The Supreme Court Should Reject an Attempt to Undermine Section 230

Thomas A. Berry and David Meyer-LindenbergNot everyone may know about Section 230, but it plays a huge role in shaping the online world. It ’s a short law; the most important part is just twenty ‐​six words long. And it was enacted in 1996 because Congress was worried that the internet would become a cesspool of harmful content if internet companies could be sued for anything their users posted.In 1995, a New York state court had held that Prodigy, an early internet company, could be sued for defamation for something that one of Prodigy ’s users had posted. Because Prodigy moderated its users’ posts, the court reasoned, the company had made itself liable for posts that its users wrote whenever Prodigy failed to remove them.To eliminate this court ‐​created disincentive to moderate content, Section 230 states that an “interactive computer service” (think Facebook, Google, or Twitter) can’t be held liable for publishing other people’s content. Similarly, a service can ’t be held liable for its decisions on what content to remove, leaving companies free to moderate as they see fit.Thanks to Section 230, websites can afford to offer forums for freewheeling speech. Want to blow the whistle on misconduct? Criticize someone powerful? Complain about mistreatment? Engage in vigorous, even rude debate? Section 230 lets you do it, because the companies that publish what you have to say don ’t need to fear getting dragged into a law...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs