The protection I am referring to is the protection from libel lawsuits under section 230 of the DCMA. If a tech company displays content that is libelous to a third party, written by another third party, it cannot be sued for libel by the defamed party, even if they are aware of the defamation.
This protection from defamation lawsuits is a key part of tech companies business models because they do not have to validate truth to what they display.
The idea behind this protection is it promotes open and free speech, and debate.
Project Veritas has shown google to removing a portion of free and open debate and speech, while keeping the low costs and positive user experience associated with not having to moderate content for truth.
Taxation is an entirely different issue. All corporations do their best to pay as little taxes as they can while following the law. If they paid more taxes than the law requires, they would be short-charging their shareholders. Taxing corporations in the first place is a form of double taxation because owners of corporations will pay taxes on dividends or capital gains, in addition to the corporation paying taxes on its income.
yeah, thats bad, but, as i said, i would deny section 230 of the DCMA, and force tech companies to pay taxes. forcing them to pay taxes is much more usable
There are a couple of lawsuits making their ways through the courts trying to create precedent that various major tech companies are "publishers" under section 230, and there is a small push in congress that would force companies to be politically neutral to get section 230 protections/benefits.
These companies will most probably not operate without section 230 protections, and if there were requirements to keep these protections, the companies would follow these requirements.