Biden campaign says he still wants to repeal Section 230, but emphasizes key differences from Trump's EO, like policies for more moderation, rather than less
Makena Kelly / The Verge : Tweets: @mmasnick and @skupor Tweets: Mike Masnick / @mmasnick : Here we have a great opportunity for @JoeBiden to take a stand for the 1st Amendment and an open and free internet. Instead... https://www.theverge.com/... Scott Kupor / @skupor : Independent of your political views on 230, one thing is clear: Repealing 230 is likely to benefit the incumbents at the expense of new businesses. Redux of Dodd-Frank for large money center banks + GDPR for large incumbents - no one else can afford the costs of compliance.
Context & Ripple Effects
The Biden campaign is staking out a third position on Section 230 as the 2020 fight over it escalates: it agrees with President Trump that the law should be repealed outright, but for the opposite reason — it wants policy that pushes platforms toward more content moderation, where Trump's executive order was built to penalize it. That puts the campaign against the free-speech framing of earlier coverage, like the argument that [[a:944481|repealing Section 230 would hurt online speech and marginalized users more than it hurts the platforms]] themselves.
The story lands mid-arc: weeks later the DOJ proposed legislation adding liability conditions to the statute for Facebook, Google and Twitter (the DOJ's conditionality proposal) rather than full repeal, and by year-end Mitch McConnell was using repeal as leverage, tying the fate of $2,000 stimulus checks to a Section 230 repeal vote. Democrats were also pressing the incoming administration to move fast on tech regulation before losing congressional ground.
First-order effects
- Both major-party presidential camps now officially favor ending Section 230, so the platforms lose their simplest defense — that only one side attacks the law — and face pressure to moderate more (Biden) and less (Trump) simultaneously.
- Scott Kupor's public warning frames the immediate cost: full repeal turns content-liability exposure into a fixed compliance burden that startups cannot carry.
Second-order effects
- Repeal or heavy conditioning would consolidate the market toward incumbents — Kupor explicitly compares it to how Dodd-Frank entrenched large money-center banks and GDPR favored large platforms, since only Facebook, Google and Twitter can afford the legal apparatus.
- With McConnell willing to attach 230 to must-pass legislation like stimulus checks, platforms gain a new lobbying imperative: keeping the statute out of unrelated budget fights.
Third-order effects
- If both parties keep converging on 'repeal but regulate differently,' Section 232-style carve-outs and conditional protections become the likely end state — a liability regime that structurally rewards scale, mirroring the post-Dodd-Frank financial sector.
- Content moderation stops being a private editorial choice and becomes a regulated function, with whoever holds power steering the moderation dial — which is exactly why free-speech groups argue marginalized speakers bear the cost of each swing.
The trend: Section 230 is shifting from settled internet law to a partisan bargaining chip, with both parties seeking repeal for opposing ends and any replacement regime favoring incumbent platforms.