Section 230

Section 230 was part of the Communications Decency Act, signed February 8, 1996, as part of the Telecommunications Act. Congress wrote it after a New York court held an online service liable for a user's post because it had tried to moderate content. Its key sentence says that no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of information provided by someone else. A second part protects companies that remove content they consider objectionable in good faith.

Courts have read the law broadly, so platforms such as social media sites, review sites, and search engines usually cannot be sued over defamatory or harmful posts by users, though the users themselves can be. It does not protect against federal criminal charges, intellectual property claims, or, since a 2018 law, claims involving sex trafficking. In Gonzalez v. Google in 2023 the Supreme Court declined to decide whether recommendation algorithms are protected, and in 2024 it held in Moody v. NetChoice that platforms' choices about what to show are a form of protected editorial judgment.

Section 230 is criticized from both sides. Many on the left say it lets platforms ignore harmful content, while many on the right say it lets them censor conservative views. Parents' groups say it blocks lawsuits over harms to children. A bipartisan bill introduced in 2025 and 2026 would end the protection after a set date unless Congress rewrites it. Defenders, including many smaller websites and free speech groups, say repealing it would force platforms to remove far more lawful speech to avoid lawsuits.