Google marked its 20th birthday this week. It celebrated in fitting style—being lambasted by politicians in Washington. Its failure to send a senior executive to a congressional hearing, over Russian use of tech platforms to meddle in the presidential election in 2016, was tone-deaf. Like Facebook and Twitter, whose top brass did show up, Google wields too much influence to avoid public scrutiny. A vital debate is under way over whether and how tech platforms should be held responsible for the content they carry. Angering legislators increases the chance of a bad outcome.
Back when Google, Facebook, Twitter and others were babies, the answer that politicians gave on the question of content liability was clear. Laws such as America's Communications Decency Act (CDA), passed in 1996, largely shielded online firms from responsibility for their users' actions. Lawmakers reasoned that the fledgling online industry needed to be protected from costly lawsuits.
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