I 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2154 
To amend section 230(c) of the Communications Act of 1934 to prevent 
immunity for interactive computer services for certain claims, and for 
other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 23, 2021 
Mr. MALINOWSKI (for himself, Ms. ESHOO, Ms. JACOBS of California, Mr. 
NEGUSE, Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Mr. PHILLIPS, Ms. LEE of Cali-
fornia, Mr. CASTEN, Ms. STEVENS, and Mr. WELCH) introduced the fol-
lowing bill; which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Com-
merce 
A BILL 
To amend section 230(c) of the Communications Act of 
1934 to prevent immunity for interactive computer serv-
ices for certain claims, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Protecting Americans 
from Dangerous Algorithms Act’’. 
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SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY 
ACT. 
Section 230(c) of the Communications Act of 1934 
(47 U.S.C. 230(c)) is amended by adding at the end the 
following new paragraph: 
‘‘(3) ALGORITHMIC AMPLIFICATION.— 
‘‘(A) IN GENERAL.—For purposes of para-
graph (1), an interactive computer service shall 
be considered to be an information content pro-
vider and the protection under such paragraph 
shall not apply for any claim described in sub-
paragraph (B). 
‘‘(B) CONDITIONS FOR CLAIM.— 
‘‘(i) IN
GENERAL.—A claim in this 
subparagraph requires the following: 
‘‘(I) A claim in a civil action is 
brought under— 
‘‘(aa) section 1980 or 1981 
of the Revised Statutes (42 
U.S.C. 1985; 42 U.S.C. 1986); 
or 
‘‘(bb) section 2333 of title 
18, United States Code. 
‘‘(II) Except as provided in 
clause (ii), the claim involves a case in 
which the interactive computer service 
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used an algorithm, model, or other 
computational process to rank, order, 
promote, 
recommend, 
amplify, 
or 
similarly alter the delivery or display 
of information (including any text, 
image, audio, or video post, page, 
group, account, channel, or affiliation) 
provided to a user of the service if the 
information is directly relevant to the 
claim. 
‘‘(ii) 
EXCEPTION.—Notwithstanding 
clause (i)(II), the requirement is not met 
if— 
‘‘(I) the information delivery or 
display is ranked, ordered, promoted, 
recommended, amplified, or similarly 
altered in a way that is obvious, un-
derstandable, and transparent to a 
reasonable user based only on the de-
livery or display of the information 
(without the need to reference the 
terms of service or any other agree-
ment), 
including 
sorting 
informa-
tion— 
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‘‘(aa) chronologically or re-
verse chronologically; 
‘‘(bb) by average user rating 
or number of user reviews; 
‘‘(cc) alphabetically; 
‘‘(dd) randomly; and 
‘‘(ee) by views, downloads, 
or a similar usage metric; or 
‘‘(II) the algorithm, model, or 
other computational process is used 
for information a user specifically 
searches for. 
‘‘(C) EXEMPTIONS.— 
‘‘(i) SMALL BUSINESSES.—This para-
graph shall not apply to an interactive 
computer service that (in combination with 
each subsidiary and affiliate of the service) 
has 10,000,000 or fewer unique monthly 
visitors or users for not fewer than three 
of the preceding 12 months. 
‘‘(ii) INTERNET
INFRASTRUCTURE.— 
This paragraph shall not apply to a pro-
vider of an interactive computer service, 
when that service is used by another inter-
active computer service for the manage-
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ment, control, or operation of that other 
interactive computer service, including 
for— 
‘‘(I) web hosting; 
‘‘(II) domain registration; 
‘‘(III) content delivery networks; 
‘‘(IV) caching; 
‘‘(V) data storage; and 
‘‘(VI) cybersecurity.’’. 
Æ 
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