Shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by a another information content provider. After more than 20 years, since the birth of the internet age as we know it, section 230 has provided websites immunity from what they are users post. Legal and policy framework has allowed for youtube users to upload their own videos, amazon and yelp to offer countless user reviews, and facebook and twitter to offer social networking to billions of internet users. Given the sheer size of user generated websites, it would be impossible and unfeasible are intermediaries to prevent this from cropping up on their sites. In short, section 230 is perhaps the most influential law to protect the kind of innovation that is of the internet to thrive since 1996. Yet over the past few years section 230 has faced criticism. Has faced heightened criticism from the left and the right. Many critics on the left argue that social media giants enjoy special protection. They allow speech without worrying about consequences. Resulting in harassment and the increased prevalence of hate speech online. Other critics on the right have argued that these companies have gone too far in policing these devices or at least have gone too far in policing conservative voices. And that has enacted a biased doublers double standard. In light of these criticisms, we have seen calls to reform this section, and it is these calls and this debate that we are going to discuss today, and i often use the phrase, an allstar panel. This time i mean it especially. This is an allstar panel. Immediately to my right is the danielle, the author of the 2014 book hate crimes in cyberspace. Next to her is jim harper, and over on the end is jeff, the assistant for pfizer of Cyber Security law at the Naval AcademyCyber Science Department and author of the book the 26 words that created the internet and welcome all. Let me start with jeff. What do we know for sure, or reasonably for sure, was the intent behind section 230 . Why did legislators feel the need to bring this into being . Jeff there are two main reasons. When you look at the legislative history and when you talk to the people involved in drafting and advocating for section 230. The first was there was really a concern at the time it is kind of quaint, legal pornography available to children. That was the biggest concern at the time. There was a series of Court Rulings under common law and the First Amendment which basically stood for the proposition that if you did not moderate content, you could increase your chances of being protected from liability for all user content. But if you start to moderate, then you could expose yourself to liability. For defamation and other types of harm. There was really a concern that the system was giving incentives for platforms not to moderate. It was one driver of the section. The other was you have to think about the time, 1995, the modern internet was really at its infancy. Congress wanted to get this out of the way of the development of the new technology. Between those two reasons, those were really the driving forces between section 230. To get regulation and lawsuits out of the way of the development of the new technology. Between those two reasons, those were really the driving forces between section 230. Jim everyone can sort of jump in, you dont need for me to everyone can sort of jump in, you dont need for me to call on you. I should have mentioned that earlier. There seems to be confusion about the original intent. I think thats what you try to dispel with your book. What is the confusion . That seems straightforward. There seems to be confusion. L say i am only speaking on my own half. Jim just sort of the narrow issue of what was the point of this to begin with . Speaking just on my own behalf, not on the behalf of dod , theres a lot of confusion i would say the biggest bit is that section 230 is conditioned on neutrality, that it only applies to neutral platforms, whatever those might be, rather than publishers. The point was to eliminate that distinction and to allow platforms to exercise discretion, figure out what their users should or should not be exposed to and not [] thats probably the biggest. The issues that were foremost at the time were about pornography and defamation, not so much about politics, were they . Not at the time here there was a statement in the findings for the bill that said something along the lines of wanting to foster political discourse, a recognition that there would be free speech. To that extent there was, but there was no conditioning of neutrality. Four texan suture 30 protections. 230 protections. I think we are forgetting the title of section 230 c which is the idea was it would apply to Good Samaritans who were protecting, blocking and filtering offensive speech. Absolutely, the idea was to incentivize selfmonitoring, provide protection for those blocking and filtering offensive speech, which is completely legally protected rate but we wanted to incentivize jim what did people think they meant by offensive back then . You quoted see 2 allows good faith efforts to block objectionable content or harassment. But congress wanted to give a very wide range of discretion to these platforms to block content and not be exposed to liability. Jim ok. Just a brief legal point, were they not already protected under the First Amendment . I hear that a lot. Why did date need this why did they need this extra protection . Theres a lot of different protections, but one is to protect content that others create and the rule is if you are a distributor you can only be liable for other content if you either or had reason to know the problem became that the courts started saying if you start to moderate, you dont receive that protection and you are strictly liable just like a newspaper. That was the weird system that was created by the First Amendment. And it was common Law Development, that is the courts were looking at this new medium and coming at it from different places whether a platform provider was the publisher, and or was a speaker. In my opinion the law jumped ahead to what i think was the right result. It is unfortunate that we got there through legislation rather than commonLaw Development. It would have taken years, but then again here we are talking about it, if the rule had been generated from the bottom up through experience, i think it mightve been stronger and a better understood rule and one based deeply in practice rather than getting this overthetop legislation which i think is pretty good but not perfect. Jim given that, a little bit on the history, how controversial was this to slip through where people kind of did not understand all of the consequences from this, or was there much real debate . There was a little bit of discussion, no real opposition on the floor. It was attached to the telecom bill, because this was part of the broader overhaul of telecom laws in 1996. Section 230 was really seen as an alternative to the Communications Decency act, which both of those ended up being put in the telecom act. The communication decency act imposed all sorts of prohibitions for speech that wasnt distant was indecent. And the Supreme Court struck this down. Section 230 did not really receive media coverage, and when it did for most there was not a notion that it would shield platforms from content user liability types of user content, so it was really an afterthought at the time. So we have this law that shields internet companies, how does it work in western europe . Do they have their own version of this . They have rules. Europe has a number of rules, but it varies a little bit and it gets into the classification whether it is a conduit or other service. There are some cases where the court said not only do you have to take down content if you get a notice complaining about it. You also might have a duty to actively patrol user content violate defamation laws or hate speech laws and things like that. It is much more restrictive than really most other jurisdictions than it is here. You said it protects big lot big platforms. But it also protects small platforms. My thinking, i ran this site which was a Government Transparency site. Dont go look at it now theres nothing but broken dreams, but and when web 2. 0 came along, i changed, and thats when people actually started to be able to comment and vote and have their own material. We had a common comment section. There was a bill to extend welfare benefits, Unemployment Benefits and it had , Something Like 200,000 comments. I was the only guy in my spare time to join watching what was going on in the site. There were people who were behaving horribly to undermine the conversation. There were people who were telling me that someone else was using their name, and i was called on to moderate the situation. I wasnt using consciously using section 230, just trying to do my best to create a good environment. It is extraordinary the length people go to to undermine the site because they thought i was in favor of this legislation. It was meant to be a neutral platform. Unfortunately the internet for all its blessings allows people to be truly wicked from behind that anonymity. They take every effort to upset each other, to undercut the platform, so its an area that is fraught. Section 230 is a very important protection. It is not just to make them upset. People use tools to destroy lives, post nude photos, and sure cant get a date, keep their jobs, get a new one. They threaten. They post did amateur information. Information that one can never respond to, i am not a prostitute, so that the kind of stuff that we have seen isnt just like things that hurt feelings, not just offensive speech paired it is speech that we would say is not even legally protected, that we can criminalize and ensure liability for. There are sites that make a business out of hosting this kind of thing. They say, sumi, sue me, good luck, i am immune from liability. And peoples lives are ruined. I think it is just important to note that this mischief i help with filtering crazy comments, but we it is for more than that, like any wonderful tools for great things and also for ill to see a lot of illegality and destruction of peoples lives. Indeed. We have this legislation that is not that was not controversial, now very controversial, for Different Reasons from different perspectives. But just one second before we get to that, you mentioned that perhaps some of these protections could have evolved more organically rather than legislation. But given how this internet developed, if that section 230 had not happened, what might the internet look like today . How might it have evolved . Without it. Now, didnt have it right what does internet look like . You have an argument on that. Im a little skeptical that the common law would have developed to the extent of the protection that 230 provides. I i think some of the early court cases were not very well reasoned, that really imposed significant liability, but i dont think that broad protection that this section provides for thirdparty content wouldve been the same under common law. There probably would be more of a notice of takedown type system where if you get notification of potentially illegal content, your choices take it is either down or you have to stand in the shoes of the person who posted it and then defend it, which most rational platforms are not going to want to do because they dont want to litigate all these defamation cases. I think you would not see the same extent of social media, all these services that arent coincidentally based in the United States. Where are all of these giants , do you think 230 is a big reason why we have them and they dont . Very much so. I think they were able to develop in the way they currently are because of section 230. We would probably have different types of services, but they would not have the same rules that they have right now. Without section 230. And a social Media Companies like in china, with complete censorship and control. Its not like we wouldnt have any companies posting dog videos, right, right. Things that were pretty benign. I think its right that we got the big media we did because of 230. Is that right or wrong . Is it a liability free subsidy . A little bit less liability for social media that forms meant we have a Huge Industry that came at a cost, victimization of people that are in some cases very sympathetic. Like we have for industry. And some of those externalities include speech so , when you are targeted with harassment online, and you are silent so often, and we forget that those negative externalities are lost jobs and potential physical violence but also speech. And sort of the externality that seems controversial, we are talking about how to regulate big tech. But those externalities and victims were there from the very beginning, and i know in the book there are several interesting cases of people who were actually hurt, with extremely sympathetic stories, bet where there any calls back then that this is generating victims, we need to do something, or does it pretty much continue to the present state, ignored by policymakers . I think there were some tough cases. What about senator lieberman, wasnt that 2004, and he wanted to pressure google to takedown videos. And that just gets ignored. There were some efforts at the time. I guess what i am saying the public attention was not nearly the same, and they were tough cases in the beginning. There were a lot of people arguing theyre only been difficult cases recently. The second case ever litigated was a case where a mother sued aol because there was child pornography with her teenage son in it that aol was being marketed in a chat room and she kept contacting them and they would not prevent it. That is a difficult case. Its not just like they were only defamation cases in the early stages. There were tough cases all the way from the early days of section 230. Is not child pornography doesnt that fall outside of the section . Federal criminal law does not enjoy that immunity. But she was suing for negligence. I got you. The problem is the state of changing technology. In the early days, you had manual processes entirely. Nowadays a thing like child pornography you can kind of automate tracking, and those systems are in place where you can get a hash of known child files and you can review anything. There is a case where aol found child pornography and delivered it. Justice gorsuch wrote the opinion the opinion is very. Good, but automated review for things that are selfevidently criminal seems like an area where you might be able to feel hold platforms libel. Its important because if you are taking defamation or stocking it is really hard for a , person coming in for the first time to a conversation to figure out whether someone is defaming another. What is the reality of it . Someone contacting me someone contacted me saying someone was using my name. I i know rare names are repeated may times around the world. Could not bring myself to take something down as Identity Fraud because the same name was being used as another person out there in the world. I dont think the people who are faced with these decisions, myriad different kinds of problems coming to them are going to be able to negotiate those kinds of determinations readily. You might have a might have a liability that is a probably attached if it is selfevidently so there would be these stories, but generally this is sort of what it sounds like, its sort of not anymore, is it the case that you have these big Platform Companies that are in the news, and so its sort of why now . Was there a triggering event, or is it just being intrusive in our lives . That we are taking a closer look at companies and what regulations and laws apply . A couple of things, coming together all at once, i feel like we could take each thread and bring it together, right . People dont Like Tech Companies peck companies dont Like Tech Companies people dont like tech comedies is they used Like Tech Companies as much as they used to. This is a wonderful opportunity for every senator to hop on the bandwagon. You bear full responsibility of all mischief online, and it was sort of an easy potshot, and then so what else can we throw on this . We have russia and disinformation and then therefore blaming the platform for not doing anything about it when they were caught unaware, right . I dont want to take all the thunder. I feel like we all want to pitch in something. I would also say one thing i have observed is traditional news media perhaps is not very happy with the Business Models of some of the large platforms. It seems like one criticism is that it enables those models, not just about moderating and shielding companies, but it is a part of why these companies are worth 500 billion dollars. And they are not nascent. They are engaged in surveillance for tremendous amounts of money and they are stealing the business of news companies. Thats what youre saying. Or in the mind of one problem familiar to students of regulation. If you were deeply to undercut these protections, the big ones would be able to navigate the new law, and the little ones trying to challenge and would not be able to navigate the new law costeffectively. Like regulation typically does, it would lock in the status quo in the marketplace. So the natural decline of facebook would be delayed if not foreclosed by doing away with 230 or deeply undercutting its protections. Is there as much for the small ones as it is for the big ones. I have an approach for that, but we can talk about that later. We dont have to get there yet. I would also say the larger platforms have lack of transparency, and they have started to change, but i think it was often like a black box to figure out what was going on in there. Particularly a complaint among conservatives that think companies are biased against them. I say i dont see why that person is not being taken down, and why not that person . Do i call the 800 number if it happens to me . What do i do . They dont understand the process. When i went on twitter, to discuss this, there was a statement that section 230 is terrible. What it does is enables hate and harassment. You have written about this. These things too. I