Graham fires warning shot at Big Tech: ‘We’re going to unleash the courtrooms of America on you’

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Supreme Court hears arguments on the future of Section 230

Fox News correspondent David Spunt has the latest as the Supreme Court weighs whether tech companies should be legally liable for harmful content on their platforms on Special Report. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Thursday threatened to repeal the section of federal law that gives social media companies broad protection from lawsuits over the content they publish if these companies thwart efforts to make them liable for sexual content aimed at children.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the bipartisan EARN IT Act, which is cosponsored by Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. Their bill would create exceptions to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to make companies liable for content that both sides agree is inappropriate for children.

But a frustrated Graham remarked in the meeting that the likelihood of the bill advancing any further was small, and implied that Big Tech’s lobby on Capitol Hill is strong enough to keep the measure off the Senate floor. He said that if his preliminary efforts fail to curb Section 230, he’ll move to kill the entire section and said Democrats would support him.

"If this doesn’t work, I'm going to offer legislation to repeal Section 230, two years from whatever date the bill is enacted, and let the trial lawyers fix this problem," Graham warned.

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FILE - Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks with reporters about aid to Ukraine, on Capitol Hill. ((AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File))

"To the social media companies: I'm glad to work with you, I want to work with you, but you're eventually going to lose. And if I were you, I'd sit down with a bunch of us and try to figure a way to regulate your business so you can thrive and survive and protect the consumers, because if you don't, we're gonna unleash the courtrooms of America against your business model," he added.

The EARN IT Act, which Graham originally introduced in 2019, would allow victims of online sexual abuse to sue the companies that distributed the content on their sites. Right now, no such litigation mechanism for victims exists.

While the bill has bipartisan support in the committee, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has yet to bring it to a floor vote. Neither did then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., in 2019.

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

However, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he agrees with Graham's plan.

"It's time for the social media companies to face the reality," Durbin said. "We can have these hearings after hearings after hearings. We can hear all the victims and all the surviving parents tell these terrible stories. We can imagine them among our own children and grandchildren."

"And then if we step back and say this is just too big and complicated, and we're against too big a situation here, we can't change it. Shame on us," Durbin added.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Graham said that the "political and economic power of social media companies is overwhelming. I have little hope that common-sense proposals like this will ever become law because of the lobbying power these companies have at their disposal."

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Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., speaks with reporters about aid to Ukraine, on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, March 10, 2022, in Washington.  ((AP Photo/Alex Brandon))

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"They go back three times, the company blows them off. The child kills themselves, and they can't sue because Section 230," Graham stated.