Crossed Wires: The internet cesspool — Can those famous 26 words be changed?

No one really debates that the internet and social media are awash with lies, lies and more damned lies. 

Depending on one’s point of view, arguments will be made about where disinformation is most frustrating and most dangerous – the left will go on about right-wing lies and vice versa.

Every identity group will be outraged by insults to their community, the hate speech will offend and hurt everyone except the haters, and almost every parent will rail against the surreptitious nudging of their children towards dangerous rabbit holes, some of which have resulted in the saddest of stories. (Just this week, Time published a terrifying feature about a young woman who has attempted suicide multiple times. She says: “Everything I learnt about suicide I learnt on Instagram”.)

It didn't have to be this way. And it doesn’t have to be this way in the future, depending on political will.

Those who know a little about the history of the internet and the regulations formulated to govern it are familiar with these magic words from Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act of 1996:

“No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another…”

These words have enabled the worst aspects of the internet, they have protected billion-dollar companies from liability and ruined countless lives. Put more simply, the wording means: don’t shoot the messenger. This piece of legislation has probably done more damage to our world than any other in modern history.

At the time of promulgation, it seemed all very innocent. The internet was a nascent industry – if small entrepreneurial companies were not protected from legal hazard, the industry might be stillborn, killed by the violence of lawsuits and legal expenses. Silicon Valley got out their guns and lobbied Congress, who passed the bill. No one foresaw that some of these early aspirants would one day engage and inform billions of users, even moving the needles of global affairs.

There were many unintended consequences but perhaps the most important one was the discovery by platforms such as Facebook that outrage and fury keeps people engaged, thus making them good advertising fodder. This encouraged them to host the worst, most provocative, of things, thereby addicting people to their platforms, all the while under the protection of Section 230 (except for some thin carve-outs, relating to certain types of sexual content).

Worse still, people fled the traditional media in droves (most of which had some degree of commitment to rational reporting). Why? Because Twitter/X was more fun than the local newspaper with its more accurate (but more boring) content. Cue the gurgling sounds of once-proud newspapers drowning in red ink.

Some platforms did indeed try to moderate, or expunge, the worst of the content they hosted. The irony was that these platforms were less legally protected than those who allowed a free-for-all. Platforms that do nothing about harmful content get immunity. Platforms that try to moderate actively can face lawsuits claiming discrimination, censorship or bias.

There are few citizens who feel comfortable with the liability-free internet. A white nationalist may be content about his freedom to post racist comments wherever he pleases but may be outraged by content from the other end of the spectrum that he feels should be barred or even criminalised.

If Section 230 were repealed, and all internet platforms were suddenly on the same level playing field as other publishers in terms of the law, would it solve the problem? Some lawmakers (most recently Republican Senator Graham and Democratic Governor Durbin) propose exactly this. It sounds tough and decisive. It’s also legislative cosplay.

Without 230, every comment section becomes a lawsuit waiting to happen. Every forum post, every marketplace listing, every video upload is potentially liable. Start-ups? Obliterated. Community forums? Shuttered. Only the mega-platforms with armies of lawyers will survive. Ironically, repealing it would entrench the giants that critics of Section 230 most despise.

Adding to the confusion, Silicon Valley-funded lobbying groups such as NetChoice, CCIA and TechNet are spending millions persuading lawmakers that tinkering with 230 will end civilisation as we know it. Their argument boils down to: "”Touch this law and grandma won’t get her cat videos.” The pitch works because nobody wants to be the politician who killed the cat videos.

So how to fix this mess?

The challenge is not to kill Section 230 but to grow it up. In 1996, the law protected an industry in its infancy. In 2025, it coddles a spoiled giant. The goal should be what it was always supposed to be: to make accountable those who shape our public square, and to give freedom of expression to those who simply speak within it.

There is no shortage of proposals in this regard. One proposes removing Section 230 protections when recommendation algorithms knowingly or recklessly surface content that contributes to physical or emotional harm. Another proposes offering immunity if, and only if, harmful content is promptly removed after notice. There are wonky legal concepts like imposing “reasonableness” standards which solidify via case law. An interesting “sunset clause”suggestion has 230 falling away every seven years so that it can be re-tabled and re-promulgated in accordance with technological and societal changes.

The solution is ironically all too obvious, but it doesn’t make it simple: Congress wrote 26 words to save the internet. Now it must write a few more to save us from it. DM

Steven Boykey Sidley is a professor of practice at JBS, University of Johannesburg and a partner at Bridge Capital and a columnist-at-large at Daily Maverick. His new book It’s Mine: How the Crypto Industry is Redefining Ownership is published by Maverick451 in SA and Legend Times Group in UK/EU, available now.