This February marked the 25th anniversary of Section 230, which was enacted into law as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. Establishing rules that influenced how the Internet has grown and operated, Section 230 has become a hot topic in recent months. Republicans and Democrats want to reform the law, albeit in different directions and for different reasons.
My first job out of college was for Prodigy Services, one of the companies that pioneered what became the Internet. There was no Facebook back then; Mark Zuckerberg was eight years old. Amazon and Google didn’t exist, either. We’re talking 1992, long before the graphical web browsers that ushered in mass usage of the Internet. Working as a “content moderator” at the dawn of the Internet age, I never imagined that people in this role would one day assume the power to de-platform world leaders and circumscribe the boundaries of political speech.
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