-The Internet.
The place of all that is good and weird --
-It's so bright! -And bad.
-People have posted my personal information
and that of my parents online.
-But wait. How did it come to this?
They've been called the 26 words that created the Internet --
"No provider or user of an interactive computer service
shall be treated as the publisher
or speaker of any information
provided by another information content provider."
In essence, platforms would no longer be liable
for the content users posted,
and that law allowed the Internet to flourish.
-Without the 26 words in Section 230,
the Internet that we know today would look very different.
-The Internet -- call it what you will --
is probably the most exciting new development
in the history of any of us that are now living.
-Section 230 is a law that Congress passed in 1996
that protects websites and other platforms from liability
for information that third parties post on their sites.
-To say that it is so infallible and is so complicated
that you can do nothing to protect the kids
from pornography for profit, I think, is somewhat ludicrous.
-Section 230 has allowed great things,
like Wikipedia and Facebook and Twitter,
but it also has allowed people to weaponize
many of those platforms anonymously.
-Tech firms have essentially enjoyed
this incredible immunity, this incredible freedom,
to let whatever happens on their platforms happen,
for 25 years now.
-The killer live-streamed video of his massacre
so that the world could see it.
-And now this controversial legal protection
for Internet companies is being folded into trade deals
and exported, including --
-US-Mexico-Canada Agreement -- the USMCA.
-A new trade agreement with Japan,
and negotiating objectors with the European Union and Britain
have also had language reflecting Section 230 inserted.
-I want to congratulate Boris Johnson on a terrific victory.
It means a lot of trade, tremendous amount of trade.
They want to do business with us so badly.
-Even as she triumphantly announced
that USMCA was moving forward -- -This is a day
we've all been working to.
-Nancy Pelosi conceded
she had failed to remove the controversial clause.
-I have one disappointment, which was 260, but I was -- 230.
I was too late coming in on it.
-Among online activists, Section 230
has become increasingly controversial in recent years.
-Last year, there were 45 million videos
or images of children
being abused uploaded onto the Internet,
and that's the price we're supposed to pay?
That's an unacceptable price.
I'm all in favor of greater user privacy,
but not at the expense of children getting trafficked,
not at the expense of drugs like fentanyl
ending up on the same systems
where my children are trading pictures with their friends.
-British lawmakers are concerned that US trade policy
is on a collision course
with flagship online-harms legislation
already in the works in the UK.
-If the first proposals for a UK-US trade agreement
included that, as well,
what we would have to understand if we accepted that --
it could totally undermine anything we try
and do in increasing laws that could hold the tech
companies to account for content on their platforms.
So we need to be clear up front
that that is not something that we're prepared to do.
-In many other countries,
including many other Western democracies,
the rule is that if you receive a notice
of something being defamatory,
you have the choice of either taking it down
or standing in the shoes of the person who drafted it.
In the United States, because of Section 230,
you don't have that decision to make.
-Desire among Democrats for a legislative agenda
beyond impeachment
has meant compromise -- -The bill has passed.
-On USMCA.
-The silver lining of impeachment
and this witch hunt --
that's the reason they approved USMCA, so that's okay with me.
-Team Trump is taking the battle for the Internet
and who controls it to the global stage.