Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1284_869d.pdf
Page Number: 6

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MALWAREBYTES, INC. v. ENIGMA SOFTWARE 
GROUP USA, LLC 
Statement of THOMAS, J. 

So. 2d 1010, 1025 (Fla. 2001) (Lewis, J., dissenting) (relying
on this rule to reject the interpretation that §230 eliminated 
distributor liability). 

B 

Courts have also departed from the most natural reading 
of the text by giving Internet companies immunity for their 
own  content.  Section  230(c)(1)  protects  a  company  from
publisher  liability  only  when  content  is  “provided  by  an-
other  information  content  provider.”    (Emphasis  added.) 
Nowhere does this provision protect a company that is itself 
the information content provider.  See Fair Housing Coun-
cil of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.Com, LLC, 521 F. 
3d 1157, 1165 (CA9 2008).  And an information content pro-
vider is not just the primary author or creator; it is anyone
“responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or devel-
opment” of the content.  §230(f )(3) (emphasis added). 

But from the beginning, courts have held that §230(c)(1) 
protects the “exercise of a publisher’s traditional editorial 
functions—such as deciding whether to publish, withdraw, 
postpone  or  alter  content.”  E.g.,  Zeran,  129  F. 3d,  at  330 
(emphasis added); cf. id., at 332 (stating also that §230(c)(1) 
protects the decision to “edit”).  Only later did courts wres-
tle with the language in §230(f )(3) suggesting providers are
liable for content they help develop “in part.”  To harmonize 
that  text  with  the  interpretation  that  §230(c)(1)  protects 
“traditional editorial functions,” courts relied on policy ar-
guments to narrowly construe §230(f )(3) to cover only sub-
stantial  or  material  edits  and  additions.  E.g.,  Batzel  v. 
Smith, 333 F. 3d 1018, 1031, and n. 18 (CA9 2003) (“[A] cen-
tral purpose of the Act was to protect from liability service 
providers and users who take some affirmative steps to edit 
the material posted”).

Under  this  interpretation,  a  company  can  solicit  thou-
sands  of  potentially  defamatory  statements,  “selec[t]  and 
edi[t] . . . for publication” several of those statements, add