Offering immunity from civil liability to the heads of online social media companies, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) empowers these leaders to delete, modify or censor material they may deem objectionable. The act also gives them the freedom to ban or de-platform individuals at their discretion, thereby making them the gatekeepers of the discourse on platforms that provide most of the world’s information.

This CLE course will address the constitutionality of granting such power so exclusively and whether that delegation of power is possible under the 1st Amendment. The course will review the limits of the 1st Amendment as it applies to traditional media and what speech is protected and what is justifiably suppressed.

The course will then turn to the Internet and Section 230 and address the issues which arise when it is applied by heads of social media platforms. The course will then answer whether this Section of an Act enacted in 1996, before the extreme growth of social media, is an effective law to govern discourse amongst billions of users. Could Congress even envision the applications of the law in the pre-Facebook era?

All of this and more will be covered in this timely and riveting CLE course.