TLDR: As the year winds down, Republican policymakers are making multiple eleventh-hour attempts to undermine a foundational Internet law that has drawn the ire of President Donald Trump in the lead up to and aftermath of the 2020 election. This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee is slated to consider a bill to reform Section 230—the law that creates intermediary liability limitations for online services that host user-generated content—and the Trump administration is reportedly threatening to veto the annual defense authorization bill if it does not include Section 230 reforms.

TLDR: A Senate panel is preparing to hold a hearing tomorrow with the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to discuss Section 230 and allegations of political bias by big tech firms. Although Section 230 has drawn scrutiny from policymakers because of the actions of large Internet companies, the law allows platforms of all sizes to host user content and engage in content moderation without the fear of potentially crippling lawsuits. Any changes to the law will have an outsized impact on the U.S. startup ecosystem.

TLDR: Many members of Congress are calling for changes to Section 230—a bedrock Internet law that allows Internet platforms to host and moderate user content without having to worry about ruinous lawsuits. But Democrats and Republicans see very different problems with Section 230 and Internet platforms' content moderation practices, and most policymakers’ criticisms focus exclusively on a handful of large companies while ignoring the outsized impact that changes to Section 230 would have on startups.

TLDR: The Trump administration is pressuring federal agencies to comply with an executive order that would change a bedrock Internet law in order to address supposed bias from major Internet platforms. President Donald Trump has been pushing agency officials in recent months to weaken the framework—known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—that lets companies host and moderate users’ content without the fear of being sued into bankruptcy. While much of the attention around Section 230 focuses on major Internet companies, the law is especially critical for startups, which would be disproportionately impacted by policy changes in this space.