Once every couple of months we get an uptight communication from a less-then-friendly individual threatening legal action if we don’t remove comments made on our site about their product or service. They expect a web publisher is 100% legally responsible for anything a member posts to on our sites. They threaten to sue our f*cking asses of. Turns out, they won’t and they can’t. If the site publisher is not the actual author of such a statement, the publisher is not liable for any harmful nature that statement may have.

Fortunately for web publishers that host user-submitted content, the Communications Decency Act act of 1996 contained the well written and legally respected Section 230(c)(1).

Section 230 provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an “interactive computer service” who publish information provided by others.

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

In analyzing the availability of the immunity offered by this provision, courts generally apply a three-prong test. A defendant must satisfy each of the three prongs to gain the benefit of the immunity:

1. The defendant must be a “provider or user” of an “interactive computer service.”
2. The cause of action asserted by the plaintiff must “treat” the defendant “as the publisher or speaker” of the harmful information at issue.
3. The information must be “provided by another information content provider,” i.e., the defendant must not be the “information content provider” of the harmful information at issue.

Remember that while Section 230 protects publishers against libelous statements made by other people, publishers are responsible for posted trademark violations, reporting criminal activities and much more. Also remember Section 230 is only a U.S. law. Finally, for the love of dog consult qualified legal advice as needed.

Big dog thanks Jason Schultz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (you are a EFF member, aren’t you?) for first explaining to me the provisions of Section 230.