Warns policymakers against granting broad AI immunity or preempting state laws without establishing a federal accountability framework
Americans for Responsible Innovation President Brad Carson testified today before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation during a hearing examining the legacy of Section 230. Thirty years after the law’s enactment, Carson warned that Congress faces another pivotal moment as lawmakers debate proposals to preempt state AI laws, moves that would grant sweeping immunity to Big Tech companies, repeating many of the same mistakes associated with Section 230.
“Section 230 was an understandable, if lamentable, case of poor foresight exacerbated by a failure to permit the law to evolve as the technology evolved. The people who have suffered the most as a result of that failure have been the families, the teenagers, and the individual victims who discovered that the law offers them nothing when technology harms them,” ARI President Brad Carson said in his testimony. “We should not repeat that story with artificial intelligence. Meta-laws and broad immunities for emerging industries rarely age well, and the lesson of Section 230 is that they age worst of all for the people least able to protect themselves.”
Section 230, enacted in 1996 as part of the Communications Decency Act, was intended to address a narrow question: whether online platforms could moderate user content without being treated as publishers under the law. Over time, courts interpreted it far more broadly than Congress intended, shielding platforms from liability for algorithmic amplification and product design choices unrelated to user content. As social media companies grew to dominate online communication, the law made it harder for victims of online harms to seek accountability.
Today’s testimony follows a coalition letter on the anniversary of Section 230, in which a coalition of over two dozen organizations urged the Senate to reject proposals that would preempt state AI laws, creating another legal shield for Big Tech.
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