Shielding the Messengers: Protecting Platforms for Expression and Innovation
This paper examines the impact on free expression, privacy, and innovation of forcing Internet intermediaries to bear liability or assume gatekeeping obligations for third-party content. Intermediary liability arises where governments or private litigants can hold technological intermediaries such as ISPs and websites liable for unlawful or harmful content disseminated by users of those services. Gatekeeping obligations, such as requirements that intermediaries filter or block access to content, force intermediaries to monitor or limit how users access or post material. The threat of either liability or gatekeeping obligations reduces intermediaries’ willingness to host user-generated content, leads intermediaries to block even legal content, and inhibits innovation. Limiting such obligations and protecting intermediaries from liability for the expressive actions of third parties expands the space for online expression, encourages innovation in the development of new communications services, and creates more opportunities for local content, thereby supporting development of the information society. Meanwhile, there are ways to address unlawful or harmful online content without burdening intermediaries. Internet advocates everywhere should urge governments to adopt policies that protect intermediaries as critical platforms for innovation, expression, and economic activity.
Not All Guardrails Are Created Equal: Comparing Content Safety and Copyright Filtering
As courts and policymakers work through questions about chatbot liability, they should be wary of analogies that flatten meaningful technical differences. Copyright filtering and safety intervention share real challenges around ambiguity and evasion, but they diverge in what each control must assess, how each manifests over the course of a conversation, and how much can be verified from the outside.
Op-Ed: France’s Constitutional Council Ruling Tests the Limits of Social Media Bans
Read our analysis the legal and policy significance of the Constitutional Council’s decision on ongoing social media age restriction and age assurance debates ahead of the most-anticipated EU-wide approach on child online safety due by December 2026.
The brief explains that Section 230’s liability protections are essential to enable free expression online and they extend to the use of automated systems to engage to rank and order content as part of traditional publishing activities.
