Thread by @daphnehk

Are there Democrats in Congress who simultaneously
(1) want platforms to act against things like electoral and Covid disinformation and
(2) support Rep. @davidcicilline's antitrust bill with Sect. 2(a)(3) intact?

I see a serious conflict there.

As I read it, that part of the Cicilline bill opens the door to Infowars, Breitbart, The Daily Stormer et al bringing must-carry claims against platforms, or demanding higher ranking.

Here's what that part of the bill prohibits. The first two are about self-dealing by platforms, which is totally appropriate for antitrust/competition law. The third one opens the floodgates to litigation about speech and content moderation -- and bad outcomes.

I haven't followed these bills closely, so if someone has an explanation that makes this problem go away, I'm all ears. But if the problems is there, it's a big and gnarly one. (Also it opens the law to much stronger 1st Am challenges by platforms.)

I feel like I should flag here for those who don't know that until 2015 I was an Associate General Counsel at Google.

This part of the bill is a bomb waiting to go off, all the same.