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1 1 (October 16, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govdcdw0001 and id is 1 raw text is: ~* or 101 ' Researh Service UPDATE: Section 230 and the Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship Updated October 16, 2020 Update: On October 15, 2020, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai announced that the FCC will adopt rules interpreting Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. FCC General Counsel Tom Johnson conjbnned that his office has advised Chairman Pai that the FCC has the legal authority to interpret Section 230. Chairman Pai's statement comes after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration petitioned the FCCfor rulemaking. On August 3, 2020, the FCC in'ited public comment on the petition for 45 days and received more than 20, 000 comments in response. The original post from June 3, 2020, is below. On May 28, 2020, President Trump issued the Executive Order on Preventing Online Censorship (EO), expressing the executive branch's views on Section 230 of the federal Communications DecencyAct. As discussed in this Legal Sidebar, Section 230, under certain circumstances, immunizes online content providers from liability for merely hosting others' content. The EO stakes out a position in existing interpretive disputes about the law's meaning and instructs federal agencies, including the Department of Commerce, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Department of Justice, to take certain actions to implement this understanding. This Legal Sidebar explores the legal implications of the EO. It first briefly describes how courts have interpreted Section 230 before explaining what the EO says. Next, the Sidebar discusses the FCC and FTC's authority to enforce Section 230, focusing on the EO's instructions to these agencies, before concluding with a discussion of how international trade obligations affect the United States' ability to modify Section 230. Section 230 and Litigation over Online Speech Section 230 creates federal immunity for providers and users of interactive computer services, generally preventing them from being held liable for hosting content that someone else created. For example, if someone writes and posts a defamatory statement on Twitter, the defamed person could sue the tweet's author. Section 230, however, would likely require a court to dismiss any lawsuits against Twitter or a second Twitter userwho merely retweets the original statement without comment-so long as neither Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov LSB10484 CRS Lega i&sebar Prepa r .'r Membersand C o m m ; .. e e s o f C o n g clC o n --------------... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------.........

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