Appeals Court Actually Explores 'Good Faith' Issue In A Section 230 Case (Spoiler Alert: It Still …

from the because-of-course-it-does dept Over the last couple years of a near constant flow of mis- and disinformation all about Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, one element that has popped up a lot (including in our comments) especially among angry Trumpists, is that because Section (c)(2)(A) of the law has a “good faith” qualifier, it means that websites that moderate need to show they did so with “good faith.” Many seem to (falsely) assume that this is a big gotcha, and they can get past the 230 immunity barrier by litigating over whether or not a particular moderation choice was done in “good faith.” However, as we’ve explained, only one small part of the law — (c)(2)(A) mentions “good faith.” It’s this part: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected However, notably, Section (c)(1) — the famous “26 words” — makes no mention of “good faith” and establishes,…
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