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

third-party  content  in  good  faith,  it  is  protected  by
§230(c)(2)(A).

This  modest  understanding  is  a  far  cry  from  what  has
prevailed  in  court.  Adopting  the  too-common  practice  of 
reading extra immunity into statutes where it does not be-
long, see Baxter v. Bracey, 590 U. S. —— (2020) (THOMAS, 
J., dissenting from denial of certiorari), courts have relied 
on policy and purpose arguments to grant sweeping protec-
tion to Internet platforms.  E.g., 1 R. Smolla, Law of Defa-
mation  §4:86,  p. 4–380  (2d  ed.  2019)  (“[C]ourts  have  ex-
tended  the  immunity  in  §230  far  beyond  anything  that 
plausibly  could  have  been  intended  by  Congress);  accord,
Rustad  &  Koenig,  Rebooting  Cybertort  Law,  80  Wash.  L.
Rev. 335, 342–343 (2005) (similar).  I address several areas 
of concern. 

A 
Courts  have  discarded  the  longstanding  distinction  be-
tween  “publisher”  liability  and  “distributor”  liability.    Al-
though  the  text  of  §230(c)(1)  grants  immunity  only  from 
“publisher” or “speaker” liability, the first appellate court to 
consider the statute held that it eliminates distributor lia-
bility too—that is, §230 confers immunity even when a com-
pany distributes content that it knows is illegal.  Zeran v. 
America Online, Inc., 129 F. 3d 327, 331–334 (CA4 1997). 
In reaching this conclusion, the court stressed that permit-
ting distributor liability “would defeat the two primary pur-
poses of the statute,” namely, “immuniz[ing] service provid-
ers” and encouraging “selfregulation.”  Id., at 331, 334.  And 
subsequent decisions, citing Zeran, have adopted this hold-
ing as a categorical rule across all contexts.  See, e.g., Uni-
versal  Communication  Systems,  Inc.  v.  Lycos,  Inc.,  478  F. 
3d 413, 420 (CA1 2007); Shiamili v. Real Estate Group of 
NY, Inc., 17 N. Y. 3d 281, 288–289, 952 N. E. 2d 1011, 1017 
(2011);  Doe  v.  Bates,  2006  WL  3813758,  *18  (ED  Tex., 
Dec. 27, 2006).