A little-watched civil rights case that threatens Silicon Valley’s Section 230 immunity took a huge step forward on July 16, as an appeals court that rarely does so agreed to review a lower court’s decision. The U.S. Appeals Court for the Second Circuit in New York agreed to review a lower court’s ruling that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) protects Big Tech companies such as Vimeo from civil rights liability in censorship cases. Big Tech censorship became a hot button issue during the 2020 presidential campaign when then-President Donald Trump was selectively censored by Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. The controversy became especially heated late in the campaign when a New York Post series of news articles regarding the allegedly corrupt business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, was banned by the Big Tech giants. Trump has filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court against the firms that censored him. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has also been the most vocal of multiple congressional conservative Republican critics of Section 230 immunity. The case of Domen v. Vimeo came about after Vimeo, an Internet video-hosting company, terminated Church United’s video streaming activities after it featured videos of five men…
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Appeals Court Agrees to Review Decision on Big Tech's Section 230 Immunity
