So, back in 1995, Chris Cox, GOP congressman and former senior counsel to Ronald Reagan, was killing time reading a newspaper when he should have been out shooting guns at old tin cans (that’s the best way to keep GOPs harmlessly occupied). And he read a story about how someone had won a defamation suit against some kinda newfangled “Internet” thingy called Prodigy, a service provider that hosted bulletin boards or something of that nature. At the time, previous court cases had determined that a service provider was not responsible for bulletin-board or message-board postings by users or subscribers (said postings in 1995 were, of course, mainly limited to debates over Captains Kirk vs. Picard). But in the Prodigy case, a court had determined that because Prodigy
moderated comments, it was now a
publisher by law, and therefore liable for the material it published. The court determined that content moderation is what makes an online platform provider legally liable. If they don’t moderate, they’re not responsible.
Well, Cox threw down that
newspaper and rode his mighty steed to Capitol Hill, for to defeat this wickedness. From his perspective, if sites like Prodigy become liable simply by moderating third-party content, they’ll have a disincentive to moderate, and therefore these “bulletin boards” and “message boards” will become a Wild West of immorality. Prostitution! Kiddie porn! Donkey rape! Cox wanted
more online moderation, so therefore immunity for those who moderate was needed.
Cox went to hardcore leftist Oregon Demeecrat Ron Wyden and was all like, “Bro, will you help me draft bipartisan legislation that’ll protect this newfangled ‘Internet’ thing from immorality by giving providers total immunity to police bad actors?” And I’d like to think that at this point, Wyden, seeing the gift that was being handed to him by this dumb-ass, began laughing maniacally in Cox’s face. Big, hearty, evil laughter. And Cox was like, “What’s so funny, dude?” And Wyden, eyes darting back and forth, replied, “Oh, nothing. Just a joke I heard earlier today. You know why a farmer never tells secrets in his field? The
corn has
ears!”
And Cox was like, “Oh dear heavens, that
is funny! I’ll have to tell that one at Sunday supper. Now, to work!”
Almost certainly, Wyden, a son of Holocaust survivors who understands that repression is the only way to stop repressive forces from exercising repression, was thinking big-picture. Churchy McGee’s desire to sponsor a content-provider immunity bill could, long-term, pay big dividends for the left. So, a bipartisan bill, supported in the Senate by puritanical Nebraskan J. James Exon (taking a break from publishing the
Daily Bugle) emerged—the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996.
Wanna hear a funny joke (funnier than that farmer one)? From Cox and Exon’s perspective, the CDA was all about stopping porn. But the very next year, the Supreme Court struck down most of the anti-porn provisions.
So what was left?
Buried within the law was section 230, which protects providers of interactive computer services from liability from any and all content posted by any and all users. If you’re a fan of the old FX series
The Shield, you may remember the immunity deal the feds gave Mackey in the second-to-last episode. Well…this immunity deal makes that one look like nothing.
...
Here’s the text of
CDA 230 (c)(2)(A). I’ve italicized and underlined the important parts:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing,
or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.
