Twenty-six words were included in what is known as Section 230 of the 1996 law setting telecommunication policies in the United States. Those words have enabled companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google to grow into the giant technology companies they are today. This week, the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing challenges to the law on whether those companies are responsible for what users posted on their services. In Gonzalez v. Google, the justices will decide whether the family of an American college student killed in a terror attack in Paris can sue Google, which owns YouTube. The family claims the video service’s algorithm helped extremists spread their message.

美国 1996 年制定电信政策的法律第 230 条包含 26 个词。这些话让 Facebook、Twitter 和谷歌等公司成长为今天的巨型科技公司。本周，美国最高法院将审理对这些公司是否应对用户在其服务上发布的内容负责的法律提出的质疑。在冈萨雷斯诉谷歌一案中，法官将决定在巴黎恐怖袭击中丧生的美国大学生的家人是否可以起诉拥有 YouTube 的谷歌。这家人声称视频服务的算法帮助极端分子传播他们的信息。

The second case, Twitter v. Taamneh, also centers on legal responsibility. It involves a Jordanian citizen killed in Istanbul, Turkiye. The results of these cases could reshape the internet as we know it. Section 230 will not be easily changed. But if it is, online speech could be greatly changed.If a news organization or website falsely accuses you of harmful things, you can take legal action against the publisher for libel. Libel is a published false statement about someone and is a crime. But if someone posts a libelous statement on Facebook, you cannot sue Facebook. You can only sue the person who posted it. In this case, Facebook is protected under Section 230 of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. The law says that “no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”

第二个案例，Twitter 诉 Taamneh，也以法律责任为中心。它涉及一名在土耳其伊斯坦布尔遇害的约旦公民。正如我们所知，这些案例的结果可能会重塑互联网。第 230 条不会轻易改变。但如果是的话，网络言论可能会发生很大的变化。如果新闻机构或网站诬告你有害，你可以以诽谤罪对发布者提起法律诉讼。诽谤是对某人发表的虚假陈述，是一种犯罪行为。但是，如果有人在 Facebook 上发表诽谤言论，您不能起诉 Facebook。您只能起诉发布它的人。在这种情况下，Facebook 受到 1996 年《通信规范法》第 230 条的保护。法律规定，“交互式计算机服务的提供者或用户不得被视为另一信息内容提供者提供的任何信息的发布者或发言人。”

That legal statement protects companies that can host trillions of messages from being sued by anyone who feels wronged by something someone else has posted. Section 230 also permits social media services to moderate their services. They can remove posts that, for example, are obscene or violate the services’ standards.The measure’s history dates to the 1950s. At the time, bookstore owners were being held legally responsible for selling books containing “obscenity,” which is not protected by the First Amendment. One case made it to the Supreme Court, which ruled that it created a “chilling effect” to hold someone responsible for someone else’s content.Now, lawmakers from both Republican and Democratic parties have argued that social media websites have misused that protection and should lose it. Some argue that the companies should have to meet requirements set by the government.

该法律声明保护可以托管数万亿条消息的公司不会被任何因他人发布的内容而感到委屈的人起诉。第 230 条还允许社交媒体服务调节其服务。例如，他们可以删除淫秽或违反服务标准的帖子。该措施的历史可以追溯到 1950 年代。当时，书店老板因销售包含不受第一修正案保护的“淫秽内容”的书籍而被追究法律责任。一个案件提交到最高法院，最高法院裁定它产生了一种“寒蝉效应”，让某人对他人的内容负责。现在，共和党和民主党的立法者都认为社交媒体网站滥用了这种保护，应该失去它。一些人认为，这些公司应该必须满足政府规定的要求。

Eric Goldman is a professor at Santa Clara University specializing in internet law. He said the main thing people do on the internet is to communicate with each other. And a lot of that communication is made possible by Section 230. The law says that tech companies that permit people to communicate are not responsible for the discussions, he said. Goldman said that if protections for services permitting people to communicate are removed “they won’t allow us to talk to each other anymore.” There are two possible results. Services might be more careful with content. For example, in 2018, a law was passed that created an exception to Section 230 for material that helps with sex work. The advertising service Craigslist removed its “personals” area that was taken over by those who used it for sex work.

埃里克·戈德曼 (Eric Goldman) 是圣克拉拉大学的教授，专攻互联网法。他说人们在互联网上做的主要事情是相互交流。第 230 条使很多交流成为可能。法律规定，允许人们交流的科技公司不对讨论负责，他说。戈德曼说，如果取消对允许人们交流的服务的保护，“他们将不再允许我们互相交谈。”有两种可能的结果。服务可能对内容更加谨慎。例如，2018 年通过了一项法律，为帮助性工作的材料创建了第 230 条的例外情况。广告服务 Craigslist 删除了其“交友”区域，该区域已被用于性工作的人接管。

Another possibility is that Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and others could stop moderating materials on their services altogether. However, the unmoderated services could easily end up with a lot of harmful content. Any change to Section 230 is likely to have strong effects on online speech around the world. Goldman noted that the rest of the world is taking measures against internet companies faster than the U.S. “So we’re a step behind the rest of the world in terms of censoring the internet. And the question is whether we can even hold out on our own.”

另一种可能性是 Facebook、Twitter、YouTube 和其他公司可以完全停止在其服务上审核材料。但是，未经审核的服务很容易以大量有害内容告终。对第 230 条的任何更改都可能对全球的在线言论产生强烈影响。高盛指出，世界其他地区对互联网公司采取措施的速度快于美国。“因此，我们在审查互联网方面落后于世界其他地区。问题是我们是否能够独自坚持下去。”