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If a news site falsely calls you a swindler, you can sue the publisher for libel. But if someone posts that on Facebook, you can't sue the company - just the person who posted it.
That's thanks to Section 230, which states that 'no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.'
That legal phrase shields companies that can host trillions of messages from being sued into oblivion by anyone who feels wronged by something someone else has posted - whether their complaint is legitimate or not.
Section 230 also allows social platforms to moderate their services by removing posts that, for instance, are obscene or violate the services' own standards, so long as they are acting in 'good faith.'
Where did Section 230 come from?
The measure's history dates back to the 1950s, when bookstore owners were being held liable for selling books containing 'obscenity,' which is not protected by the First Amendment. One case eventually made it to the Supreme Court, which held that it created a 'chilling effect' to hold someone liable for someone else´s content.
That meant plaintiffs had to prove that bookstore owners knew they were selling obscene books, said Jeff Kosseff, the author of 'The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet,' a book about Section 230.
Fast-forward a few decades to when the commercial internet was taking off with services like CompuServe and Prodigy. Both offered online forums, but
