Communications Decency Act (CDA)[edit]
In 1996, the United States enacted the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which attempted to regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace.[7] In 1997, in the case of Reno v. ACLU, the United States Supreme Court found the anti-indecency provisions of the Act unconstitutional.[8] Writing for the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens held that "the CDA places an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech".[9]
Section 230[10] is a separate portion of the CDA that remains in effect. Section 230 says that operators of Internet services are not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services and also protects ISPs from liability for good faith voluntary actions taken to restrict access to certain offensive materials[11] or giving others the technical means to restrict access to that material.