Email User Protected By Section 230

Here's a case decided by a federal court in Pennsylvania that is more significant than it appears on first blush. The facts are relatively simple. Dr. Deborah Thomas, a professor at Penn emailed to a listserv maintained by the American Black Anthropologists articles critical of a Dr. Janet Monge. Dr. Monge is a member of the organization. Dr. Monge sued Dr. Thomas for defamation based on her forwarding the material, which Dr. Monge contended was defamatory.

The federal court made a straightforward ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protected Dr. Thomas. Put simply, email is an interactive computer service, which Dr. Thomas used to forward content created by a third party. Section 230 provides that Dr. Thomas, under these facts, can't be deemed the publisher of the content. Case closed.