The Harris-Walz Tech Policy Platform… Is Still Bad

As we head into another Presidential election, one thing has been consistent from the last two such elections as well: the tech policies of both major parties are terrible.

The Donald Trump Republican platform for 2025 is beyond crazy with all sorts of nonsense. The “tech” part of it is barely worth a mention, but just the fact that they see things like age verification laws as a first step to banning pornography should give you a sense of how batshit crazy (and against fundamental rights) it is.

That said, the Democratic platform is not great. It’s not batshit crazy, like the GOP plan, but it’s still generally bad. It’s the kind of thing that is going to lead to a lot of wasted time and effort as moral panic know-nothing “we must do something” types push out bad idea after bad idea, while people who actually understand how this stuff works have to do our best to educate against the nonsense.

Much of the tech policy part of the document appears to have been written for Biden on the assumption he was going to be the candidate, so there’s always a chance that Harris will somehow change it later on. But, on most tech policy issues, she’s been in line with Biden. In particular, both of them have hated on Section 230 for ages. Biden has insisted it should be repealed and has stumped for KOSA, despite the obvious harm it will do to kids (especially LGBTQ+ kids).

Harris hasn’t been great on these issues either. When she was California’s Attorney General, she filed a highly questionable case against Backpage that was thrown out on Section 230 grounds. She then sued Backpage execs directly in another terrible case, accusing them of “digital pimping.” In both cases, she was going after a platform or its executives for actions of the users of those platforms. As we’ve seen in the years since Backpage was shut down by the federal government, it has only served to put more women at risk.

Also, she was among the state Attorneys General who signed onto a very dumb letter, demanding that Congress amend Section 230 to let them ignore Section 230.

So, none of this is that surprising from either Biden or Harris, but, still… it’s not great to see in their official platform:

We must also fundamentally reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which shields tech platforms from liability even when they host or disseminate violent or illegal content, to ensure that platforms take responsibility for the content they share.

The issue, which has been explained to administration officials (and Congress) over and over again, is that platforms do take responsibility for the content they share, otherwise users and advertisers (especially) head for the exits.

The platform also misrepresents the Surgeon General’s report on kids’ mental health and social media:

President Biden believes that all companies, including technology companies, should be held accountable for the harm they cause. The president has raised the alarm that social media and other platforms have allowed abusive and even criminal conduct like cyberstalking, child sexual exploitation, and non-consensual intimate images to proliferate on their sites – and called on Democrats and Republicans to unite on legislation to address these issues. The Surgeon General issued an advisory warning about the impacts of social media on youth mental health, noting that he cannot conclude social media is safe for children and adolescents. Democrats will pass bipartisan legislation to protect kids’ privacy and to stop Big Tech from collecting personal data on kids and teenagers online, ban targeted advertising to children, and put stricter limits on the personal data these companies collect on all of us

I mean, yes, the Surgeon General concluded that he could not conclude that it was safe for kids… but he also said that it was helpful for many kids and similarly “could not conclude” that it was inherently harmful either.

But the way the Democratic platform presents it is much scarier and misleading.

Anyway, it’s a small part of a much larger platform, and tech issues aren’t major issues this year. One also hopes that, if elected, there will be other more pressing things on the congressional agenda rather than fucking up the internet based on pseudoscience and a misunderstanding of the First Amendment.

And, of course, it’s not like Trump is any better on any of this stuff.