SESTA is flawed, but the debate over it is welcome

ONCE the giants of the internet could do no wrong. Now they are a favourite target of politicians everywhere. Europe’s finance ministers are discussing ways to increase taxes on digital services. Theresa May, Britain’s prime minister, this week demanded that social-media platforms be able to take down terrorist material within two hours. In America Facebook’s bosses must soon tell Congress what role users tied to Russia played in last year’s presidential campaign.Much of this is still political theatre. But not all. America’s Senate is contemplating the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), a bipartisan bill that seeks to deter sex trafficking by ensuring that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) does not protect online services, such as Backpage.com, notorious for making money with sex-trafficking ads (see ). Should the bill pass, a wave of lawsuits against social-media platforms is likely to follow.