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Speaker 1: We're gonna turn now to another topic, really to regulation

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Speaker 1: of the Internet. Earlier this year, a Senate hearing focused

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Speaker 1: on a website called backpage dot Com, which sells classified ads,

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Speaker 1: many of them apparently for underage prostitution. And now the

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Speaker 1: Senate is considering a bill called the Stop Enabling Sex

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Speaker 1: Offenders Act that would make websites liable for knowing us

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Speaker 1: knowingly assisting and facilitating online sex trafficking. But much of

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Speaker 1: the technology industry as opposed to the bill, despite supporting

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Speaker 1: efforts to target websites like backpage dot Com. Here to

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Speaker 1: talk with us today are William McGovern, a professor at

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Speaker 1: the University of Minnesota Law School, and Scott Vernick, a

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Speaker 1: partner at Fox Rothschild. Scott, what exactly does this bill do? They?

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Speaker 1: I thought that Internet providers are pretty much immune from

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Speaker 1: suit for what they're what people post on their on

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Speaker 1: their websites. Well, I think that's generally true. I mean,

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Speaker 1: under Section to thirty of the Communications Decency Act, which

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Speaker 1: was passed, UH internet providers UH and UH Internet service

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Speaker 1: providers don't have obligations and are immune from generally are

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Speaker 1: immune from prosecution with respect to content that they post

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Speaker 1: on there on the websites UM or you know as

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Speaker 1: Internet service providers. But the difficulty here is that given

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Speaker 1: UM all of the attention around online sex trafficking and

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Speaker 1: particularly what what what happened with backpage dot Com and this, UH,

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Speaker 1: this legislation, which was proposed by Senator A Portman and

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Speaker 1: UH Senator Blumenthal UM is designed to make them uh

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Speaker 1: responsible if they don't police and take down content that's

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Speaker 1: aimed at illegal sex trafficking. So bill, this is a

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Speaker 1: bill that has bipartisan support about I think twenty seven

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Speaker 1: or twenty eight sponsors in the House and the Senate.

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Speaker 1: What is Silicon Valley objecting to here? Well, I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think politically it's pretty difficult to come out against

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Speaker 1: an anti sex trafficking bill, and I think that explains

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Speaker 1: a lot of support for it. But tech companies are

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Speaker 1: worried that it's the thin end of a wedge in

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Speaker 1: terms of potentially undermining the blanket protection that section to

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Speaker 1: thirty provides. They worry that today it will be something

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Speaker 1: for UH blocking these kinds of sex trafficking solicitations, but

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Speaker 1: you know, tomorrow and next week it might be something else.

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Speaker 1: They're also worried that whatever the nature of the exception

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Speaker 1: once it starts to require them to scroll through or

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Speaker 1: monitor the vast quantity of user generated content, that that

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Speaker 1: it becomes a difficult thing to them to do, in

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Speaker 1: a very expensive thing for them to do. I mean YouTube,

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Speaker 1: for example, users upload something like a hundred hours of

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Speaker 1: video every minute, and it's even with automation, it can

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Speaker 1: be hard to do a good job of monitoring everything.

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Speaker 1: So Scott, what what exactly, uh would happen in terms

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Speaker 1: of litigation if this bill were to take effect? What

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Speaker 1: what can we expect? Well? I think that what would

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Speaker 1: happen is and I should say, you know, just by

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Speaker 1: way of background, so that there's some context for this.

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Speaker 1: You know, even though section to thirty of the Communications

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Speaker 1: Decency Act generally provides uh, you know, Google and Facebook

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Speaker 1: and Comcast and so forth, with immunity from content that's

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Speaker 1: that uh that has posted through their services, even today,

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Speaker 1: section to thirty doesn't override federal criminal laws. Um. And

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Speaker 1: so you know, here the issue is that they're making

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Speaker 1: something very specific, or they're trying to legislate something for

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Speaker 1: very specific when it comes to uh sex trafficking. But

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Speaker 1: the idea would be that there could be both federal

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Speaker 1: and state criminal prosecutions, UM, and even civil enforcement if

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Speaker 1: this legislation got passed. We're talking with William McGovern and,

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Speaker 1: a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and

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Speaker 1: Scott Vernick, a partner at fo Fox Rothchild, about the

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Speaker 1: Stop Enabling Sex Offenders Act being considered in the United

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Speaker 1: States Senate. It's a bill that has a name that's

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Speaker 1: hard to oppose, but in fact it has generated a

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Speaker 1: lot of opposition from technology companies who believe it is UH,

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Speaker 1: it's a bad way to chip away at their protections

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Speaker 1: from liability for what people post online. Bill the industry.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these technology companies say that they are

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Speaker 1: they support the idea of UM cracking down on sex offending,

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Speaker 1: sex sex trafficking online. They want to prevent those sort

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Speaker 1: of ads from being on their websites UM, but they

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Speaker 1: are against this bill and they're One of the reasons

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Speaker 1: we've been discussing is that they're worried about lawsuits and

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Speaker 1: liability for things that other people post online. What if

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Speaker 1: they're so if they're worried about this and they're actually

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Speaker 1: trying to stop the and they're trying to stop it

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Speaker 1: from happening. Why is it that they're concerned about lawsuits?

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Speaker 1: So that I mean, I think the concern is twofold.

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Speaker 1: One is the possibility that they'll be they'll be at

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Speaker 1: risk of liability, um for for a mistake, for an oversight,

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Speaker 1: when the quantity of what they have to review is

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Speaker 1: so vad that that will encourage them to engage in

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Speaker 1: lots of monitoring and to pull down anything that might

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Speaker 1: be uh, you know, a borderline case. And so they're

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Speaker 1: worried about that kind of problem. And then I think

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Speaker 1: secondly they're worried about, um, about a congressional floodgate opening, right,

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Speaker 1: not that even if you wanted to say that this

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Speaker 1: particular exception might be acceptable, what about the next one

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Speaker 1: and the next one. And they're specially concerned because there

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Speaker 1: already is an exception, uh as we mentioned earlier, for

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Speaker 1: federal criminal law, and of course international sex traffic trafficing

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Speaker 1: is already illegal under that law, but this expands it

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Speaker 1: to every different state definition of what might count, and

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Speaker 1: they're worried that that would become very difficult for them.

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Speaker 1: Scott Senator Portmant told Axios a few things in an

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Speaker 1: interview this morning. He said there's a Good Samaritan provision

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Speaker 1: in this law. So that's a total defense right there

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Speaker 1: if you're the defendant. And also you have to be

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Speaker 1: actually participating. So it's not enough to say that just

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Speaker 1: you know, you knew what was happening on my website.

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Speaker 1: You have to be subject to this. You have to

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Speaker 1: know about it and be involved in it. So does

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Speaker 1: that seem to be enough to get past some of

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Speaker 1: the worries? Well, it sort of isn't It isn't. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the Good Samarican provision has been there, and that certainly

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Speaker 1: protects Internet service providers and websites that regulate their content

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Speaker 1: and show that there is some attempt uh to you know,

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Speaker 1: to call out the most pernicious illegal activity, including sex trafficking.

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Speaker 1: But I think that what the websites or website providers,

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Speaker 1: and what the internet service providers in particular are concerned

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Speaker 1: about is that there's some vagueness in the bill's language

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Speaker 1: around words like assist support facilitate um trafficking, and you know,

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Speaker 1: they're worried about sort of you know, getting swooped up

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Speaker 1: in something where ordinarily, you know, they wouldn't have the

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Speaker 1: requisite degree of criminal intent. But there's some fuzzy language,

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Speaker 1: and so you know, that's their concerned. Now I think

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Speaker 1: that this I think that the Senators would push back

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Speaker 1: and say that their legislative staffs reached out and tried

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Speaker 1: for months to have negotiations and have some sort of

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Speaker 1: discourse um with uh, you know, the internet service providers

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Speaker 1: and website content providers, and they just refused to participate.

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Speaker 1: So I mean, you know, this is you know, this

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Speaker 1: is one of those instances in which, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: the sort of you know, the tech industry is sort

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Speaker 1: of you know, caught on both sides of this, and

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Speaker 1: it may be ground that's you know, quite focal for

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Speaker 1: them to ultimately defend. Well, bill, Bill, we have about

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Speaker 1: forty five seconds left. What do the internet companies say

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Speaker 1: is the right way to attack this problem with criminal

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Speaker 1: law and investigating individual instances and that they'll be happy

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Speaker 1: to cooperate with authorities who are investigating sex traffickers? Uh

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Speaker 1: as they as they said they did with back page.

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Speaker 1: But do they do they what kind of self regulation

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Speaker 1: do they propose to do? So they already they say

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Speaker 1: they monitor already, and they say that they'll keep doing that,

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Speaker 1: but they don't want to be on the legal hook

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Speaker 1: if they get it wrong. Well. Um our thanks to

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Speaker 1: William mcgivrin, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School,

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Speaker 1: and also to Scott Vernick, a partner at Fox Rothchild,

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Speaker 1: for being with us here today to talk about how

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Speaker 1: sex trafficking should be combatd online