Communications Decency Act Shields Facebook From Anti-Terrorism Act Liability

Elliot Magruder is an Attorney and Richard Raysman is a Partner in the New York office

The "Good Samaritan" (which is the statutory language used by Congress) provision of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 (CDA, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1)) shields social media platforms from liability related to certain types of third party content, including user-generated content. Specifically, any "provider or user" of an "interactive computer service" cannot be treated as the "publisher or speaker" of any information provided by "another information content provider," i.e. a user's Tweets or video content uploaded to YouTube. Accordingly, in most circumstances, social media providers can edit, screen or delete third-party content at their discretion and without fear of liability.