Section 230 of Internet legislation in the United States: All you need to know

Some call it the foundation of the open internet and online free speech. Others say it allows big platforms to avoid responsibility for harmful content they host.

Section 230 — which the White House is seeking to curtail as part of its war with Silicon Valley — was included in the 1996 Communications Decency Act to protect online service providers from lawsuits based on user-generated content.

It reads: “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.”