Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act turned 30 this week—but not everyone finds its birthday cause for celebration. The law is simple but controversial: it protects online platforms (like social media sites and website forums) from being held liable as the “publisher” of third-party content. Instead, liability is generally assigned to the creator of that content, not the platform.
Over the course of the last decade, a bipartisan set of politicians have turned against it. Most recently, Senator Rand Paul, once one of the law’s most ardent supporters, renounced his support in a New York Post op-ed after Google refused to take down a video that claimed he had ties with the Venezuelan regime. If overall Congressional opinion swings to doom the law, that decision would come with an immensely high consumer cost. After all, Section 230 has led to lower prices, more product access, better service quality, and more platform choice.
Lowering Prices
For three decades, Section 230 has kept costs low for companies and consumers. Engine, a non-profit organization representing the interests of small companies and startups, found that speech-related litigation can cost companies between $3,000 and $500,000 or more. At this time, these costs are avoided by industry because Section 230 prevents many cases from progressing to stages where exorbitant legal fees are reached. Without the threat of expensive and frivolous lawsuits, companies can focus on investing in newer technologies that enhance consumer online experiences. Section 230 repeal would therefore increase legal expenditures that could be passed through to the consumers. As a study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform has shown, litigation costs and excessive regulations increase the cost of doing business, affecting consumers through higher prices and reduced choice. Well-resourced technology companies would be able to shoulder that financial burden better than fledgling firms with thin profit margins, who would be more likely to increase subscription fees to recoup increased legal costs or otherwise change business models to recoup costs and stay afloat.
Protecting Access
Under Section 230, hosting platforms are not considered publishers of third-party content, and are therefore generally not liable for user posts. Although some critics consider that legal paradigm a gift to Big Tech, it much more importantly expands platforms’ ability to host a wide range of consumer opinions. Shifting liability to platforms for user speech would encourage platforms to prioritize caution and restriction over access and expression. To reduce legal risk, platforms (including Reddit or online newspapers) would be more likely to restrict comment sections for fear that they will be held liable for unpopular opinions. As platform features shrink, consumer access to expressive online outlets contracts with it.
Enhancing Quality
Section 230 makes it easier for companies to match changing consumer demands and preferences with market-driven solutions to internal content moderation practices. Consider that many social media platforms are adopting hybrid approaches to fact-checking that combine human oversight with advanced AI detection, especially in cases of mass volume that make human detection alone difficult or impossible.
Repealing Section 230 threatens these innovations by changing market incentives. A crowdsourced fact-checking label, for example, could lead to defamation claims and lawsuits, costing hundreds of thousands—if not millions or billions—of dollars. Implementing AI into fact-checking, similarly, could expose companies to heightened legal risk due to AI error, even though it has proven to be highly beneficial for consumers. Pro-consumer market innovations that currently make sense would become risky bets as liability risk rises. Rather than relying on market incentives and user-driven experiences, company behavior and content quality would instead be shaped by regulatory pressure and risk mitigation. Repealing Section 230 raises a significant risk of product and service quality degradation—both as companies roll back existing features and as they limit new and better consumer-facing product features.
Respecting Choice
Section 230 empowers consumers to choose not only the speech they want to convey, but also where they want to express it. Online forums covering diverse topics are hosted across numerous platforms, such as Reddit and Telegram, and consumer reviews are all possible because companies are not treated as the publishers of third-party content. That protection gives room to moderate responsibly while aligning with consumer access and choice. Without Section 230, online platforms would pull back on the speech they allow, in some cases eliminating comment sections altogether. Negative reviews, opposing views, or controversial forums, which are common across platforms, would more likely be pulled back, as previously benign activity would change to risky behavior overnight. As companies pull back on those offerings to limit legal exposure, the availability of platforms and options for consumer expression would shrink with it.
Conclusion
Section 230 is pro-consumer because it encourages low-cost services, improves platform access, promotes better content quality, and leads to more platform choices. Repealing Section 230 may placate the many politicians who want a pound of flesh from Big Tech, but American consumers will bear the many unintended consequences of that decision.
Pablo Garcia Quint is a technology policy analyst with the American Consumer Institute, a nonprofit education and research organization. Follow Pablo on X @gq_pablo