Shelley McKinley
Contributor
Shelley McKinley is chief legal officer at GitHub, home to more than 100 million software developers.
Last week marked the first time the U.S. Supreme Court reviewed Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. In oral arguments in the Gonzalez v. Google case, important questions were raised about platform responsibility and the risk of viral content.
As the court grapples with these questions, it is an opportunity to reflect on why 230 was created in the first place, how it fosters innovation and what we all stand to lose if the protections embedded within 230 are narrowed.
Nicknamed the “26 words that created the internet” by Jeff Kosseff, Section 230 established a liability shield for platforms that host third-party content. In the nascent days of the internet, 230 created favorable legal conditions for startups and entrepreneurs to flourish, cementing the United States as a world leader in software.
While today’s tech landscape is dramatically different from the fledgling internet of the ’90s, the reasoning behind Section 230 still holds true today. The architecture of law creates conditions for innovation …
