Democrats split over plan to require greater censorship of ads in Section 230 overhaul

Senate Democrats are split on new legislation that could force tech companies to censor online ads in the hopes of curbing misinformation and fraudulent claims. The bill is part of an effort to reform legal protections for online platforms such as Facebook and Google, which carry a majority of the ads online.

The bill, the SAFE TECH Act, led by Sens. Mark Warner, Amy Klobuchar, and Mazie Hirono, is one of the first steps at the federal level under the Biden administration toward reforming Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a provision that protects social media companies from liability for content posted by their users.

“Unfortunately, as written, it would devastate every part of the open internet and cause massive collateral damage to online speech,” Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.