Doug Mirell, a Greenberg Glusker litigation partner with extensive First Amendment experience, shares his legal perspective with Law360 in the article "Inside The 'Battleground For The Internet's Soul': Section 230." The article covers the hotly debated topic of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the immunity that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have from posts shared on their social media websites. According to Mirell, the removal of Section 230 would make it "difficult, if not impossible, for platforms to monitor their content and avoid liability."

Excerpts: 

"How do you monitor a torrent of content?" Doug Mirell said in an interview with Law360. "You have millions, literally millions of postings every second on some of these platforms."

"The fact is that Section 230 is what has allowed the baby to become the behemoth," he said. "Because these social media platforms have been able to thrive without any concern for legal liability for anything that users post, they have become effectively immune from the laws of nature that govern the rest of the media landscape."

The law as it stands is what allows Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to decide whether to allow posts to stay up on a case-by-case basis, he said, and to set their terms of service and community guidelines.

Read the full article here (subscription required). 

Resources

• Law360 (subscription required)