Attorneys: Flawed FOSTA Bad For Adult (YNOT)
Read the full article by Gene Zorkin at ynot.com
WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives has passed the “Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017” (FOSTA), a controversial bill which its supporters say is designed to clarify that section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) “does not grant immunity to websites that facilitate sex trafficking,” but critics say excessively erodes the protection available to website operators with respect to content posted by third parties.
“It’s a shame that the Internet Association caved to political pressure and started supporting these bills that gut Section 230 protection,” said attorney Larry Walters, who has closely followed FOSTA and the related bill SESTA from the time they were first proposed. “That was the beginning of the end.”
Walters said if the bill passes in its current form, “the result will be significant forced censorship by online intermediaries, and decreased innovation given the fear of lawsuits and state-level prosecution.”
“The final language that makes up FOSTA was cobbled together from various bills and amendments that, together, mark the greatest threat to free expression on the internet in modern times,” Walters said.
Attorney Karen Tynan called FOSTA “another hollow and error-filled piece of legislation meant to placate fundamentalists.”
Gene Zorkin has been covering legal and political issues for various adult publications (and under a variety of different pen names) since 2002.