be held to a higher standard, than your garbage pickup guy.
Instead, they are allowed to publicly “know” only that which will aid them in their political ‘quests’ and pretend to ‘not know’ anything that contradicts anything they ‘know’. Politely, this is called make-believe. In reality, it is pure bullshit produced by liars. And the liars want to take over the country so they can get richer faster, without the worry of breaking any laws.
The Fascists are writing a playbook. Taking down America will be the foundation of a new empire, run by people with money. A new Feudal period, with the most ruthless, cunning and deceitful bastards the world has ever produced, at the helm.
In order to take over a nation, one must first control that nation’s public information system. Bullshit cannot compete with facts.
Fascism is not a political concept.
It is 100% a business plan.
And with automation and artificial general computer intelligence sweeping in at light speed, most Americans are simply no longer needed in order for most of the corporations to make massive profits and are instead, an un-necessary expense. To be eliminated, ASAP.
Looks like a new war is brewing in the minds of the rich. Again.
As a general rule, I think actively enabling people to sue (aka civil lawsuit) others for criminal offenses (to which they are not a party) is a terrible idea. And of the thinks mentioned I think only maybe recklessly, and negligently hosting are NOT criminal offenses.
Getting real tired of politicians pulling the “think of the children” excuse
It’s getting ridiculous with Durbin along with a few senators (looking at you especially Blumenthal) who pull this “think of the children” garbage disguised as censorship laws.
Maybe they should take a class about how section 230 works but I doubt they would learn anything because quite a bit of them are over 75+ years old and their old, decaying peanut brains can’t realize without section 230 most of the internet would be in wiped out.
This is going to be the same song and dance with the internet for these out of touch senators til they either push up daisies or somehow retire or get voted out.
Re: Section 230 - Just Ask the Author
Or they could just ask the frigging author of Section 230 (one of them, anyway) himself. He sits in the same freaking chamber, FFS.
Ron Wyden, for those who have not been keeping up…
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As I noted above these are senators, if they wanted to learn what the law actually says, what it does, what it does not do, and how it works they could find out easily, rather problems like this occur either because they don’t want to know or do know and are just lying through their teeth because the truth doesn’t serve their goals.
In general blaming one persons acts solely on another (and NOT on the actor) is basically to claim that the actor had no agency (And that brings to question if they EVER had agency. Like was the lack of agency a temporary state…. or permanent… and if permanent… then I’d argue they are/were not actually a ‘person’).
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This line of thinking results in writing off deaths of despair in marginalized groups.
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This sounds like bunk to me.
Let us do some thought experiments.
If I refuse to sleep with someone, with whom I have no special relationship, and they suicide[0], citing my lack of affection for them, am I to blame?
Or let us look at the example given. Lets say a marginalized group is filled with disrepair for the way they are tread, but for a long time, no members suicide. Does that mean their treatment isn’t as bad as if someone had? Or what if another “slightly” marginalized group has a lot of people suicide. Does that mean the people treating them are more in the wrong?
No. People mistreating others is reprehensible regardless of if the ones of the receiving end wind up committing suicide or not. Blaming the suicide of those who mistreated them just makes everything worse.
To further the expound example: if group A treats person B horribly, but person B does not commit suicide, while group C treats person D the exact same way group A treated person B, and person D DOES suicide. Does that make the actions of group C more bad (or group A less bad)?
People react to different situations differently. Blaming one persons reaction on another person is always wrong. Blame people for what they did. In this case treating people terribly.
[0] Thankfully I have never been in this situation.
It’s amazing how anonymous just-so stories work.
P.S. It may be authentically traumatizing that an embarrassing photo shared on the internet is still there decades later (although i find that a tad questionable in general, sure, it happens), but that doesn’t make the person in the photo “exploited for decades”. As noted, if it wereactually illegal, something would have been done decades ago, or this story is just plain made-up. (Wouldn’t surprise me to find a politician inventing stories, or stretching, or merging the storiesof actual people for their political theatre. So if ya wanna talk about being exploitative…
…hallucinated nobody mentally competent, ever.
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WPATH Files
So if I’m reading this right, he wants to repeal Section 230 so he can pass his bill…which repeals Section 230.
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How does that make sense?!
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Durbin’s a Republican. Of course it makes complete sense to him.
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Durbin is a Democrat.
But in name only.
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Hence the accusation of him being a Republican.
I know this is an election year and all, but…
Do these Senators need a reminder about how absolute power corrupts absolutely?
If these Senators have a problem with Section 230, they, by extension, also have a problem with 1A.
Do I also have to assume they hate free speech, and free expression and think that they also hate criticism and the democratic process as well? because that’s what I’m getting from these people. (Not Mike, Durbin et al)
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That’s the true goal, without cda 230 the website owners are now liable for the speech of their users. It’s a tactic to kill free speech on american sites and both sides are pushing for it. That’s why the lot of us may soon be gathering on russian sites just to speak out against american corruption.
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Curious.
Why specifically Russian sites?
There’s still Tor and its network, but you’d have to assume the CIA is watching your every move…
Re: Re: Section 230 and the First Amendment
Even without Section 230, website owners still wouldn’t be liable for the speech of their users. They’d just have to go through an entire trial to prove it first. Section 230 just provides an easy, “throw this case out” button. The First Amendment provides the basis for one person’s speech to not be attributable to another however, without Section 230, a court needs to actively decide this.
Hopefully, if Section 230 is ever repealed, a federal court will make this First Amendment decision quickly and others will simply follow the precedent.
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A right you cannot afford to exercise is a right you effectively do not have, so while technically sites will still have their first amendment rights to moderate and host/not host as they desire in practice it’s likely going to be a lot uglier for all but the largest of platforms/companies.
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“I know this is an election year and all, but…
Do these Senators need a reminder about how absolute power corrupts absolutely?”
Actually, I think they’re counting on it.
These are of course the same people who don’t want to regulate guns in any way to reduce their usage in suicide.
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Not regulating firearms is definitely not a bothsides issue. Only the GOP is standing in way of sensible firearms regulations.
They don't want to know...
You really think any of these lawmakers give a rat’s a** about truth or whether they actually know what they’re talking about? They do not, and they don’t even care that they don’t. It’s all PR. It’s performative BS.
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You can say “ass” here.
Blumenthal probably wants to be able to sue sites, so that he can put out a press release about how he is “saving the children”, even if the judge winds up tossing the suit out. It would be very on brand.
Time for Durbin to retire
He’s getting senile. Worse than Biden and Trump.
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He’s getting senile. Worse than those that accuse Biden of senility on the basis of issues he has as a result of having survived multiple strokes.
Want us to support it, how about you have all of the phones (and burners) of Congress & their staff scanned for CSAM?
Clean your own house before telling me my rug is dirty.
If what he has an issue with is someone inciting someone to commit suicide (perhaps, it’s a troll, they can be cruel), he could write a bill to specifically target that conduct, if there isn’t a law covering that already, which there likely is.
That would be more targeted and effective.
If someone has a tendency towards committing suicide, that sounds like a mental health issue. If someone is a “crazy person” “on the internet”, that could also involve a mental health issue. Perhaps, investment in maintaining good mental health in the general populace might be useful.
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But that would require a reasonable approach and actually doing some proper work. These politicians aren’t interested in that. They just want to go “Big Tech bad!”.
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Ug.
If he can’t get support for his current bill, how does he expect to get support for repealing 230 entirely?
CTFY. YW.
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And for the profoundly hard of understanding, such as Toom and That One Guy, I’d like to state that the ‘C’ stands for ‘completed’, not ‘corrected’. Why else does the ‘F’ in ‘FTFY’ stand for ‘fixed (meaning corrected)’.
We’re lucky the two parties disagree on why to repeal Section 230, otherwise it would be gone already.
Fun Fact: if Durbin gets rid of section 230, you can sue Durbin repeatedly and continually via the small claims court for failing to stop CSM via laws.
Drain his bank accounts and whatever lifespan he has left in repeated small claims cases. No Federal SLAPP law, and no section 230 to end the cases quickly.
THOUSANDS of people could sue him for say $5000 each and there’d be no way to get rid of ALL of the lawsuits. So he’d be forced to either have hundreds of lawyers on retainer or spend all his days and nights in a court waiting room!
“In the year 2024, it is beyond ridiculous that so many senators do not understand Section 230 and just keep misrepresenting it, to the point of wishing to repeal it (and with it, the open internet).”
Damn. There you go again, giving credence to the bullshit lies of fascist businessmen, masquerading as politicians. They know very well what section 230 means, and what it does not mean.
They are lying through their teeth and trying to get laws enacted that will let them control the content on the world wide web. Too often has their criminal machinations been exposed on the internet. They want it to be like TV, with themselves in charge of what and who may use it, and how.
Every time you state that these charlatans “do not understand section 230” you simply add fuel to their scam. They know full well that 230 prevents them from controlling public intercourse and will do anything to end the dire threat to their plans that the web presents.
Stop calling them stupid or ignorant fools and start calling them what they are – lying bags of shit who wish to bring America to its knees by ending public communications.
The first step in conquering a nation is the control of communications. Propaganda needs to be the only message heard if you want to control the captured public. All of these laws are designed to do just that, by ending encryption and anonymity, so that anyone who speaks truth can be located and removed.