By Katie Paul
Two U.S. senators introduced legislation on Wednesday that would allow social media companies to be sued for spreading harmful material created with artificial intelligence.
The law would open the door for lawsuits to proceed against social media companies for claims based on emerging generative AI technology, including fabricated but strikingly realistic "deepfake" photos and videos of real people.
Republican Josh Hawley and Democrat Richard Blumenthal announced the bill that would create an AI carve-out to Section 230, a law that shields internet companies from liability for the content posted to their platforms.
It followed the defeat last month of two landmark cases at the Supreme Court that would have narrowed the scope of Section 230 immunity.
"We can't make the same mistakes with generative AI as we did with Big Tech on Section 230," said Hawley, a Republican.
Blumenthal, a Democrat, called the bill a "first step" in establishing safeguards around artificial intelligence, as advancement in the technology accelerates and investment soars.
The bipartisan support for the proposal points at an area of potential breakthrough after several years of stalled U.S. legislative efforts involving the tech sector.
Republicans and Democrats largely agree that there are problems with the power of Alphabet Inc's Google, Meta Platforms Inc's Facebook and others, but have clashed on how to address them.
Calls for reform of Section 230 have come from across the ideological and political spectrum - including from Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump - to make companies accountable for how their ranking algorithms affect the distribution of content, among other concerns.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 provides broad protection to "interactive computer services" by holding that they cannot be treated as the "publisher or speaker" of information provided by users.
A small set of narrow exceptions have been established for issues like copyright infringement and child sex trafficking, the latter via a bipartisan 2018 amendment called the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act.
(Reporting by Katie Paul; Editing by Chris Sanders and Jonathan Oatis)