In an interview with the editorial board of the
New York Times, published today, former Vice President Joe
Biden advocated for repeal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act
(CDA). As readers of this blog may know, the CDA offers service
providers protections that underpin the hosting of much of the
user-generated content (both good and bad) on the web and social
media.
The CDA expressly treats online providers that host or
"publish" third party content differently than their
offline counterparts, and frees online providers from certain
obligations associated with moderating the flood of user-generated
content that is uploaded to their servers. The immunities under CDA
Section 230 have facilitated the growth of e-commerce and social
media, but at the same time has also allowed for the proliferation
of fake content and hateful speech. In recent years, the CDA has
reached a crossroads of sorts, with the
passage of FOSTA in 2018 and with more and more
