Two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a case which asked the justices to weigh in on the scope of Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, the famous provision which says that "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Section 230 generally shields online platforms, such as social media companies, from being sued over content posted to those platforms by others.
Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with his colleagues that the Court should not have heard the case. But "in an appropriate case," Thomas wrote, the Court should not only hear arguments, but begin "paring back the sweeping immunity [for companies] courts have read into §230."
