[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3827 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3827
To amend section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 to ensure that
the immunity under such section incentivizes online platforms to
responsibly address illegal content while not immunizing the disparate
treatment of ideological viewpoints and continuing to encourage a
vibrant, open, and competitive internet, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
June 11, 2021
Mr. Jordan (for himself, Mr. McClintock, Mr. Bishop of North Carolina,
Mr. Tiffany, Mrs. Spartz, Mr. Steube, Mr. Johnson of Louisiana, Mr.
Fitzgerald, Mr. Issa, and Mrs. Fischbach) introduced the following
bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 to ensure that
the immunity under such section incentivizes online platforms to
responsibly address illegal content while not immunizing the disparate
treatment of ideological viewpoints and continuing to encourage a
vibrant, open, and competitive internet, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Protect Speech Act''.
SEC. 2. AMENDMENTS.
Section 230(c) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230(c))
is amended to read as follows:
``(c) Protection for `Good Samaritan' Blocking and Screening of
Offensive Material.--
``(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker.--
``(A) In general.--No provider or user of an
interactive computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker of any information provided by
another information content provider.
``(B) Applicability of immunity.--Subparagraph (A)
shall not apply to any action by a provider or user of
an interactive computer service to restrict access to
or availability of material provided by another
information content provider. Any immunity under this
section for such action shall be provided solely by
paragraph (2).
``(C) No liability for good faith removal.--For
purposes of subparagraph (A), no provider or user of an
interactive computer service shall be treated as the
publisher or speaker for any other information on the
service provided by another information content
provider solely on account of actions voluntarily taken
in good faith to restrict access to or availability of
specific material that the provider or user has an
objectively reasonable belief violates the terms of
service or use of the provider or user, as applicable.
``(2) Civil liability.--No provider or user of an
interactive computer service shall be held liable on account
of--
``(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to
restrict access to or availability of material that the
provider or user has an objectively reasonable belief
is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively
violent, promoting terrorism or violent extremism,
harassing, promoting self-harm, or unlawful, whether or
not such material is constitutionally protected; or
``(B) any action taken to enable or make available
to information content providers or others the
technical means to restrict access to material
described in subparagraph (A).
``(3) Liability for information.--Being responsible in
whole or in part for the creation or development of information
includes instances in which a person or entity solicits,
comments upon, funds, or affirmatively and substantively
contributes to, modifies, or alters information provided by
another person or entity.
``(4) Good faith.--In addition to the other applicable
requirements, in order for a provider or user to avoid
liability under paragraph (1)(C) or (2)(A), such provider or
user shall meet the following requirements, if applicable:
``(A) Makes publicly available terms of service or
use that state plainly and with particularity the
criteria the interactive computer service employs in
content-moderation practices of the service.
``(B) Restricts access to or availability of
material consistent with those terms of service or use
and with any official representations or disclosures
regarding the internet service provider's content-
moderation practices.
``(C) Does not restrict access to or availability
of material on deceptive grounds or apply terms of
service or use to restrict access to or availability of
material that is similarly situated to material that
the service intentionally declines to restrict.
``(D) Supplies the provider of the material with
timely notice describing with particularity the
reasonable factual basis for the restriction of access
and a meaningful opportunity to respond, unless--
``(i) a law enforcement agency asks that
such notice not be made;
``(ii) a service reasonably believes that
the material relates to terrorism or other
criminal activity; or
``(iii) such notice would risk imminent
harm to others.''.
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