Transcript: Senate Commerce Hearing on 30 Years of Section 230

The United States Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday held a hearing to mark the 30th anniversary of Section 230, the embattled liability shield for digital services that for years now has faced heavy fire in Washington.

While the session was intended to review how those legal protections have been deployed and what changes could be made to them, it also served as a retrospective on how the Section 230 debate has evolved on Capitol Hill — and how it’s been endlessly stuck in the mud.

Just over five years after President Donald Trump first publicly pressured Congress to repeal Section 230 altogether, senators from both sides of the aisle largely rejected the notion that the law should be rolled back or sunset, an idea that has been floated repeatedly in recent years.

“I’m concerned that a full repeal or sunset would lead platforms to engage in worse behavior, to engage in more censorship, to protect themselves from litigation,” Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who himself has previously called for a total repeal, said in his opening remarks.