Bad Actors and the Communications Decency Act of 1996 : Lessons Learned From Our Nation's battle With Online Human Trafficking

Journal article

35 pages

0736-7694

This Note contains four parts attempting to comprehensively explain the CDA, its foundations, resulting effects, and how to carry forward, with a specific emphasis on examining legislative intent with the existing CDA. Part I explores the formation of the CDA and the catalysts of its various provisions. Part II relays how the courts and Congress have engaged with the perplexing legislation and its ensuing battle with society’s essential interest in safeguarding children and purging the facilitation of crime. Part III critically examines some courts’ analysesand whether the CDA has been successfully implemented according to Congress’soriginal vision. Part III also advances a vision for progress and potential strategies against bad actors like Backpage, despite a congressional and judicial impasse. This Noteultimately concludes that the Zeran court erred in its reading and only by analyzing the entirety of the CDA—without the Zerandecision’s influence—can a correct interpretation of Section 230 be rendered.

Published in : Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law, vol. 37, no. 3 (2019)

[New York City, New York] : Yeshiva University Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, 2019.

English