The Supreme Court could force tech giants to invest in harm reduction.
 | By Suein Hwang Business, Economics and Technology Editor, Opinion |
In 2016 it took minutes for Julia Angwin to successfully purchase a Facebook ad aimed at white house hunters — a kind of targeting that violates the Fair Housing Act. |
Angwin immediately deleted the ad, but it would take six more years for Facebook to fix the problem. And to this day the social-media giant's ad system still doesn't address biases embedded in its credit or insurance or employment ad distribution algorithms. |
Much of this delay can be attributed to the forgettably named Section 230, a snippet of law that dates back to when AOL was important and we had to dial up to the internet. Originally designed to protect web hosts from libel lawsuits when their users would say mean things about each other on online bulletin boards — some things never change — Section 230 evolved into a potent legal shield protecting tech companies from charges that their technologies have facilitated everything from deadly drug sales to human trafficking. |
Perhaps not for much longer. Tomorrow, the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case that could annihilate that protection. The case was brought by the family of a victim of an ISIS terrorist shooting in Paris that argues that Google's algorithms should be held responsible for promoting ISIS videos. Tech companies say any damage to Section 230 could break the internet and crush free speech; reform advocates say it is allowing Big Tech to underinvest in harm reduction. |
"I have seen firsthand how Section 230 enables tech companies to do little to address the harms their technologies can enable," writes Angwin, a journalist who has done pioneering investigations into the harms enabled by Big Tech, in her first piece as a contributing Opinion writer. She offers the tale of her Facebook odyssey — what it taught her about Section 230 and the industry and what a solution could look like. |
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