Platform Accountability & Governance

Section 230 & Platform Accountability

Background

The correct interpretation of Section 230 is crucial for ensuring that platform companies are held accountable when they harm their users.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is an important—and controversial—law governing when people are allowed to sue internet companies. Section 230 was passed with a crucial but narrow goal: enabling online intermediaries to moderate user-generated content without becoming liable for any harmful content that remained.

Over the years, tech companies have pushed for extremely broad interpretations of Section 230, hoping to transform a narrow defense into near-total immunity for their own harmful conduct. For example, companies have claimed immunity when they mislead users about the design and safety of their platforms, when they fail to implement industry-standard abuse reporting procedures in their products, when their marketplaces sell fraudulent or illegal products, and more. Tech companies have won in some jurisdictions, while other jurisdictions, such as the Ninth Circuit, have kept their interpretation of Section 230 more narrowly focused on the law’s original goal.

EPIC believes that a properly scoped Section 230 is crucial for the overall health of the internet, and that the overbroad interpretations that tech companies and their allies advocate for harm users’ health and safety. For more, check out EPIC’s recent Section 230 work.

Recent Documents on Section 230 & Platform Accountability

  • Amicus Briefs

    Doe v. Grindr

    US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

    Whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act prohibits a lawsuit against a dating app alleging that the app was designed in a dangerous way because it repeatedly matched a high schooler with adults who sexually abused him.

  • Amicus Briefs

    McCarthy v. Amazon

    US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

    Whether Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, can be sued under product liability for selling sodium nitrite to minors who used the compound to commit suicide.

  • Amicus Briefs

    In re: Casino-Style Games Litigation

    US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

    Whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act prohibits claims against app store companies alleging that they unlawfully sold illegal gambling applications.

  • Amicus Briefs

    Bride et al. v. Yolo Technologies, Inc.

    US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

    Whether Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act prohibits (1) misrepresentation claims against internet companies who, after claiming in their terms of service that they would ban and reveal the identities of users who cyberbullied others, then refused to do so, and (2) products liability claims against the same defendants for designing an allegedly unsafe messaging product that allowed users to send anonymous, abusive messages to teens.

  • Amicus Briefs

    Gonzalez v. Google

    US Supreme Court

    Whether Section 230(c)(1) of the Communications Decency Act immunizes interactive computer services like Google from civil lawsuits when they make targeted recommendations of harmful content provided by their users.

  • Amicus Briefs

    Herrick v. Grindr, LLC

    US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

    Whether Sec. 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields Grindr, a dating app, from liability for failing to remove fake profiles that used the Plaintiff's name and likeness and posed a danger to his personal safety

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