Section 230

In the United States, Section 230 is a section of the <a href="/facts/Communications_Act_of_1934/9sM89esC">Communications Act of 1934</a> that was enacted as part of the <a href="/facts/Communications_Decency_Act/V3rrzQCV">Communications Decency Act of 1996</a>, which is Title V of the <a href="/facts/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996/GKfnXuw2">Telecommunications Act of 1996</a>, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by its users. At its core, Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:

<blockquote>No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.— Section 230 of the <a href="/facts/Communications_Act_of_1934/9sM89esC">Communications Act of 1934</a> (47 U.S.C. § 230), as added <a href="/facts/Communications_Decency_Act/V3rrzQCV">Pub. L. 104–104, title V, § 509</a></blockquote>
Section 230(c)(2) further provides "<a href="/facts/Parable_of_the_Good_Samaritan/CtCIm0Jf">Good Samaritan</a>" protection from civil liability for operators of interactive computer services in the voluntary good faith removal or moderation of third-party material the operator "considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected."
Section 230 was developed in response to a pair of lawsuits against online discussion platforms in the early 1990s that resulted in different interpretations of whether the service providers should be treated as publishers, <a href="/facts/Stratton_Oakmont%2c_Inc._v._Prodigy_Services_Co./04G0u3eX">Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co.</a>, or alternatively, as distributors of content created by their users, <a href="/facts/Cubby%2c_Inc._v._CompuServe_Inc./QwAQnBDH">Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe Inc.</a> The section's authors, Representatives <a href="/facts/Christopher_Cox/YM7eHKTV">Christopher Cox</a> and <a href="/facts/Ron_Wyden/IctyChLB">Ron Wyden</a>, believed interactive computer services should be treated as distributors, not liable for the content they distributed, as a means to protect the growing Internet at the time.
Section 230 was enacted as section 509 of the <a href="/facts/Communications_Decency_Act/V3rrzQCV">Communications Decency Act</a> (CDA) of 1996 (a common name for Title V of the <a href="/facts/Telecommunications_Act_of_1996/GKfnXuw2">Telecommunications Act of 1996</a>). After passage of the Telecommunications Act, the CDA was challenged in courts and was ruled by the Supreme Court in <a href="/facts/Reno_v._American_Civil_Liberties_Union/TYMpYFoL">Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union</a> (1997) to be unconstitutional, though Section 230 was determined to be <a href="/facts/Severability/NKlkvMDA">severable</a> from the rest of the legislation and remained in place. Since then, several legal challenges have validated the constitutionality of Section 230.
Section 230 protections are not limitless and require providers to remove material that violates federal criminal law, intellectual property law, or human trafficking law. In 2018, Section 230 was amended by the <a href="/facts/Stop_Enabling_Sex_Traffickers_Act/jaXUJeFQ">Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act</a> (FOSTA-SESTA) to require the removal of material violating federal and state sex trafficking laws. In the following years, protections from Section 230 have come under more scrutiny on issues related to <a href="/facts/Hate_speech/y6Wmy5sx">hate speech</a> and <a href="/facts/Framing_(social_sciences)/YtEUJxWj">ideological biases</a> in relation to the power that technology companies can hold on political discussions and became a major issue during the <a href="/facts/2020_United_States_presidential_election/nkvkv6U8">2020 United States presidential election</a>, especially with regard to alleged censorship of more conservative viewpoints on social media.
Passed when Internet use was just starting to expand in both breadth of services and range of consumers in the United States, Section 230 has frequently been referred to as a key law, which allowed the Internet to develop.

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Section 230