Why the internet still needs Section 230

Across U.S. politics, it’s become fashionable to blame nearly all the internet’s ills on one law I co-wrote: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Everyone from President Donald Trump to some of my Democratic colleagues argue that Section 230 has let major tech platforms moderate too much or too little. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, has already written about his plans to reinterpret the law himself. Many of these claims give Section 230 too much credit. While it’s a cornerstone of internet speech, it’s a lesser support compared to the First Amendment, as well as Americans’ own choices in what they want to see online. But I’m convinced the law is just as necessary today as when I co-wrote it with Rep. Chris Cox in 1996. Critics of Section 230 often charge that the internet has fundamentally changed in the past three decades. Yet the bill’s 26 key words were written to address the same challenges we face today: keeping kids safe online, leveling the playing field between entrenched corporate interests and small innovators, and ensuring that individuals—not the government—control what we see online.

[Sen Ron Wyden (D-OR) has served as a Senator from Oregon since 1996. He is the author of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.]