As state legislatures look to protect their citizens’ free-speech rights with social media anti-censorship laws, we often hear that Section 230 of the federal Communications Decency Act of 1996 preempts any such state laws. That line of thought is certainly what Big Tech wants people to believe, but that is also a misapplication of Section 230, which only shields Big Tech from civil liability suits regarding the censorship of sexually obscene or excessively violent material. In the vast majority of cases, political speech and cultural commentary are not sexually obscene or excessively violent.
Whenever investigating the reach and application of a law, the first thing a person should do is examine the language of the law itself. There are several plain-language reasons why Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act does not apply to political free speech.
First, the title of the law is the Communications Decency Act. It is not the Communications Ban Anything You Want Act, the Communications Political Correctness Act, the Communications Politeness Act, or the Communications Arbiter of Truth Act. The explicit purpose of the legislation is listed in its title: to allow Internet platforms to block indecency if they so choose.
Second, the section of the Act—section (c)(2)(A)—that provides internet providers civil protection is titled, “Protection for ‘Good Samaritan’ Blocking and Screening of Offensive Material.” The title of this section, like the title of the Act itself, shows the purpose is to grant protections for censorship of a finite, explicitly defined category of material—“offensive” and “indecent” material.
Third, the Act provides explicit examples of offensive and indecent material that internet platforms may censor. Every explicit example involves sexual obscenity or excessive violence, which fit clearly and comfortably within the title of the Act. Content that is explicitly subject to censorship is that which is “obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.” None of these explicit examples are even remotely connected or similar to political speech or cultural commentary.