Please read the post again. With Section 230, tech companies get a sweetheart deal that no other industry enjoys: complete exemption from traditional publisher liability in exchange for providing a forum free of political censorship,

Please go back and read the article. The Senator lays out exactly where the conflict lies.

See my comment above. With any Right comes a responsibility not to misuse it. And your right to express your own opinion doesn't extend to suppressing it in others.

I don't approve of government-created monopolies (such as public utilities); neither do I see why the owners of companies don't have the same First Amendment rights as anyone else. A private-enterprise newspaper has the right to decide what opinions it will and will not publish, doesn't it? So why shouldn't the same thing apply to companies on the Internet?

That is the crux of the biscuit.

To me, private companies should maintain a right to either act as an open platform and not be held liable for the content OR act as an edited content board and be open to liability claims for their content. Right now, they're trying to both edit the content AND claim immunity from liability claims. That's the part that doesn't sit well with me.

Thanks Temlakos.:)

Exactly no immunity from the govt if you participate in biased censorship.

Except for one thing: many of those politicians are going to realize that they are likely to lose elections if neither they nor their followers, down to the lowliest layperson, can get their message across.

Big Tech made their mistake by being one-sided in their equivalent of censorship. Google, for instance, has been a globalist company since its founding. That TGIF video, from the Friday after the Election of 2016, said it all: the election of President Trump was "a kick in the gut."

WTH good is election campaign money when, as soon as you try to spend that money on advertising, your very donor restricts you and your followers in your and their messaging?

They are the targets! Senator Hawley knows this. And it's up to at least half of us to tell our own Representatives and Senators. And the President.

Who, I believe, already knows. Hence his "tool" for reporting Big Tech bias.

That "bias tool" is now closed. The President seems to feel that he has Big Tech dead-to-rights from the responses he got.

The more reason to do what Senator Hawley seeks to do: give those of us on the receiving end, standing to sue. Which standing the government withdrew from us. Senator Hawley wants to rectify that fact.

Internet censorship cannot be a problem because the internet companies are private. Nothing to see here, folks. But I might be demagoguing the issue.

Big money (for a reelection campaign donation) big time talks.

Yes but what is happening is not at the whim of owners,stockholders nor of government regulators.
It seems to be the exercise of bias at executive level contrary to high flown statements- "do no evil", "stop hate speech", and meaningless supposed contracts with users.

You are correct. Governments censor not companies. that being said communications companies limit access to their services based on "Rules and Standards" they set on their customers. These rules and standards limit what may be said and by whom it may be said. If a government does the same thing it is engaging in CENSORSHIP of it's people. When a company does it, it is engaging in a business practice set by its owners and stockholders and is subject to the whim of the stockholders and the government regulators.
The results is frequently indistinguishable from censorship but it is not truly such.

Don’t you know...
It’s been said again and again...
Companies don’t censor people, don’t censor ideas, don’t censor viewpoints!
So everyone who says they can or do is wrong!
/s

"Sen. Hawley’s legislation removes the immunity big tech companies receive under Section 230 unless they submit to an external audit that proves by clear and convincing evidence that their algorithms and content-removal practices are politically neutral. Sen. Hawley’s legislation does not apply to small and medium-sized tech companies."

High time for it to happen. My prediction it never will. These companies contribute huge sums to Congress and it'll probably never be approved.

Laws that protect citizens never are.