While Democracy Burns, Democrats Prioritize… Demolishing Section 230?

Stupidity

from the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept

While an unelected tech billionaire is effectively orchestrating a coup of the US government, violating federal law with apparent impunity, and disclaiming all responsibility for the chaos he’s causing, the Democrats have identified their top priority: repealing Section 230.

You might think — in a moment when democracy itself seems to be unraveling and the American experiment teetering on the brink — that Democratic leadership would focus on, oh I don’t know, preserving the basic functions of government. But no, they’ve decided that what we really need right now is to demolish the legal framework that makes online discourse possible.

(Forgive the lack of a profile image on that screenshot — at the time I made the screenshot literally every profile image on ExTwitter is just a gray circle, because things are operating greeeeeaaaat over there while the boss is away destroying the country).

Senator Dick Durbin, ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, has emerged with what can only be described as a masterclass in missing the point. In a press release that reads like it was written in an alternate universe where the biggest threat to democracy is… checks notes… website comment sections, Durbin announced his excitement about taking away Section 230.

This week, Durbin will join U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Josh Hawley (R-MO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) to introduce a bill that would sunset Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in two years.  Section 230—and the legal immunity it provides to Big Tech—has been on the books since 1996—long before social media became a part of our daily lives. To the extent this protection was ever needed, its usefulness has long since passed.

Let’s unpack this for a moment. At a time when an unelected billionaire is effectively running the government via his own social media platform, Democrats have decided to partner with… squints harder… the very Republicans who’ve been helping enable this takeover, to eliminate the law that makes alternative social media platforms possible in the first place.

The thing is, this isn’t just regular old political malpractice — this is advanced political malpractice. We’ve known for years that these same Republican senators have been quite open about their plans to use Section 230’s removal as a weapon against speech they don’t like. It’s right there in their public statements! This isn’t some clever political chess move — it’s handing matches to an arsonist who has loudly declared his intention to burn your house down, while insisting it’s necessary to improve fire safety.

But Durbin’s fundamental mischaracterization of Section 230 as mere “legal immunity for big tech” betrays either willful ignorance or calculated misdirection. Section 230 is, at its core, a shield for speech – your speech, my speech, everyone’s speech. It protects individuals and small websites far more than it protects Silicon Valley giants. It’s what keeps you safe when you forward an email or share a post. It’s what enables sites for people to review doctors or mechanics or employers. It’s what makes it possible for Wikipedia to exist. It’s what enables the very digital discourse we need to maintain democracy.

The dumbest part: removing Section 230 would actually entrench Big Tech’s power, not diminish it. The giants would survive just fine — most cases against them would still fail on First Amendment grounds. But defending speech under the First Amendment is far more complex and expensive than Section 230’s straightforward protections. Meta, Google, and their ilk have armies of lawyers to handle this. Everyone else? Not so much.

This explains why Mark Zuckerberg has been practically begging Congress to eliminate Section 230. It’s not because he suddenly developed a burning passion for content moderation reform. It’s because he’s looked at the math and realized: “Hey, we can afford buildings full of lawyers. Our competitors can’t.” When Zuckerberg advocates for eliminating Section 230, he’s not confessing his sins — he’s pitching his business plan.

Without Section 230 “Big Tech” would be fine. First of all, in nearly all cases that are filed against websites would still lose, because almost all of these decisions are protected by the First Amendment. But — and this is the important part — having to defend it under the First Amendment is way more expensive. And takes way longer. Which means that smaller defendants, especially, will likely cave in to threats.

The end result? Big Tech gets bigger, smaller platforms disappear, and the “monopolies” that Durbin claims to be fighting become actual monopolies — now with congressional approval! It’s like trying to punish Standard Oil by making it illegal for anyone except Standard Oil to sell kerosene.

Durbin’s claim that Section 230’s “usefulness has long since passed” isn’t just wrong — it’s dangerous. The law is more vital now than ever, as demonstrated by countless cases where it’s protected essential online discourse. At a moment when we desperately need more venues for protected speech and democratic dialogue, Durbin is proposing to demolish the very framework that makes such dialogue possible.

The consequences would be predictable and devastating: a cascade of frivolous lawsuits designed to silence critics and suppress inconvenient truths. Without Section 230’s efficient dismissal process, even completely baseless legal threats become effective censorship tools. Think about it: if you’re running a small community forum and someone threatens to sue you because they don’t like a user’s post about their business, what are you going to do? Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars defending your First Amendment rights, or just take down the post? This isn’t theoretical — it’s basic economics.

The end result is that it becomes that much easier to suppress dissent.

The timing of this crusade against Section 230 is particularly revealing. While democracy itself is under assault, while an unelected billionaire consolidates unprecedented power over government systems, Durbin has chosen to champion a proposal that would:

1. Make Big Tech even more powerful
2. Hand MAGA forces a powerful weapon for silencing opposition through legal harassment
3. Cripple the digital infrastructure needed for organizing democratic resistance

This isn’t just Durbin being out of touch — though at 80 years old, that’s certainly part of it. This is a catastrophic misreading of both technology and democracy that would be almost comical if it weren’t so dangerous. Here we have a Democratic leader eagerly collaborating with the very senators actively undermining democracy, on legislation that would further enable their authoritarian aims, while apparently convinced he’s doing something about “Big Tech.”

The Democrats desperately need new leadership, and not just because Durbin doesn’t understand how the internet works. They need leaders who understand that defending democracy requires actually defending the tools that make democratic discourse possible. Instead, we have Durbin, essentially proposing to solve the problem of book-burning by making it illegal to publish books. His Section 230 crusade makes it painfully clear: he’s not just the wrong leader for this moment — he’s actively making things worse.

Filed Under: democrats, dick durban, section 230