United StatesCommunications Act of 1934 section 230 (Communications Decency Act of 1996), protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material
Also known as Section 230, Communications Decency Act of 1996.
In force.
An intermediary liability rule binding public and private bodies.
- Obligation class
- Disclosure
As of .
What it requires
- To keep the section 230(c)(1) protection for a post, comment, listing or other item a user supplies, leave its creation and development to the user: the protection covers only information provided by another information content provider, and a person or entity responsible, in whole or in part, for creating or developing information is an information content provider of it.
- Treat output that your own service generates, including output produced from users' prompts or other input, as information you may be responsible for creating or developing in whole or in part: section 230(c)(1) protects only information provided by another information content provider, and section 230(f)(3) makes anyone responsible in that way an information content provider.
- To keep the section 230(c)(2) protection from liability for moderating, restrict access to or the availability of material only by an action voluntarily taken in good faith, for material you consider obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not it is constitutionally protected.
- At the time you enter an agreement with a customer for interactive computer service, notify the customer, in a manner you deem appropriate, that parental control protections such as computer hardware, software or filtering services are commercially available to help limit access to material that is harmful to minors, and identify current providers of such protections or give the customer access to information identifying them.
- Comply with federal criminal law, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 and similar State law as you would without section 230: subsection (e) provides that nothing in the section impairs the enforcement of a federal criminal statute or limits the application of that Act or of a similar State law.
- Comply with the federal civil and State criminal sex trafficking provisions listed in section 230(e)(5) as you would without section 230 for any action other than one protected by subsection (c)(2)(A), and do not treat section 230 as limiting or expanding any law pertaining to intellectual property.
Who enforces it
Settledness
- As of
- Case link
- https://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/971523.P.pdf
- Case citation
- Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 129 F.3d 327 (4th Cir. 1997)
- Open questions
- Does a service become responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information under section 230(f)(3) when its own model generates output from a user's prompt or other input?
- Does the section 230(c)(1) protection reach a claim that a service's own design or recommendation system, rather than the content it hosts, caused the harm?
What this law does
Section 230 of the Communications Act of 1934 provides 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.
Section 230 also provides that no provider or user shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.
An interactive computer service is any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server.
The protection in subsection (c)(1) reaches only information provided by another information content provider, which subsection (f)(3) defines as any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service.
A provider of interactive computer service must, at the time of entering an agreement with a customer for the provision of interactive computer service and in a manner deemed appropriate by the provider, notify the customer that parental control protections are commercially available that may assist the customer in limiting access to material that is harmful to minors.
Nothing in section 230 impairs the enforcement of section 223 or 231 of title 47, chapter 71 or chapter 110 of title 18, or any other federal criminal statute. Nothing in section 230 limits or expands any law pertaining to intellectual property. Nothing in section 230 limits the application of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 or any similar State law.
Nothing in section 230, other than subsection (c)(2)(A), impairs or limits a civil action under section 1595 of title 18 where the conduct underlying the claim violates section 1591 of that title, or a State criminal prosecution where the conduct underlying the charge would violate section 1591 of title 18, or would violate section 2421A of title 18 and promotion or facilitation of prostitution is illegal in the jurisdiction where the defendant's promotion or facilitation of prostitution was targeted.
Subsection (e)(5) was added by Public Law 115-164 in 2018. That amendment took effect on , regardless of whether the conduct alleged occurred before, on, or after that date. No cause of action may be brought and no liability may be imposed under any State or local law that is inconsistent with section 230, although a State may enforce a State law that is consistent with it.
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app operates a social platform, generates content with AI or serves under-18s.