The most powerful companies on the internet have never been less popular in Washington, and industry-wide regulation has never seemed so close. So on March 1st at 2PM ET, The Verge is hosting an event about regulating the internet — from antitrust to privacy to the many proposals for changing Section 230.
Like a lot of things in 2021, we’ll be holding this event remotely, meeting over video and taking live audience questions online. It’s free, and you can register online right now.
The event will kick off with a keynote from Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), one of the sponsors of the SAFE TECH Act, as she discusses how she’s approaching tech regulation across a variety of issues as well as her agenda for the next congressional term.
After that, we’ll have a panel focusing specifically on Section 230 reform, featuring the following panelists:
- Michael Cheah, general counsel at Vimeo
- Sydette Harry, researcher, writer, and strategist
- Amanda Keton, general counsel at the Wikimedia Foundation
Congress has introduced several proposals to overhaul Section 230, most recently the SAFE TECH Act, a sweeping rollback of the law’s protections. These proposals would affect the entire internet, raising huge questions about the future of online communication. Yet, public debate has focused on just a few companies: Facebook, Twitter, and Google, tagged collectively as Big Tech. And they’re just part of a much larger debate over how to regulate the internet.
Both parts of the event will be followed by brief Q&A sessions, and registrants will be able to pass along questions through our built-in chat system. We won’t be posting the full video publicly, so the only way to see it will be to sign up and watch along with everyone else. We hope to see you there!