By John Eggerton, Multichannel News, 10-13-20
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has weighed in on Sec. 230 and he has clearly signaled he things the High Court should take up the issue of lower court expansion of that online content immunity provision.
Thomas took the opportunity of the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the appeal of a Ninth Circuit decision to release a statement that clearly aligns him with critics of Sec. 230. That is the provision in the Communications Decency Act that exempts websites from civil liability for most third-party content posted on their sites. It was initially adopted to allow websites to take down objectionable content without invoking civil liability.
The Supremes declined to hear the appeal of the Ninth Circuit decision that Sec. 230 immunity is not available “when a plaintiff alleges anticompetitive conduct.” That case involved competing filtering software providers. » Read More