SAN FRANCISCO – Increasing online platforms’ liability for hosting their users’ speech would lead to severe censorship that could undermine the very architecture of the free and open internet, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argued to the U.S. Supreme Court in a brief filed Thursday.
EFF filed the friend-of-the-court brief in Gonzalez v. Google, in which the petitioners seek a narrow interpretation of a key law protecting users’ speech online, 47 U.S.C. § 230 (Section 230). Narrowing Section 230 would drastically erode the significant benefits that Congress envisioned in enacting the 1996 law.
Platforms facing a potential onslaught of litigation are going to be unwilling to take a chance on provocative or unpopular speech. The Supreme Court risks artificially stunting the global online marketplace of ideas, creating a sanitized, bland, homogenous online experience.