Since 1996, the law known unpoetically as Section 230 has governed the liability of millions of websites, blogs, apps, social media platforms, search engines, and online services that host content created by their users. Hundreds of court decisions have created a now-venerable jurisprudence around the statute. But not until this year has the U.S. Supreme Court had an opportunity to consider its first Section 230 cases.
When the court’s 2022-23 term ended in June, policymakers who had anxiously awaited the justices’ pronouncement on the 27-year-old law finally got their answer: Section 230 would be left untouched. As the statute’s co-authors in the 1990s, we are quick to acknowledge that no law is perfect, this one included. But the legal certainty the court’s decisions provide could not come at a more critical time, as artificial intelligence and applications such as ChatGPT raise new questions about who is liable for defamatory or otherwise illegal content on the internet.
