Who remembers when Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act gave platforms the confidence to host legal communities online?
It was thoughtful of Professor Eric Goldman of Santa Clara University School of Law to mark the 30th anniversary of the act of this week with a great legal analysis of its history, in which he began,
“Section 230 didn’t receive much attention when it was passed, but it has since emerged as one of Congress’ most important media laws ever. Section 230 helped trigger the Web 2.0 era–where people principally talk with each other online, rather than just having content broadcast at them one-way. By enabling that discourse and other new categories of human interaction, Section 230 has thus reshaped the Internet and, by extension, our economy, our government, and our society.”
What many may not realize is how much 230 meant to those of us building things online in the late 1990s.
In 1997 and 1998, I was running legal message boards and listservs out of my law firm to help the public through contributions from lawyers around the country, and running the legal community at AOL. Consumers could post questions and experienced trial lawyers could respond. I didn’t know what I was doing, but it was fun and I was helping a lot of people.
It was real sharing. No Google dominance. No SEO games. No content marketing. Just lawyers and people exchanging information on a new medium.
As a lawyer I had a slight fear I could be sued.
What if someone posts something perceived as defamatory on one of our message boards or listservs and the subject wants to sue us as host? What if someone claims they relied on advice that turned out to be incorrect and wants to hold us liable.
Section 230 covered us—even though not its intent.
It basically provided that if you hosted the publishing and exchange of third-party content online, you are not treated as the publisher or speaker of that content. That protection allowed forums, listservs, and communities like ours to exist without potential liability risk.
I assumed Section 230 would be temporary. As Eric shared, it was the only part of the Telecommunications Act that survived. I didn’t think Congress would leave such broad protection in place indefinitely. I certainly didn’t think that one day that act would provide the foundation for companies the likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and the entire web community of user reviews and social platforms.
Nearly three decades later, Section 230 still stands. It protected a lot of company pioneers. It protected lawyers experimenting with digital publishing. It protected legal communities built around shared knowledge. It enabled me to found two companies, Prairielaw and LexBlog. As my legal counsel said when I was founding LexBlog, “You’re like Federal Express, you can’t be sued for what’s inside the envelope.”
Seeing Eric reflect on 230 brought back some good memories of a time when digital exchanges and publishing online felt uncertain and a little bit brave/crazy.