Overview
- On its 30th anniversary, lawmakers from both parties are advancing proposals to repeal or sunset Section 230.
- Civil-liberties groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argue that weakening the law would force broad pre-publication filtering and prompt removal of lawful content.
- Analysts warn that substitutes such as strict liability, duties of care, or DMCA-style notice-and-takedown would invite abuse and fail to protect users’ speech at scale.
- Techdirt notes Republicans fault platforms for removing content while Democrats fault them for not removing enough, emphasizing that Section 230 assigns liability to speakers and permits platform moderation choices.
- Opponents of repeal say ending the protections would entrench large platforms, overwhelm smaller rivals with lawsuits, and cannot be offset by AI or feasible human review.