About¶

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) is an exception to certain provisions in the law, such as those prohibiting minors from accessing obscene material online or restricting access by adults to sexually explicit content. The CDA was passed into law on February 15th, 2006 and Section 230 became effective that same year. This provision of the Act has been highly controversial due in part to its vagueness; it is not clear what exactly constitutes “obscene” or “sexually explicit material.”

The Supreme Court ruled on a case involving this section of the CDA, Ashcroft v. ACLU, that Section 230 was constitutional and did not violate First Amendment rights as it only restricted access to certain materials deemed obscene by Congress or state legislatures; it didn’t ban any particular type of speech outright.

The CDA has been amended several times since its inception, most recently with the passage of The Protect Act (PROTECT) which further clarified what material is considered “obscene” and made sure that Section 230 was not being abused to access such materials by minors. This law also provided penalties for those who would try to circumvent these restrictions, making it clear that the government takes this provision of the CDA very seriously.

Section 230 has been a highly contested part of the Communications Decency Act since its inception and remains so today as people continue to debate what material is considered “obscene” or if minors should have access to such materials at all, let alone via circumvention tools like virtual private networks.