The rights recognized in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments — are not necessarily absolute. “Congress shall make no law,” the First Amendment reads, “abridging the freedom of speech.” But it was never thought, and has not been seriously suggested yesterday, that this abolishes the common law tort of libel. If someone writes something inaccurate about you that damages your reputation, you can sue for damages.
There are some limits on libel law, however. The Supreme Court ruled in New York Times v. Sullivan in 1964 that a “public figure” cannot recover damages for libel unless the untruth was published with “actual malice,” that is, the writer knew that it was untrue or acted in reckless disregard of whether or not it was true.
Many people who cite New York Times v. Sullivan are not aware that the statement in question was made not by a writer or editor employed by the New York Times but by an advertiser in the newspaper. For it has been a general principle of libel law that newspapers and magazines are legally responsible for the content of their advertisements. As a result, publications routinely have their legal departments research the accuracy of advertisements and refuse to run those which they believe are actionable under libel law.
This is not true, however, of Internet publishing platforms. Section 230 of the Community Decency Act of 1996 states, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speak of any information provided by another information content provider.” This means that the owners of Internet platforms, including major companies like Facebook and YouTube, are not subject to libel suits for the content of material which they present or link to. Without this provision, it is likely that very much of the material now visible on the Internet would simply not be available.
