Special Broadband Breakfast Live Online Town Hall on Section 230 on Wednesday, January 13, 2021

See, “Crackdown on Online Conspiracy Speakers After January 6 Highlights Need for Platform Accountability,” Broadband Breakfast, January 14, 2021

Our Broadband Breakfast Live Online events take place every Wednesday at 12 Noon ET. You can watch the January 13, 2021, event on this page. You can also PARTICIPATE in the current Broadband Breakfast Live Online event. REGISTER HERE.

WASHINGTON, January 11, 2021 – Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend President Donald Trump from the platform may be the most powerful step taken to bring about the actual end of Trump’s power as president.

The move, and many other recent moves by Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple to clamp down on pro-Trump statements through online media, have magnified that importance of – and the criticism of – Big Tech and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Having risen to power on the strength of a social media-amplified public persona, Trump came to personify some of the most divisive effects of social media. What will happen to social media and to our technology-driven society in the fallout that we are now experiencing? How does our nation – online and offline – walk back from the edge?

Join us on Wednesday at 12 Noon ET for a special Online Town Hall on Section 230. We will reprise themes raised in Broadband Breakfast Live Online’s series in July 2020, “Section 230: Separating Fact From Fiction” — but with even greater urgency.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021, 12 Noon ET — Special Broadband Breakfast Live Online Town Hall on Section 230

Panelists include:

• Rob Pegoraro, Freelance Tech Journalist for USA Today, Fast Company and others
• Jessica Dheere, Ranking Digital Rights
• Will Duffield, Policy Analyst, Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government
• Ali Sternburg, Senior Policy Counsel, Computer & Communications Industry Association
• Cathy Gellis, Attorney assisting clients with issues affecting internet intermediaries
• Other guests have been invited
• Drew Clark (Moderator), Editor and Publisher, Broadband Breakfast

Panelist resources

• Content Moderation Experts Discuss Future of Section 230 in Broadband Breakfast Live Online Event, Broadband Breakfast (Event 1)
• Section 230 is Essential and Broadly Misunderstood, Say Panelists at Broadband Breakfast Live Online Event, Broadband Breakfast (Event 2)
• Social Media Platforms Should Increase Algorithm Transparency, Say Broadband Breakfast Live Online Panelists, Broadband Breakfast (Event 3)
• Project Disruptive Competition’s Section 230 Resource Page
• “Tech giants banished Trump. Now things get complicated,” Associated Press, January 12, 2021
• https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210109/13053746025/dear-section-230-critics-when-senators-hawley-cruz-are-your-biggest-allies-time-to-rethink.shtml
• https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201229/12003745970/section-230-isnt-subsidy-rule-civil-procedure.shtml
• https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201017/13051145526/section-230-basics-there-is-no-such-thing-as-publisher-or-platform-distinction.shtml
• https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200920/16382945341/busting-still-more-myths-about-section-230-you-fcc.shtml
• https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200905/09175545253/first-hard-case-zeran-v-aol-what-it-can-teach-us-about-todays-hard-cases.shtml
• https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200527/08275544581/when-problem-isnt-twitter-president-trump.shtml

WATCH HERE, or on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

Rob Pegoraro, Jessica Dheere, Will Duffield, Ali Sternburg

Catherine Gellis

Rob Pegoraro is a freelance tech journalist writing about computers, consumer electronics, telecom services, the internet, software and other things that beep or blink for a variety of online and print outlets. His work can be found in USA Today and Fast Company, and he has also covered tech issues for the Computer & Communications Industry Association’s Disruptive Competition Project blog, Discovery News and the Consumer Electronics Association.

Jessica Dheere is the director of Ranking Digital Rights, and co-authored RDR’s spring 2020 report “Getting to the Source of Infodemics: It’s the Business Model.” An affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, she is also founder, former executive director, and board member of the Arab digital rights organization SMEX, and in 2019, she launched the CYRILLA Collaborative, which catalogs global digital rights law and case law. She is a graduate of Princeton University and the New School.

Will Duffield is a Policy Analyst in the Cato Institute’s Center for Representative Government, where he studies speech and internet governance. His research focuses on the web of government regulation and private rules that govern Americans’ speech online. Will recently contributed a chapter on internet decentralization to Libertarianism.org’s Visions of Liberty, and his work has appeared at the Cato Journal, Volteface, the Legatum Institute, and the Adam Smith Institute.

Ali Sternburg is Senior Policy Counsel at the Computer & Communications Industry Association. After initially joining as a Legal Fellow in June 2011, she focuses on online copyright issues and other areas of intellectual property policy. She is one of the main contributors to CCIA’s innovation-centered online initiative, the Disruptive Competition Project, dubbed DisCo and is also a Fellow at the Internet Law & Policy Foundry. She received her J.D. in 2012 from American University Washington College of Law, where she was a Student Attorney in the Glushko-Samuelson Intellectual Property Law Clinic.

Frustrated that people were making the law without asking her for her opinion, Cathy Gellis gave up a career as a web developer to become a lawyer so that she could help them not make it badly, especially where it came to technology.  A former aspiring journalist and longtime fan of free speech her legal work includes defending the rights of Internet users and advocating for policy that protects online speech and innovation.  She also writes about the policy implications of technology regulation on sites such as the Daily Beast, Law.com, and Techdirt.com, where she is a regular contributor.

Events in the “Section 230: Separating Fact From Fiction” Series from July 2020 include:

• Event 1: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 — “Content Moderation: How it Works, Why it Works, and Best Practices”
  • This panel will consider how different platforms approach content moderation, comparing reasons for a more active or more laissez-faire approach. It will consider what “best practices” have emerged for ensuring online diversity without permitting online harassment. It will also feature a discussion of how platforms moderate content in the U.S. versus internationally.
• Event 2: Wednesday, July 8, 2020 — “Section 230 in an Election Year: How Republicans and Democrats are Approaching Proposed Changes”
  • Is Section 230 the new bugaboo of election years? Will life return to normal in 2021? This panel will explore the combination of forces that have made Section 230 susceptible to political pressure from both sides of the aisle.
• Event 3: Wednesday, July 15, 2020 — “Public Input on Platform Algorithms: The Role of Transparency and Feedback in Information Technology”
  • This panel will consider what role governments have, or should have, in reacting to the power of tech platforms vis-à-vis their role in public discourse. It truly aims to consider the pros and cons of government and public involvement and engagement in pushing platforms to adopt greater transparency about the use of their algorithms.

SUBSCRIBE to the Broadband Breakfast YouTube channel. That way, you will be notified when events go live. Watch on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

See a complete list of upcoming and past Broadband Breakfast Live Online events.