Attorney General William Barr is threatening the legal shield that prevents internet companies such as Facebook and Google from facing lawsuits over the extreme, exploitative and sometimes violent posts that circulate on their powerful platforms.

At a Department of Justice (DOJ) workshop devoted to the issue Wednesday, Barr warned that the largest technology firms have hidden behind the 1996 statute to avoid responsibility for "selling illegal and faulty products, connecting terrorists [and] facilitating child sexual exploitation."

Barr's comments bolstered the DOJ's escalating battle against Big Tech. Law enforcement officials have accused the tech titans of obstructing criminal investigations and amassing too much power over the past decade. The DOJ is currently investing the largest tech firms for antitrust concerns – and Barr said the department's interest in Section 230 grew out of that probe.

"Online services ... have evoked [legal] immunity even where they solicited or encouraged unlawful conduct, shared in illegal proceeds or helped perpetrators hide from law enforcement," Barr said, placing blame both on the law — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — as well as the courts, which have interpreted it broadly in the more than 20 years since it was passed.


The conference comes amid a broader effort by the Trump administration and Congress to take aim at Section 230, a controversial statute that has been lauded for empowering the modern internet and blamed for enabling the overwhelming amount of harmful content that can be found online.

The law shields tech companies, including Facebook as well as smaller companies such as Yelp, from assuming legal liability for content posted by their users. It also empowers the companies to make their own decisions about which pieces of content to take down — for instance, the law protects YouTube from facing legal repercussions for taking down a terrorist recruitment video.




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AG Bill Barr threatens Big Tech's prized legal shield, Section 230

"Online services ... have evoked immunity even where they solicited or encouraged unlawful conduct, shared in illegal proceeds or helped perpetrators hide from law enforcement”