Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/19-1284_869d.pdf
Page Number: 7

Cite as:  592 U. S. ____ (2020) 

7 

Statement of THOMAS, J. 

commentary,  and  then  feature  the  final  product  promi-
nently over other submissions—all while enjoying immun-
ity.  Jones v. Dirty World Entertainment Recordings LLC, 
755 F. 3d 398, 403, 410, 416 (CA6 2014) (interpreting “de-
velopment”  narrowly  to  “preserv[e]  the  broad  immunity 
th[at §230] provides for website operators’ exercise of tradi-
tional  publisher  functions”).  To  say  that  editing  a  state-
ment  and  adding  commentary  in  this  context  does  not
“creat[e]  or  develo[p]”  the  final  product,  even  in  part,  is
dubious. 

C 

The decisions that broadly interpret §230(c)(1) to protect 
traditional  publisher  functions  also  eviscerated  the  nar-
rower liability shield Congress included in the statute.  Sec-
tion  230(c)(2)(A)  encourages  companies  to  create  content 
guidelines and protects those companies that “in good faith 
. . . restrict access to or availability of material that the pro-
vider  or  user  considers  to  be  obscene,  lewd,  lascivious, 
filthy,  excessively  violent,  harassing,  or  otherwise  objec-
tionable.”  Taken together, both provisions in §230(c) most
naturally  read  to  protect  companies  when  they  unknow-
ingly decline to exercise editorial functions to edit or remove 
third-party content, §230(c)(1), and when they decide to ex-
ercise those editorial functions in good faith, §230(c)(2)(A). 
But  by  construing  §230(c)(1)  to  protect  any  decision  to 
edit  or  remove  content,  Barnes  v.  Yahoo!,  Inc.,  570  F.  3d 
1096,  1105  (CA9  2009),  courts  have  curtailed  the  limits
Congress placed on decisions to remove content, see e-ven-
tures Worldwide, LLC v. Google, Inc., 2017 WL 2210029, *3 
(MD  Fla.,  Feb.  8,  2017)  (rejecting  the  interpretation  that
§230(c)(1)  protects  removal  decisions  because  it  would 
“swallo[w] the more specific immunity in (c)(2)”).  With no 
limits on an Internet company’s discretion to take down ma-
terial,  §230  now  apparently  protects  companies  who  ra-
cially discriminate in removing content.  Sikhs for Justice,