Once seen as a critical tool for internet platforms to police lewd and objectionable online speech, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act has gained growing bipartisan support as a law in need of fixing.
Enacted in 1996, Section 230 exempts online platforms from liability for most user-generated speech. President Donald Trump has taken aim at changing the law in a fight against Twitter (TWTR), putting tech giants in legal and regulatory crosshairs that are likely to outlast the current election cycle.
Democrats and Republicans alike voice increasing antipathy over sweeping liability protections that 230 affords to all online platforms — including Facebook (FB), Instagram, YouTube (GOOG) (GOOGL). All told, experts say it’s becoming clear that change is coming.“If Trump is reelected, frankly even if he isn’t reelected, you might see variations on this proposal coming into some type of effect next year, with a shocking level of bipartisan support,” Florida’s former consumer protection czar, Richard Lawson, told Yahoo Finance recently.It’s happened before. Back in 2018, bipartisan action on Section 230 created a carve out that removed immunity for user content promoting or facilitating sex trafficking of minors.“The fact that they would come together is huge,” Lawson said, speaking of the 2018 change.In the wake of ongoing efforts by lawmakers and the Trump administration to claw back the protections, some say that’s reason enough for all companies with an online presence to seriously assess the cost of the law’s potential makeover.“There’s a tremendous amount of liability at risk,” according to Rob McDowell, a former Federal Communications Commissioner (FCC) under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and partner at Cooley LLP....
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Our Cooley boilerplate:
Cooley is one of the big dogs of the VC legal eagle biz. Something like a third of the unicorns on the WSJ's Billion Dollar Startup Club list have used Cooley for one purpose or another.
Additionally, 20 or 21 of the companies on the "Technology Review's 50 Smartest Companies 2017" list have been represented or counseled by the firm. As I said, one of the biggies.
