Telecommunications Act and Communications Decency Act of 1996

I looked at the Telecommunications Act and Communications Decency Act of 1996.


The Telecommunications Act and Communications Decency Act of 1996 is a protection for providers of websites that offer social media aspects to their users. This act provides a safeguard for the providers against the potential content that their users may create.

Section 230 of the act is the major proponent of this protection. If a user generates content that is found to be false, defamatory, or offensive to a certain person, the offended person cannot sue the website provider. This was put in place because providers cannot always monitor everything that their users are creating. The law states that providers cannot be held responsible in these cases. However, this law provides no protection for the users who actually create the content. They are still held responsible for their actions.

The telecommunications part of the act allows any business to operate within the market and compete against each other.

Both parts of the act are important, but the provider protection element appears to be the most interesting. It is a very important protection for all website providers that offer social media aspects to their users.