The Supreme Court will rule on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which provides immunity for sites and platforms from civil liability based on third-party content, this session.
Section 230, which has only ever been tried in lower courts, has let companies control user posts and comments without much concern over defamation. If the legislation is overruled, however, smaller companies with fewer resources could be at risk, causing them to limit their allowance for user content.
“What this might do is put more pressure on platforms to give users more transparency over how the recommender system works, and then control over it,” said CITRIS Policy Lab founding director Brandie Nonnecke.
The Policy Lab recently launched a database of legislation related to Section 230.