230 Protects Users, Not Big Tech

Once again, several Senators appear poised to gut one of the most important laws protecting internet users – Section 230 (47 U.S.C. § 230). 

Don’t be fooled – many of Section 230’s detractors claim that this critical law only protects big tech. The reality is that Section 230 provides limited protection for all platforms, though the biggest beneficiaries are small platforms and users. Why else would some of the biggest platforms be willing to endorse a bill that guts the law? In fact, repealing Section 230 would only cement the status of Big Tech monopolies.

As EFF has said for years, Section 230 is essential to protecting individuals’ ability to speak, organize, and create online. 

Congress knew exactly what Section 230 would do – that it would lay the groundwork for speech of all kinds across the internet, on websites both small and large. And that’s exactly what has happened.  

Section 230 isn’t in conflict with American values. It upholds them in the digital world. People are able to find and create their own communities, and moderate them as they see fit. People and companies are responsible for their own speech, but (with narrow exceptions) not the speech of others. 

The law is not a shield for Big Tech. Critically, the law benefits the millions of users who don’t have the resources to build and host their own blogs, email services, or social media sites, and instead rely on services to host that speech. Section 230 also benefits thousands of small online services that host speech. Those people are being shut out as the bill sponsors pursue a dangerously misguided policy.  

If Big Tech is at the table in any future discussion for what rules should govern internet speech, EFF has no confidence that the result will protect and benefit internet users, as Section 230 does currently. If Congress is serious about rewriting the internet’s speech rules, it must spend time listening to the small services and everyday users who would be harmed should they repeal Section 230.  

Section 230 Protects Everyday Internet Users 

There’s another glaring omission in the arguments to end Section 230: how central the law is to ensuring that every person can speak online, and that Congress or the Administration does not get to define what speech is “good” and “bad”.   

Let’s start with the text of Section 230. Importantly, the law protects both online services and users. It says that “no provider or user shall be treated as the publisher” of content created by another. That’s in clear agreement with most Americans’ belief that people should be held responsible for their own speech—not that of others.   

Section 230 protects individual bloggers, anyone who forwards an email, and social media users who have ever reshared or retweeted another person’s content online. Section 230 also protects individual moderators who might delete or otherwise curate others’ online content, along with anyone who provides web hosting services. 

As EFF has explained, online speech is frequently targeted with meritless lawsuits. Big Tech can afford to fight these lawsuits without Section 230. Everyday internet users, community forums, and small businesses cannot. Engine has estimated that without Section 230, many startups and small services would be inundated with costly litigation that could drive them offline. Even entirely meritless lawsuits cost thousands of dollars to fight, and often tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Deleting Section 230 Will Create A Field Day For The Internet’s Worst Users  

Section 230’s detractors say that too many websites and apps have “refused” to go after “predators, drug dealers, sex traffickers, extortioners and cyberbullies,” and imagine that removing Section 230 will somehow force these services to better moderate user-generated content on their sites.  

These arguments fundamentally misunderstand Section 230. The law lets platforms decide, largely for themselves, what kind of speech they want to host, and to remove speech that doesn’t fit their own standards without penalty. 

 If lawmakers are legitimately motivated to help online services root out unlawful activity and terrible content appearing online, the last thing they should do is eliminate Section 230. The current law strongly incentivizes websites and apps, both large and small, to kick off their worst-behaving users, to remove offensive content, and in cases of illegal behavior, work with law enforcement to hold those users responsible. 

If Congress deletes Section 230, the pre-digital legal rules around distributing content would kick in. That law strongly discourages services from moderating or even knowing about user-generated content. This is because the more a service moderates user content, the more likely it is to be held liable for that content. Under that legal regime, online services will have a huge incentive to just not moderate and not look for bad behavior. This would result in the exact opposite of their goal of protecting children and adults from harmful content online.