The legislation, called the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), but also referred to as SESTA after the original Senate bill, cuts into the broad protections websites have from legal liability for content posted by their users.
"We now have the ability to go after websites who are exploiting women and children online," Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio), one of the original authors of the bill, said at a press conference after the vote on Wednesday.
"In the absence of Section 230, the internet as we know it would shrivel," Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote Wednesday. "Only the platforms run by those with deep pockets, and an even deeper bench of lawyers, would be able to make it."
Wyden, the most outspoken critic of SESTA and one of the authors of the Communications Decency Act, said that making exceptions to Section 230 will lead to small internet companies having to face an onslaught of lawsuits.
The legal liability protections are codified in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from 1996, a law internet companies see as vital to protecting their platforms. SESTA amended that law creating an exception for sex trafficking, making it much easier to target websites with legal action for enabling such crimes.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) voted against the bill.
http://thehill.com/policy/technology...afficking-bill
U.S. Senate approves sex-trafficking legislation sends it to Trump for his signature
March 21st, 2018
