25 years, 10 months, and 31 days ago

. . . the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Reno v. ACLU the case that upheld Section 230. Today they consider its future again.

In the last three weeks, I have not posted on my Substack.

The first week, it was because I had the stomach flu.

But the second week through third week, it was because I was reading amicus briefs, talking to reporters, and organizing a Live Analysis panel on the Supreme Court oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google — the case that is set to reconsider the fate of Section 230 and the internet — and which is taking place this morning, Tuesday, Feb. 21, starting at 10 am ET.

I have lots to say about Gonzalez. . . the political and doctrinal atmosphere that led to it being granted cert. . . its curious-for-its-uninterestingness tort companion case Taamneh. . . the role of statutory interpretation and the meaning of plain meaning. . . the heavy-hitter Netchoice cases hanging out in the wings ‘til next term. . . the horseshoe theory that animates the black hole of Section 230 agita. . . and of course the chicken salad sandwich Justice Roberts is having for lunch, which depending on the amount of mayonnaise, might determine the fate of the internet as we know it. . .

. . . but I’m going to save most of it for this morning’s event, hosted by the Rebooting Social Media Institute at the Berkman Klein Center.

I’m pretty proud of the group of Internet experts I’ve corralled into this new-school/old-school moment. There’s no registration. No webinar. No video. No audio. Just ten of the smartest people who have been studying and teaching and writing about Section 230 and internet law since before TIME magazine discovered online pornography¹ all gathering in a Slack channel, tuning into the Supreme Court’s Oral Argument Audio Feed, and publishing their observations and repartee live on the BKC website.

TIME Magazine Cover from July 3, 1995

Starting at 9:30am ET please follow the conversation between myself,

• Mary Anne Franks, President of Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and Professor at the University of Miami School of Law

• Mike Godwin, former counsel at Wikimedia Foundation and Electronic Frontier Foundation

• James Grimmelmann, author of Internet Law: Cases and Problems and Professor at Cornell Law School and Cornell Tech

• Gus Hurwitz, Director of the Nebraska Law & Technology Center and Professor at Nebraska Law School

• Jeff Kosseff, author of The Twenty-Six Words that Created the Internet and Professor of Law at the U.S. Naval Academy

• Emma Llanso, Director of the Free Expression Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology

• Alan Rozenshtein, Senior Editor at Lawfare and Professor at the University of Minnesota Law School

• Eugene Volokh, Founder of Volokh Conspiracy and Professor at UCLA Law School

• Benjamin Wittes, Senior Fellow at Brookings Institution and Editor in Chief at Lawfare and author of

  Dog Shirt Daily

• Jonathan Zittrain, Faculty Director of the Berkman Klein Center and Professor at Harvard Law School

After tomorrow, I might face plant in a mix of situational depression/exhaustion for a day or two, but then I will be back to regularly scheduled programming with lots to write about — the Oversight Board, ad tech, the decline in CSAM hashing accuracy — and lots of gems for the KKPS, plus three weeks worth of stress photos of Nena to share.

Until then. . .

1. This TIME cover is not a joke, and was also part of the overall moral panic around the internet that lead to Congress passing the Communications Decency Act’s in 1996 — a government attempt to “clean up” the internet.

If that sounds contrary to First Amendment doctrine to you, you’re in good company. In 1997, the Supreme Court struck down the CDA in Reno v. ACLU — with the exception of Section 230—which, to make a very long story short, is why we’re all gathering tomorrow,