The Coalition for a Safer Web, whose advisors include former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele and former Republican Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, raked social media over the coals in its prepared testimony for a House Energy & Commerce Committee hearing Thursday (Sept. 24) on social media's role in mainstreaming radicalism.

Coalition president Marc Ginsberg told the Hill that social media companies are providing a platform for a toxic brew of extremist groups, calling the Web a safe haven for acts of domestic terror. He also provided a possible solution in the form of a social media code of conduct and enforcement board with the power to suspend social media's immunity from civil liability.

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He called it a cosmic challenge that defies an easy solution, but one thing that needs to happen is recognizing that despite what they and their First Amendment advocates said in an effort not to be deemed publishers and lose their Section 230 immunity from liability for third-party content, "social media companies have become de facto publishers by taking the editor’s road they have embarked upon to subjectively decide all manner of content visibility or invisibility."

He said that to assert they are innocent bystanders to the train wreck of extremist dis and misinformation on their platforms is flat out wrong. "It is no way to run a railroad because we the passengers are the victims."

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He argues that "because the business model of mainstream social media is totally dependent on ad revenue, there is no financial or legal incentive for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Instagram to submit to independent oversight and accountability. They assert a mere moral obligation to engage in wishy washy content moderation. They cling to Section 230 as the Holy Grail, with good reason, because you and I know that without Section 230’s content immunity their financial models would be subject to attack for failing to protect their customers from harm." 

The coalition favors scrapping the Section 230 immunity, but Ginsberg is a realist and recognizes that a bipartisan agreement is a long shot.

Instead, it is suggesting a public/private solution in the form of a Social Media Standards Board (SMSB) overseeing a new social media code of conduct developed by "concerned citizens groups, social media companies, and the advertising industry," the last which has the most leverage over social media given its reliance on the ad-supported content model and which has already created the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM). 

The coalition said Congress would need to amend Sec. 230 to delegate the SMSB the power to suspend Section 230 immunity for violations of compliance with the code, which would be the ultimate penalty. Lesser penalties could include "1) decertification from code compliance; 2) forfeiture of digital ad revenue; and 3) a referral by the SMSB for administrative action to the Federal Trade Commission."

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge has been in Britain trying to make the case for extreme caution when it comes to Chinese telecom Huawei and 5G networks.

In an interview for the BBC last week, Ridge, now chairman of cybersecurity form Ridge Global, said:

"My belief is [America] will share less information, and it will be shared in different ways," Ridge said. "We won’t be able to use our historic, traditional, electronic transfer of information – we may go back to the future. It might impair Great Britain’s ability to secure information from its multiple sources, as well. If [Huawei] has access to the intelligence-gathering network of any country, they may access the information the country is getting from external sources, as well. That’s why we don’t want Huawei anywhere near [communications networks]. We want to maintain the economic relationship, but we want to put a firewall between everything else we trade and telecommunications.” 

Current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has also said that if Britain makes a deal to use Huawei tech in its telecom systems, the U.S. may not be able to share intelligence information with its historic partner.

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Congress has taken steps to secure U.S. infrastructure from intrusions by Chinese telecoms widely believed to be too closely aligned with the Chinese government, including excluding Huawei and ZTE from government contracts, but the Trump Administration seems to be of two minds.

While the Commerce Department has recognized the threat and the issue, and has been pushing back on Britain's signal it would not necessarily exclude Huawei tech from its 5G nets, the President has also suggested easing up on sanctions could be a bargaining chip in trade talks with China, and has extended deadlines for some actions meant to safeguard the supply chain.

In fact, while the President has signaled he could be open to discussion on Huawei and seemed to pull back on sanctions, the company has also been declared a national security threat by his own top intelligence chiefs, with technology to be avoided and even expunged.

In May, the Commerce Department announced it had put Huawei on a suspect company list that left its future in the U.S. very much in doubt, while the President at the same time issued an executive order blocking deals for suspect tech, like that of Huawei's.

The FCC has proposed preventing broadband subsidy money to be used by any carrier using technology deemed to a threat to national security.

Huawei said in an ex parte presentation to the FCC that none of the FCC's commissioners would schedule a meeting with it to discuss its argument that "banning particular vendors on grounds of 'national security' will actually do little or nothing to protect the security of America’s telecommunications networks."

It said that, rather, "forcing network operators to rip out and replace their existing equipment would pose a greater threat to network stability and security."