Sponsors (5)
The bill aims to reduce harmful election-administration misinformation and speed corrections, strengthening election integrity for voters and officials, but it does so by imposing rapid takedown obligations and heavy liability that risk chilling lawful speech, spurring litigation, and raising compliance costs for platforms.
Voters: The bill reduces the spread of objectively false information about how, when, or where to vote, helping ensure people receive accurate voting instructions and boosting confidence in election administration.
State and local election officials: Creates a legal pathway to hold large platforms accountable for election-administration misinformation, lowering administrative burden and potential chaos from widely shared false voting rules or deadlines.
Platforms and users near elections: Requires clear, short timelines (24/48 hours) for platforms to remove flagged objectively false election-administration claims, which can speed correction of misleading posts close to voting deadlines.
Users and public discourse: Platforms will likely over-remove or restrict election-related content to avoid liability, risking substantial chilling of lawful speech and public discussion about voting.
Platforms (and indirectly users/advertisers): Exposes platforms to steep statutory damages ($50,000 per item), creating risk of massive liability for failing to remove flagged content.
Platforms and consumers: Increased legal risk and moderation requirements will raise compliance costs for qualifying platforms, costs that may be passed on to users, advertisers, or taxpayers.
Based on analysis of 4 sections of legislative text.
Introduced March 4, 2025 by Peter Welch · Last progress March 4, 2025
Creates a new exception to Section 230 immunity for large social media platforms that intentionally or knowingly host objectively false information about the time, place, manner of covered federal elections or voter qualifications/restrictions. It requires a written-notice process for identifying such content, obligates qualifying platforms to remove proven false election-administration content on strict timelines (48 hours on non‑election days; 24 hours on election days), and authorizes civil suits and statutory damages for failures to remove. The law defines key terms, sets a platform-size threshold for coverage, provides a safe harbor for timely removals, and applies only to content hosted on or after enactment.