The Centers for Democracy and Technology have sent a
Coalition Letter opposing Section 603 of the Intelligence Authorization Act, as
documented here. The act would require service providers and
telecommunications companies to report speech or content to authorities when
they have knowledge that the speech represents a potential terrorist
threat. The obvious problem is
vagueness.
It does not appear, from what I see, that it would
require pre-screening of content for terror threats (similar in principle for having
to prescreen for libel, which Section 230 protects against, or for copyright,
which the DMCA Safe Harbor is supposed to protect).
However, if might require companies to be very
proactive when comments are reported by users, or for moderators of forums to
act proactively.
Electronic Frontier Foundation has a story on its
opposition by Kelsey Harclerode, link here.
The bill is S 1705, with text here.
Practically all service providers ban threats or
advocacy of violence. In practice, much
violent content is motivate by personal or domestic disputes or broken
relationships. Terrorism refers to
violence intended to intimidate a civilian population for political purposes.
Again, when amateurs comment on issues related to
terror, there may be readers who don’t distinguish between commentary or journalism
and actual advocacy.
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