On Thursday, the White House released a set of Principles for Enhancing Competition and Tech Platform Accountability, including calls for increased transparency, stronger privacy protections, and competition legislation. One of the announced principles advocates for “the removal of special protections for large tech platforms,” including changes to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).

“We absolutely need to promote competition, protect kids, inform consumers, and stop discrimination online. But if Democrats want more competition and a healthier Internet, they should be defending and strengthening Section 230, not removing it,” said Chamber of Progress CEO Adam Kovacevich. “Section 230 provides critical protections for platforms of all sizes to moderate content and take down harmful posts, and our research confirms these protections are most important for smaller sites.”

In April, Chamber of Progress released a report examining the impact of Section 230 and related litigation on small online providers. The report, available here, shows that Section 230 is critical to the survival of small sites, from niche blogs to community newspapers.

In addition, the White House’s own advisor for competition issues, Tim Wu, has written that “repeal of 230 would also probably hurt smaller platforms or startups more than the larger ones — say, a small-town newspaper’s comment section, or a startup challenger to Facebook.”

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The Chamber of Progress (progresschamber.org) is a new center-left tech industry policy coalition promoting technology’s progressive future. We work to ensure that all Americans benefit from technological leaps, and that the tech industry operates responsibly and fairly.

Our corporate partners do not have a vote on or veto over our positions. We do not speak for individual partner companies and remain true to our stated principles even when our partners disagree.