Reducing the protection of social platforms is unlikely

The FCC is unlikely to take action in an effort to limit legal protections to social platforms under a 1996 law.

Ajit Pai, chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission and Us President Donald Trump, has 16 days left in office.

It remains unclear whether a new third Republican commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission can participate in any action.

Pai said on October 15th that he planned to develop new rules to limit protections to social platforms under Article 230.

Section 230 is a provision of the Communications Ethics Act 1996, which protects social platforms from liability for content posted by users and allows them to remove legitimate posts.

The statement was in response to a petition filed by the Trump administration in July, and two members of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission urged Democrats to reject the petition.

Since October, Pai has taken no further action on the petition and abandoned his regular press conferences after the committee's November and December meetings, and chose not to put any action on Section 230 on the agenda of the January 13meeting.

Nathan Simington, commissioner of the Us Federal Communications Commission, said on Monday that it was uncertain whether he could participate in any section 230 action.

The Symington office explained that the Ethics Adviser of the Federal Communications Commission had advised that a possible refusal could not be comprehensively ruled out in the future since there was no issue currently pending section 230 before the Committee for specific discussion, however, no reasons were identified for recusal on the subject at this time.

Trump chose Simington after he abruptly withdrew his nomination to then-Republican Committee Commissioner Michael O'Reilly for a new term in August after O'Reilly questioned whether the FCC had the authority to issue regulations for social media platforms.

Trump also urged Congress to repeal Section 230 and veto an annual defense bill in part because it did not include repeal, and Congress overstepped its veto.