You're probably correct on your first assumption that this is campaign related and most likely won't go anywhere. Legislation is the only 'real' way to change the section.
What are the possible results here? Finding sympathetic (ie corrupt) courts that will straight up ignore what the law says and defer to the executive's decrees? Or just directly ordering those federal goon squads to physically take over Twitter et al?
I don't want to deny the possibility that such fascist takeovers could happen. They just seem unlikely, compared to gross ineptitude leading to a lack of any results.
We have a new standard for how much such technicalities as separation of power matter in America, better get used to it. It's not like Democrats will fix all that even if they sweep the election, they'll just sit on their hands as usual.
> This traditional reading of the Commerce Clause was later disavowed by the Court, which after threats from Roosevelt began to read congressional power more expansively in this area, in cases such as NLRB v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp.[8] However, more recent cases such as United States v. Lopez[9] perhaps signal a growing inclination in the Court to once again affirm limits on its scope. In a unanimous 2011 decision, Bond v. United States, the Supreme Court cited Schechter as a precedent.[10]
Basically, Congress passes laws that grant powers to the Executive to ... execute .. the law and enforce it. These laws instruct the Executive Branch to write administrative policy which is then enforced -- this is the reason, for instance, that the Department of Education could unilaterally rescind the Obama era "Dear Colleague" letter.
The laws that are passed, including Section 230 and the rest of the DMCA, grant the Administration broad powers to write policy from the law in places where the law is insufficiently defined. This is why the Section II/Section III reclassification (called "Net Neutrality" by its proponents, though the actual "Neutrality" is of course controversial) could be done unilaterally by Pai and it's the same reason that the FCC is open to re-interpret the law as written in order to write administrative policy.
If Congress doesn't like the new policy, they can pass a new law that better defines the Executive's role in enforcing their law.
Section 230 is not such a law. It creates a civil liability shield for interactive computer services and states who that applies to and how it is to be used. There is nothing in it for the Executive to execute. It is only executed when someone raises it as a defense in a court case, and it is the judiciary that decide what it means.
The FCC can interpret it all they want, but that interpretation will be at best persuasive authority in any court case involving the application of 230.
Right, and the limits of that liability shield are not well enough defined in the law so the policy must define the limits until Congress acts to clarify the law. Hence the rulemaking.
Facebook and Twitter's actions yesterday and the controversy over the role of 230 make the lack of clarity apparent.
If Congress doesn't like the new administrative policy, allow them to clarify.
Can you give an example limit you're imagining that would pass muster? To me
> No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected
doesn't leave much to the imagination, and AFAIK courts have consistently backed that up.
If Congress does not so delegate such authority, interpreting the law is solely the job of the courts. They did not delegate such authority for section 230.
Agencies do not get to just look at any random law that is outside the are they were given power over, decide it is not clear, and make an enforceable rule clarifying it.