Quick Note on Protections for Facebook and Other Internet Intermediaries

The NYT had a piece on U.S. Internet regulations, and efforts to apply them to other countries, that may have left some readers confused. The piece focused on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects Internet intermediaries from many of the liabilities faced by conventional publishers.

Perhaps the most important one of these liabilities is exposure to libel law. In the case of standard publishers, if a publisher helps to spread a third party's libelous claim, then they ca...