TikTok Faces Liability for 'Blackout Challenge'
'Anderson' bucks the trend of decisions broadly interpreting Section 230 immunity, and it has attracted worried criticism from friends of the tech industry.
November 08, 2024 at 02:11 PM
5 minute read
Constitutional LawSection 230 of the Communications Decency Act, enacted in the 1990s, is the legal foundation of the modern internet. Its subsection (c)(1) states, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." By treating the provider or re-poster as merely the conduit for third party content instead of a responsible publisher, subsection (c)(1) has protected search engines, bulletin boards, buyer-seller exchanges and social media against civil liability for what third party creators post, turning the internet into the cheapest and most accessible form of publishing ever known. Along with the hundred blooming flowers that the drafters of Section 230 hoped for, it has generated a bumper crop of noxious weeds. Among them are the "challenges" posted on social media, which dare young people to create videos of themselves performing some kind of risky act. Some of the challenges are merely disgusting. Some are potentially fatal. One has led to the Third Circuit's recent decision in Anderson v. TikTok that limited the scope of Section 230 immunity.
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