Microsoft Corp President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith said on Friday that US tech companies will change how they moderate online platforms in response to new laws from foreign governments, regardless of whether US lawmakers take action.
Smith said that Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act, which says that tech companies cannot be sued for what users of their online platforms say, was a needed law in the late 1990s when it first passed but that technology companies are now more mature and should have a “new level of responsibility” for what is said on their sites.
In an interview with Reuters Editor-in-Chief Stephen J. Adler at a Reuters Newsmaker event in New York, Smith said that other countries such as New Zealand were passing laws in the wake of events like the mass murder in Christchurch earlier this year.
“The laws around the world are going to change, and because technology is so global, American companies will adopt a new approach even if the United States Congress does nothing,” he said.
Smith spoke to Reuters as part of a tour to promote his recently released book, “Tools and Weapons.”
He also said tech companies have a responsibility to work together to help bridge the so-called digital divide, where rural Americans often lack broadband internet access, calling it “the technological underpinning for many of the major social, economic and political issues of the day.”
He said Microsoft has turned down government requests for facial recognition software in cases where it fears misuse.
“We won’t sell facial recognition services for the purposes of mass surveillance anywhere in the world,” he added.
Microsoft has called for stronger regulation of facial recognition technology, which has been used in China to track ethnic minorities. Smith stopped short for calling for an outright ban on the technology, saying that Microsoft believes it has valid uses and has argued that governments should move faster to regulate it.
“It’s hard to innovate if you can’t use something, and it’s hard to learn if you can’t innovate,” Smith said.
