A law being proposed by Senator Rob Portman (R, Ohio) will severely damage our ability to operate.
The “Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act” (SESTA, S. 1693) is a proposed law that wants to target sex trafficking online. Instead, it will damage our ability to act as an online community. In fact, it will damage every online community.
Online communities are protected by section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.
Essentially, section 230 shelters organizations that host a community (third party content) from liability relating to content posted by the members. Those who post the content are responsible for it. Those who host the content are not. This is what allows freedom of speech on the Internet, and what allows us to let our members post their opinions freely.
SESTA would remove that protection for those who host such third party content, for the enforcement of any state criminal law claiming to target sex trafficking activities. It would put the burden of enforcing all such laws on the third party content hosts themselves.
We cannot financially support the burden of simply defending ourselves from any unfounded claim. We cannot keep up with legislation from 50 different states. Not only would any unfounded claim put us out of existence—the simple threat of such claims, the existence of SESTA alone, may be enough to cause us to stop operating.
This is what the Electronic Frontier Foundation says about SESTA:
This is what Wikipedia thinks of SESTA:
https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/11/16637774/wikipedia-sesta-serious-concerns-section-230-internet
Please act:
If you feel that it is important for FUD to be able to continue working under the shelter of section 230, which protects content publishers from the liability of the content posted on the site. please contact your two senators, your representative, and Senator Rob Portman, and let them know what you think.
Here is Senator Rob Portman’s contact info:
https://www.portman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/contact-form