Otherwise Objectionable: The Internet At Risk

Imagine an internet where every website faced an impossible choice: either carefully review every single post before it goes live (making them essentially TV stations), or allow absolutely everything with zero moderation. This nightmare scenario wasn’t hypothetical — it was exactly what the infamous Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy ruling threatened to create, before Section 230 saved us from that fate.

In the latest episode of our Section 230 podcast series “Otherwise Objectionable,” I spoke with the two people who prevented this disaster — Section 230’s authors Chris Cox and Ron Wyden — along with the lawyer who represented Stratton Oakmont (yes, the “Wolf of Wall Street” firm) in the lawsuit that nearly broke the internet.

While this history is often misunderstood, the internet was starting to fill up with garbage and nonsense (spam) and internet services were trying to figure out how they could create more curated communities, such as Prodigy’s attempt to make a “family friendly” space.

The Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy ruling threatened all of that, by saying that if you did any moderation at all, then it was possible that you could be held liable for any content you left up.

In that world, you’re left with what’s referred to as “the moderator’s dilemma.” You either very, very carefully review absolutely everything — making you more like a TV station or book publisher, in which case only a few bits of content would be allowed out each day. Or you moderate nothing and let there be a total free-for-all of spam, abuse and harassment.

Cox and Wyden understood that this would be a disaster. They recognized that the value of the internet was that you could have something better: a place where different kinds of communities could be cultivated. You didn’t need it to be a top-down “broadcast” style model like a publisher or a TV station, but also, you didn’t need it to be everything for everyone.

Section 230 created a third way — one that enabled websites to moderate content as they saw fit without facing liability for everything they missed. This wasn’t just a technical legal fix — it was a fundamental recognition that the internet could enable new forms of communication and community that didn’t fit into old regulatory boxes.