Section 230’s Challenge to Civil Rights and Civil Liberties

Authors

Danielle K. Citron, Boston University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Response or Comment

Publication Date

4-6-2018

Publisher

Columbia University

Language

en-US

Abstract

In Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, lawmakers thought they were devising a safe harbor for online providers engaged in self-regulation. The goal was to encourage platforms to “clean up” offensive material online. Yet Section 230’s immunity has been stretched far beyond that purpose to immunize platforms that solicit or deliberately host illegality. As Olivier Sylvain’s thoughtful essay shows, it has been invoked to shield from liability platforms whose architectural choices lead ineluctably to illegal discrimination.

Comments

Response to Olivier Sylvain's essay "Discriminatory Designs on User Data"

Recommended Citation

Danielle K. Citron, Section 230’s Challenge to Civil Rights and Civil Liberties , in Knight First Amendment Institute (2018).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/shorter_works/35

Publisher URL

https://knightcolumbia.org/content/section-230s-challenge-civil-rights-and-civil-liberties