Hiring up ahead of Section 230 battle
Chamber of Progress hired a new director of legal advocacy with expertise in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act as the tech industry gears up for a year of battles on all fronts over the controversial provision.
The group, which names Amazon, Google, Meta and Apple among its corporate partners, announced Monday that Jess Miers will lead its legal advocacy. Miers was most recently a part of Google’s public policy team.
Miers is joining Chamber of Progress in the role as the industry group prepares to fight challenges to Section 230, which provides a legal liability shield of tech companies over content posted by third parties, from the right and left — and on the federal and state levels.
“We’re no longer just fighting a couple of proposals in Congress as to how to change Section 230. We’re fighting 48, 50 proposals, all differing from each other,” Miers told The Hill.
The patchwork of state laws could make it difficult for providers to comply with contradictory laws in different states, she said.
- For example, Texas and Florida passed laws that hinder social media companies’ ability to remove content and users that violate platforms’ rules. Both have been challenged in court and at least one is expected to wind up before the Supreme Court. The Chamber of Progress joined industry and advocacy groups in filing amici briefs to the Supreme Court in May in opposition to the Texas law.
- Meanwhile, California passed a social media transparency law earlier this year that seeks to crack down on hate speech by compelling platforms to publicly disclose their policies about hate speech and disinformation. Although California’s law comes at the battle from the opposite force of Republican states, it’s facing similar pushback from the tech industry.
Miers said she anticipates seeing more states “take on similar approaches as California” and is interested in the ways the Chamber of Progress can mimic and expand on the legal advocacy the group did in Texas and Florida.
