Section 230: What Is It and Why Is Everyone Talking About It?

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (“Section 230”), 47 U.S.C. § 230(c), has garnered significant attention in the media in recent months. But what is Section 230 and why are both President Trump and President-Elect Biden talking about its repeal? Section 230 is commonly referred to as the 26 words that created the internet. It ensures that an online platform can host and transmit third-party content without the liability that attaches to a publisher or speaker under defamation law, and encourages self-regulation by allowing online platforms to remove offensive content in good faith from their platforms. 47 U.S.C. §§ 230(c)(1)-(2). Yelp, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia have flourished in part because of the simultaneous protection from liability for defamatory statements posted by third-party users and from the removal of harmful or discriminatory content. Some believe that repealing Section 230 is long overdue, because what started out as a law meant to reward online platforms that remove harmful content in good faith has transformed into a broad liability shield. In one circumstance, that protection extended even to an online platform that recommended terrorist content to a user based on that user’s preferences. See Force v. Facebook, Inc., 934 F.3d 53 (2d Cir. 2019). Others argue that the repeal of Section 230 would have many...