Big Technology
Yang Advisor Bradley Tusk: ‘January 6th Was the Death Knell for Section 230’
Tusk, also a VC at Tusk Ventures, discusses Big Tech after Trump
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As Joe Biden takes office, Big Tech’s rough and tumble four years under Donald Trump will not come to an end. Democrats and Republicans, each for their own reasons, will now be looking to exact vengeance on the platforms. With some compromise, they may even get somewhere.
Bradley Tusk, a VC who works with startups facing regulatory hurdles, has a few thoughts about what regulation the tech giants may face. Tusk joins the Big Technology Podcast to break it all down, starting with a bold prediction and ending with some thoughts about Andrew Yang’s candidacy for New York Mayor, which he is advising.
Alex Kantrowitz: Over the past few weeks, Amazon and Apple have pulled the plug on Parler. Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have suspended Donald Trump. How does that change the direction of big tech antitrust?
Bradley Tusk: January 6th, in many ways, was the death knell for Section 230 — a provision in the Federal Communications Decency Act that protects platforms like Facebook and Twitter from liability based on what their users post. That’s effectively the shield that has allowed Twitter, for example, to let Donald Trump run wild without liability for it.
There has been talk for a while about repealing Section 230. It’s one of the few issues that both Biden and Trump agreed upon. Anyone who was still holding out some measure of support for the platforms — that was extinguished when they got locked in their chambers and had to be rescued from people storming the Capitol.
Republicans have been talking a lot about revoking Section 230 as a way to get the social media companies to not touch conservative content…
