© Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg The U.S. Department of Justice seal is displayed following a news conference with Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general, not pictured, in Washington, D.C., U.S. on Thursday, Dec. 20, 2018. Rosenstein announced accusations that two Chinese nationals conducted an "extensive" hacking campaign in association with Chinese state security officials for more than a decade.

(Bloomberg) -- The Justice Department plans to propose changes to a legal shield enjoyed by companies such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. amid criticism that the tech platforms carry material that promotes illicit conduct and suppresses conservative opinions.

The Justice Department is concerned that tech companies are expanding beyond the original intent of the liability provision, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, in order to immunize them from laws, Jeffrey Rosen, the department’s No. 2 official, said at a conference in Washington.

“After 25 years it seems that the time has come for Congress to assess what changes to Section 230 are now needed,” Rosen said. “When all is said and done, we’d like to see the benefits maintained and enhanced while the harms are mitigated.”

Rosen’s criticism echoes remarks from Attorney General William Barr, who last month convened a workshop on Section 230 to explore potential changes to the law. The move poses a significant threat to tech companies. Immunity from lawsuits over third-party content is crucial to their business models because they would otherwise need to hire armies of content checkers and could face burdensome legal challenges.

In his speech, Rosen outlined four areas of Section 230 that are of concern to the Justice Department, including that the provision shouldn’t shield websites that “enabled illegality and harm the children” and that platforms are increasingly using Section 230 as a defense against the government in civil actions.

(Updates with comments in third paragraph)

--With assistance from Ben Brody.

To contact the reporters on this story: Vicky Graham in Arlington at vgraham7@bloomberg.net;David McLaughlin in Washington at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net;Seth Stern at sstern22@bloomberg.net

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