Section 1 Short title
This Act may be cited as the “Removing Section 230 Immunity for Official Accounts of Censoring Foreign Adversaries Act”.
Removing Section 230 Immunity for Official Accounts of Censoring Foreign Adversaries Act
A BILL
To remove immunity protections from social media platforms which host accounts of censoring foreign adversaries, and for other purposes.
Sec. 2 Definitions
In this Act:
Censoring foreign adversary— The term censoring foreign adversary means an adversarial foreign government that—
restricts access to covered social media platforms; and
is designated as a censoring foreign adversary pursuant to section 3.
Covered, verified, or other authentic account— The term covered, verified, or other authentic account means any account on a covered social media platform that—
is under the control or working on behalf of—
a government agency, department, ministry, or institution of a censoring foreign adversary;
a government official of a censoring foreign adversary, including heads of state, elected officials, appointed ministers, ambassadors, and official spokespersons; or
a company, or the employees of a company, that—
is directly or indirectly owned by a censoring foreign adversary;
is controlled by a censoring foreign adversary that has the authority to decide important matters with respect to such company; or
has, as a shareholder holding at least 10 percent of the outstanding voting stock or shares of the company, a censoring foreign adversary; and
displays a badge, check mark, or other public-facing identification tool that—
is issued by the platform; and
is used to indicate the authenticity, validity, or verification of the person, organization, government, or other entity, represented by the account; or
has more than 500,000 followers.
Covered social media platform— The term covered social media platform—
means an Internet website, application, or platform that—
is open to the public;
allows citizens from any country to create an account on, register for, and enjoy as a user, such website, application, or platform;
enables users to communicate with other users for the primary purpose of posting information, comments, messages, or images;
has more than 50,000,000 active users in the United States in a calendar month; and
is headquartered, or has its principal place of business, in the United States; and
does not include—
electronic mail; or
an online service, application, or website—
that consists primarily of news, sports, entertainment, or other information or content that is not user generated, but is preselected by the provider; and
for which any chat, comments, or interactive functionality is incidental to, directly related to, or dependent on the provision of the content described in subparagraph (I).
Follower— The term follower means an account that has taken any action to subscribe to another account’s content, updates, or posts.
User— The term user means a person or entity who posts, uploads, transmits, shares, or otherwise publishes or receives content through a social media platform.
Sec. 3 Designated censoring foreign adversaries
The Secretary of State shall compile a list of censoring foreign adversaries, which shall include—
the Government of the People’s Republic of China;
the Government of the Russian Federation;
the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea;
the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran;
the Government of the Republic of Cuba;
the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic; and
the regime of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela.
Sec. 4 Liability protection
In general— Covered social media platforms that knowingly host, distribute, or actively display a covered, verified, or other authentic account of a censoring foreign adversary shall not receive any protection under section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230) for content shared, edited, or created by such account.
Clarification— For purposes of subsection (a), a covered social media platform is deemed to have knowledge with respect to any content shared, edited, or created by a covered, verified, or other authentic account that meets the requirements described in section 2(2)(B)(i).