[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 134 (Wednesday, July 29, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4555-S4557]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                              Coronavirus

  Mr. THUNE. Madam President, I intend to talk about section 230 here 
in just a moment. I just want to react to what the Democratic leader 
said and also make some observations generally about where I think we 
are with respect to a coronavirus relief bill.
  The Democratic leader indicated that the Republican bill wasn't a 
serious bill. Frankly, I think it could be argued that the bill he has 
endorsed, passed by the House of Representatives, was not a serious 
bill. It was about $3.5 trillion, which would make it about $1 trillion 
larger than the massive coronavirus relief bill we passed unanimously 
in the Senate back in March. That bill, at the time, for a lot of 
people, represented something unlike anything they had ever seen 
before, both in terms of scale and scope, the expanse of all the issues 
that it addressed. I think in many respects it was a bill that most 
Members believed at the time that we needed to get as much assistance 
out there as quickly

[[Page S4556]]

as we could, and as a consequence of that, there was broad support for 
that.
  We are at a different point now, obviously, several months later, and 
have some perspective that enables us to look at what might be 
effective, what has worked, and what hasn't worked. We have gotten a 
lot of input from State and community leaders, from businesses, 
schools, hospitals, and healthcare providers who have been impacted by 
the virus, and have been able to respond to what has already been done 
by the Congress in terms of assistance.
  So I think at this point, as we look at what the greatest needs are, 
it is pretty clear that we have to do something to provide safety net 
assistance for those who have lost jobs in the form of unemployment 
insurance. I think there is a commitment on both sides to address that.
  I would argue that the proposal advanced by the Democrats, which 
would just be a continuation of the existing program, is not one that I 
think most people across this country think is wise policy, and 
certainly to the degree that it provides an incentive for people to 
stay home and not go back to work, it does provide a disincentive to 
work.
  I think that is something this legislation ought to address, and that 
is pretty much a widely held view, not just by Republicans but by 
Democrats. There are Democrats here in the Senate, Democrats in the 
House, and Democratic Governors who have said that the existing 
unemployment benefit needs to be modified, needs to be reformed, needs 
to be revised.
  The question has been raised: What level? It strikes me, at least, 
that we ought not be putting a benefit out there that exceeds the 
amount that people would make if they were actually working, because 
what that essentially says is that those who are working, those who 
stayed in the workforce are basically paying benefits to those who did 
not, when, in fact, if there weren't a benefit that exceeded the amount 
that they made when they were working, they might get back in the 
workforce if those jobs become available again. That is certainly 
something we want to incentivize.
  So I would hope that in any deal that is struck where we address 
unemployment insurance, we can come up with a solution that does tailor 
it to the need of the moment, and that is to get people back to work. 
We want to have policies that create jobs. That is something I think 
ought to be first and foremost in this bill.
  We have indicated that this ought to be about kids, getting them back 
to school in the fall. It ought to be about healthcare, about coming up 
with therapeutics and more testing, better testing. It ought to be 
about ultimately, hopefully, getting a vaccine and in the meantime 
making sure that we are addressing the needs of our providers, those 
doctors and nurses and nursing home caregivers who are on the 
frontlines.
  So those are the priorities that I think ought to be in this bill. It 
seems to me there is plenty of room for bipartisan cooperation, and it 
will take that. It also strikes me that this suggestion that you have 
to do more dollar-wise isn't always necessarily a sound approach. In 
fact, I would argue that anything we do right now ought to be targeted. 
It ought to be focused on those who have needs. If it is assistance to 
State and local governments, if it is assistance to small businesses 
that are out there creating jobs--anything that we do at this point 
ought to be based and predicated upon where the needs are, and we ought 
to have accountability for the funds that are going out there.
  My impression from the bill passed by the House Democrats and 
supported by many Senate Democrats here is that the more we spend, the 
better it is. I don't think the American people subscribe to that view. 
I think they realize, like I do, that we are operating in an 
environment where we have a $26 trillion debt, and we have already 
added this year, because of the first coronavirus bill, about another 
$3 trillion to that debt and increased our debt to GDP ratio up over 
100 percent, which is pretty dangerous territory if you look at any 
relevant metric in history.
  So I would argue that the approach that we take right now ought to be 
focused, it ought to be targeted, it ought to be measured, and it ought 
to be directed to those who really have needs--by that, I mean people 
who are unemployed--through unemployment insurance. It ought to be 
small businesses that are trying to keep their employees employed and 
trying to get back and going again and creating jobs. It ought to be 
healthcare providers who are dealing with the frontline crisis and also 
the heavy investment we need to make in the ultimate solution, which 
will be the vaccine, and, of course, in terms of the fall, getting kids 
back to school. That entails a whole lot more testing. Those are all 
things that are included in the bill that was put forward by 
Republicans.
  Most of the Democratic objections to that bill are that it doesn't 
spend enough, that it is just not generous enough. Well, again, I think 
we have to be very, very careful, very thoughtful and aware and 
conscience of the fact that we are operating at a time when we have $26 
trillion in debt, where every dollar we spend is a borrowed dollar, and 
we need to be effective, surgical, targeted, and wise about how we 
spend the American people's hard-earned tax dollars.
  I am hopeful these discussions will lead to a solution. We knew right 
away that there wasn't going to be unanimous support for this. It is 
not like the last time around, and I have said all along that I 
wouldn't expect every Republican to support the bill that came out and 
was released a couple of days ago. I think it is a starting point.
  I hope the Democrats will negotiate in good faith and not simply try 
to raise the ante because they have a bill that has already passed the 
House at $3.5 trillion. That, to me--not to mention the size of it but 
also the components of it--was a very irresponsible bill. That is not a 
serious bill. And the fact that it mentions the word ``cannabis'' more 
times than it mentions the word ``jobs'' I think gives you all you need 
to know about how serious that effort was.

  But there is a place that we can land that addresses those critical 
elements that I mentioned, and I hope that, notwithstanding the 
rhetoric we are hearing from the Democratic leader, the Democrats will 
enter into good-faith discussions and play a constructive role in 
trying to come up with a bipartisan solution to the challenges we face 
because of an unprecedented and historic pandemic.


                        PACT Act and Section 230

  Madam President, yesterday in my role as head of the Commerce 
Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the 
Internet, I led a hearing looking at proposed reforms of section 230 of 
the Communications Decency Act.
  So what is section 230? Section 230 provides internet sites that host 
user-generated content--sites like YouTube or Twitter or Facebook--with 
immunity for the content users post on their sites. So, for example, if 
somebody uploads a YouTube video with defamatory content, YouTube isn't 
held responsible for that content.
  It is not fair to say that section 230 has enabled the internet as we 
know it. Without section 230 protections, many of the sites we rely on 
for social connection or news or entertainment would never have come 
into being. If a solo blogger, for example, could be held responsible 
for monitoring each and every comment on his or her site, no matter how 
many hundreds or thousands there are, it is unlikely blogging would 
ever have taken off. If YouTube were responsible for the content of 
every one of the millions of videos on its site, it is unlikely that 
YouTube would have grown the way that it has.
  There is a reason that user-generated sites like Twitter and Facebook 
are U.S. companies and not, for example, European companies. That is 
because other countries do not offer the liability protections of 
section 230.
  But section 230 was written in the infancy of the internet, long 
before sites like Twitter and Facebook were created. As we have seen 
the internet grow, we have come to realize that there are also some 
changes that need to be made.
  For example, while I support the principle that sites should not be 
held responsible for everything users generate, there is a difference 
between an inappropriate video a site misses and a site that knowingly 
allows itself to be used for criminal purposes
  In 2018, after it became obvious that certain sites were knowingly 
allowing

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themselves to be used by child traffickers and predators, Congress 
passed a law to hold these and other sites responsible for enabling 
child sex trafficking.
  As the previous chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee and current 
chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, 
Innovation, and the Internet, I have been focusing on internet issues 
related to user-generated content sites for the past couple of years. I 
have chaired several hearings on the topic, including a hearing on 
terrorist content on sites like Twitter and Facebook and a hearing on 
the opaque algorithms that these sites use to filter the content that 
users see.
  At the end of June, Senator Schatz and I introduced legislation, the 
Platform Accountability and Consumer Transparency Act, or the PACT Act, 
to address some of the issues surrounding section 230 and user-
generated content sites.
  Our bill would preserve the benefits of section 230, like the 
internet growth and widespread dissemination of free speech it has 
enabled, while increasing accountability and consumer transparency. One 
reason section 230 has become so controversial is that internet 
platforms have cultivated the notion that they are merely providing the 
technology for people to communicate and share their thoughts and 
ideas.
  But the reality is somewhat different. The truth is that websites 
have a strong incentive to exercise control over the content each of us 
sees, because if they can present us with content that will keep us 
engaged, we will stay on that site longer. Today, sites like Facebook 
and Twitter make use of sophisticated content moderation tool, 
algorithms, and recommendation engines to shape the content we see on 
these platforms.
  Moderation can certainly improve the user experience. Most of us 
would prefer that YouTube suggest videos that match our interest rather 
than something completely unrelated. The problem is that content 
moderation has been and largely continues to be a black box, with 
consumers having little or no idea how the information they see has 
been shaped by the sites they are visiting. The PACT Act would address 
this problem by increasing transparency around the content moderation 
process.
  It would require internet platforms like Facebook and Twitter to 
submit quarterly reports to the Federal Trade Commission outlining the 
material they have removed from their sites or chosen to deemphasize--
for example, posts they have chosen to mostly exclude from users' 
feeds.
  Sites would also be required to provide an easily digestible 
disclosure of their content moderation practices for users and, 
importantly, they would be required to explain their decisions to 
remove material to consumers. Until relatively recently, sites like 
Facebook and Twitter would remove a user's post without explanation and 
without an appeals process. Even as platforms start to shape up their 
act with regard to transparency and due process, it is still hard for 
users to get good information about how content is moderated.
  Under the PACT Act, if a site chooses to remove your post, it has to 
tell you why it decided to remove your post and explain how your post 
violated the site's terms of use. The PACT Act would also require sites 
to create an appeals process, so that if Facebook removes one of your 
posts, it would not only have to tell you why, but it would have to 
tell you a way to appeal that decision. To some extent, some platforms 
like Facebook are already starting to do this, but by no means are they 
all doing so.
  The PACT Act would preserve companies' 230 protections for material 
posted on their sites, but it would require companies to remove 
material that has been adjudicated as illegal by a court. Large sites 
like Facebook and Twitter would be required to remove illegal content 
within 24 hours, while smaller sites would be given additional time. 
Failure to remove illegal material would result in the site's losing 
its 230 protections for that content or activity, a provision that 
matches a recent recommendation made by the Department of Justice for 
section 230 reform.
  Finally, in addition to promoting transparency and accountability, 
the PACT Act also contains measures to strengthen the government's 
ability to protect consumers. As the Department of Justice has noted in 
its recommendations to reform section 230, broad section 230 immunity 
can pose challenges for Federal agencies in civil enforcement matters.
  It is questionable whether section 230 was intended to allow 
companies to invoke section 230 immunity against the Federal Government 
acting to protect American consumers in the civil enforcement context. 
This contributes to the creation of a different set of rules for 
enforcing consumer protections against online companies, compared to 
those in the offline world.
  I am grateful to Senator Schatz for his work on this bill, and I am 
proud of what we put together. We both have done a lot of work on these 
issues, and this bill is a serious bipartisan solution to some of the 
problems that have arisen around section 230. Our hearing yesterday, 
which included one of the original authors of the section 230 
provision, former Representative Chris Cox, confirmed that the PACT Act 
would go a long way toward making our user-generated internet sites 
more accountable to consumers.
  I look forward to working with Senator Schatz to advance our 
legislation in the Senate, and I hope that we will see a vote on our 
bill in the near future.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois