By John D. McKinnon
WASHINGTON -- Prosecutors and victims will have greater power to
go after websites that have facilitated the online sex business,
under a new bill passed by the Senate Wednesday, and big tech
companies fear it will open the door to greater regulation by
Washington.
The Senate passed the bill, 97 to 2, and sent it to President
Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The House passed it last
month.
The bill's passage marked a rare political defeat for the
technology industry, which has become a powerful lobbying force in
Washington in recent years. Large companies like Alphabet Inc.'s
Google long resisted any change to the immunity law, fearing it
could lead to a greater erosion of their congressionally granted
legal protections against being held liable for what users post
online.
But a series of political misfortunes -- including Russian use
of online platforms to meddle in the 2016 election -- have
diminished the tech industry's standing in Washington, and opened
the door to Wednesday's lopsided loss.
The legislation's success could encourage lawmakers to consider
other limits on legal immunity for online platforms in the U.S. and
in Europe. Policy makers in Europe have been weighing efforts to
hold tech companies liable for a range of internet abuses,
including hate speech.
Ivanka Trump, the president's daughter and adviser, has been a
major supporter of the legislation, holding an event with bill
sponsors at the White House last week.
"The buying and selling of young boys and girls -- this is a
hidden crime," Ms. Trump said. The group's goal is to "make sure
that modern slavery comes to its long overdue end."
White House officials said recently that "ending online human
trafficking is a major priority of this administration."
The bill is aimed at helping prosecutors and victims go after
websites that have facilitated the online sex business by removing
federal immunity for those online businesses.
The immunity law was adopted by Congress in the 1990s as a way
to nurture the internet, which was then at a fledgling stage.
Trafficking lawsuits against online businesses -- notably
Backpage.com, a classified-ad site -- have usually been tossed out
of court because of the immunity law, with tech groups at times
lining up in support of Backpage.com.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who led the
charge for the bill along with Sen. Rob Portman (R., Ohio), said
federal immunity protections for websites were "never intended to
immunize completely those websites so they could knowingly
facilitate sex trafficking." He said the legislation would "give
survivors their day in court."
Opponents argued that the legislation could lead to more
limitations on internet speech.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), a critic of the legislation, said big
internet companies and the federal government hadn't done enough to
battle online trafficking or other online ills. But after "the twin
failures of the big technology companies and federal law
enforcement, this body is responding to a very serious, serious
moral challenge with flawed policy changes" that could have
"harmful unintended consequences."
The legislation will "open the floodgates to further undermine
protections for online intermediaries and thereby, free expression
for all internet users," said Liz Woolery, a senior policy analyst
at the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Internet platforms
would be responsible for every single piece of user content, a
burden that may be impossible for many companies, especially small
startups, to overcome."
Critics of the large online companies say immunity that is too
broad hampers efforts to address inappropriate or criminal behavior
online, like abuses of personal data, terrorist recruitment,
cryptocurrency fraud and other schemes.
The immunity provision "is a real world Monopoly
get-out-of-jail-free card," said Scott Cleland, an internet policy
analyst and critic of the tech companies.
While there is little likelihood of more legislative curbs on
internet companies' immunity in the U.S. this year, the bill's
overwhelming approval in both chambers shows lawmakers are willing
to carve out exceptions in compelling circumstances.
Backers of the legislation say it is needed to combat an
epidemic of online trafficking, which often involves minors. Sen.
Blumenthal cited statistics from an anti-trafficking group showing
an 840% increase in reports of suspected child sex trafficking
between 2010 and 2015, largely because of increasing use of the
internet to facilitate the trade.
The tech industry recently sought to subdue its opposition to
the bill. On the one hand, many companies don't want to publicly
oppose a measure aimed at fighting sex trafficking. But big online
firms also see the immunity law as a legal pillar of the internet
and fear that removing it could subject them to costly lawsuits,
eroding a protection that has helped the internet flourish.
The Consumer Technology Association, a group that represents a
number of big tech companies, said in a statement that "legacy
businesses and disrupted competitors" might try to push further
tightening of the immunity rules for online firms, in a nod to
entertainment and media companies' support for the sex-trafficking
legislation. But CTA said that "Congress should refuse further
requests to weaken" the immunity rules.
Facebook Inc., which had come around to supporting the
legislation in recent months, issued a statement praising the
bill's passage: "We applaud passage of [the bill], important
legislation that allows platforms to combat sex trafficking while
giving victims the opportunity to seek justice against companies
that don't," said Erin Egan, Facebook's vice president of U.S.
public policy. "Together we can help make the internet a safer
place for vulnerable children, women, and all trafficking
targets."
--Natalia Drozdiak in Brussels contributed to this article.
Write to John D. McKinnon at john.mckinnon@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 21, 2018 17:42 ET (21:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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