Most players on the Internet are likely to qualify for protection under 230 against liability for third-party content. Further legal battles could test its breadth. Though the question has yet to be addressed in court, what First Amendment attorneys involved in new media fear most is that the global nature of the Internet might allow foreign courts to claim jurisdiction over allegedly libelous speech originating elsewhere, including the United States. It may be in the economic interests of a publisher to take into account the least protective libel laws in the world, rather than relying on the protection of the Constitution. And that's scary.
Journalism is just one piece of a bigger legal jurisdiction puzzle created by the Internet.
Abroad, the famously pro-plaintiff libel laws of Britain remain the most vexing for American media companies. In May, the House of Lords allowed a Russian tycoon to sue Forbes magazine in Britain, and in April a London jury slapped The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune with a libel verdict for an article alleging that a celebrity chef in England had used drugs in the past. Web sites may be considered just as international in scope as these print publications. Another recent case illustrates that in the democratic realm of Internet publishing, free-speech protections may apply equally to journalists and nonjournalists alike, but only up to a point. In 1997, a Cornell University graduate student, Michael Dolenga, was named in a libel suit filed in London by an English scientist, Laurence Godfrey, who alleged that Dolenga had posted defamatory messages about Godfrey on Usenet discussion groups.