Opinion ID: 2588352
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: User Liability

Text: The distributor liability theory endorsed by the Court of Appeal recognizes no distinction between Internet service providers and individuals. Individual Internet users like Rosenthal, however, are situated differently from institutional service providers with regard to some of the principal policy considerations discussed by the Zeran court and reflected in the Congressional Record. In particular, individuals do not face the massive volume of third-party postings that providers encounter. Self-regulation is a far less challenging enterprise for them. Furthermore, service providers, no matter how active or passive a role they take in screening the content posted by users of their services, typically bear less responsibility for that content than do the users. Users are more likely than service providers to actively engage in malicious propagation of defamatory or other offensive material. These considerations bring into question the scope of the term user in section 230, and whether it matters if a user is engaged in active or passive conduct for purposes of the statutory immunity. User is not defined in the statute, and the limited legislative record does not indicate why Congress included users as well as service providers under the umbrella of immunity granted by section 230(c)(1). The standard rules of statutory construction, however, yield an unambiguous result. We must begin with the language employed by Congress and the assumption that its ordinary meaning expresses the legislative purpose. ( Engine Mfrs. Ass'n v. South Coast Air Quality Management Dist. (2004) 541 U.S. 246, 252, 124 S.Ct. 1756, 158 L.Ed.2d 529; see also Hassan v. Mercy American River Hospital (2003) 31 Cal.4th 715, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 623, 74 P.3d 726.) User plainly refers to someone who uses something, and the statutory context makes it clear that Congress simply meant someone who uses an interactive computer service. Section 230(c)(1) refers directly to the user of an interactive computer service. Section 230(f)(2) defines interactive computer service as any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet.... Section 230(a)(2) notes that such services offer users a great degree of control over the information that they receive, and section 230(b)(3) expresses Congress's intent to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services. Thus, Congress consistently referred to users of interactive computer services, specifically including individuals in section 230(b)(3). There is no reason to suppose that Congress attached a different meaning to the term user in section 230(c)(1). (See Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., Inc. (1995) 513 U.S. 561, 570, 115 S.Ct. 1061, 131 L.Ed.2d 1; Hassan v. Mercy American River Hospital, supra, 31 Cal.4th at p. 716, 3 Cal. Rptr.3d 623, 74 P.3d 726.) Rosenthal used the Internet to gain access to newsgroups where she posted Bolen's article about Polevoy. She was therefore a user under the CDA, as the parties conceded below. Nor is there any basis for concluding that Congress intended to treat service providers and users differently when it declared that [n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as [a] publisher or speaker .... (§ 230(c)(1).) We cannot construe the statute so as to render the term user inoperative. ( Duncan v. Walker (2001) 533 U.S. 167, 174, 121 S.Ct. 2120, 150 L.Ed.2d 251; Hassan v. Mercy American River Hospital, supra, 31 Cal.4th at pp. 715-716, 3 Cal.Rptr.3d 623, 74 P.3d 726.) We note that in cases where an individual's role as operator of a Web site raised a question as to whether he was a service provider or a user, the courts found it unnecessary to resolve the issue because the statute confers immunity on both. ( Batzel v. Smith, supra, 333 F.3d at p. 1030; Donato v. Moldow, supra, 865 A.2d at p. 719; see also Barrett v. Fonorow, supra, 279 Ill.Dec. 113, 799 N.E.2d at pp. 919, 922.) Polevoy urges us to distinguish between active and passive Internet use, and to restrict the statutory term user to those who engage in passive use. He notes that subdivisions (a)(2) and (b)(3) of section 230 refer to information received by users. He also observes that the caption of subdivision (c) is Protection for `good Samaritan' blocking and screening of offensive material. From these premises, Polevoy reasons that the term user must be construed to refer only to those who receive offensive information, and those who screen and remove such information from an Internet site. He argues that those who actively post or republish information on the Internet are information content providers unprotected by the statutory immunity. Information content provider is defined as any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service ....(§ 230(f)(3).) Polevoy's view fails to account for the statutory provision at the center of our inquiry: the prohibition in section 230(c)(1) against treating any user as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. A user who merely receives information on a computer without making it available to anyone else would be neither a publisher nor a speaker. Congress obviously had a broader meaning in mind. Nor is it clear how a user who removes a posting may be deemed passive while one who merely allows a posting to remain online is active. Furthermore, Congress plainly did not intend to deprive all information content providers of immunity, because the reference to another such provider in section 230(c)(1) presumes that the immunized publisher or speaker is also an information content provider. (See Carafano v. Metrosplash.com, Inc., supra, 339 F.3d at p. 1125; Donato v. Moldow, supra, 865 A.2d at p. 720.) [19] The distinction between active and passive use was explored in Batzel v. Smith, supra, 333 F.3d 1018. Smith sent an e-mail to the operator of a Web site devoted to museum security and stolen art, accusing Batzel of possessing paintings that may have been stolen by the Nazis during World War II. The operator posted the message on the Web site, with some changes, and distributed it to the subscribers of his e-mail newsletter. Batzel sued Smith and the operator for defamation. The trial court denied the operator's motion to strike the complaint under the California anti-SLAPP statute (Code Civ. Proc., § 425.16). ( Batzel, at pp. 1020-1023.) The court of appeals vacated the order denying the motion, remanded, and directed the trial court to determine whether the operator should reasonably have known Smith intended his e-mail to be published on the Internet. If not, the court reasoned the message was not provided by another information content provider under section 230, and the operator would not be immune from liability. [20] ( Batzel v. Smith, supra, 333 F.3d at p. 1035.) The relevant discussion for our purposes arose from the dissent expressed in a concurring and dissenting opinion. The Batzel dissent criticized the majority for adopting a rule that provides Internet intermediaries with immunity to spread information intended for republication, licens[ing] professional rumor-mongers and gossip-hounds to spread false and hurtful information with impunity. ( Batzel v. Smith, supra, at p. 1038 (cone & dis. opn. of Gould, J.).) The dissent proposed a rule based on the defendant's actions instead of the author's intent. It would hold that the CDA immunizes a defendant only when the defendant took no active role in selecting the questionable information for publication. If the defendant took an active role in selecting information for publication, the information is no longer `information provided by another' within the meaning of § 230. ( Ibid. ) The dissent reasoned that information actively selected for republication has been transformed ... bolstered, [and] strengthened to do more harm if it is wrongful. ( Batzel v. Smith, supra, 333 F.3d at p. 1038 (cone & dis. opn. of Gould, J.).) It acknowledged that service providers cannot be expected to screen the millions of messages sent over their networks for offensive content. However, it argued that a person who does actively screen communications to select some for republication is able to detect defamatory content and should not be immunized. The dissent would grant immunity to bulletin board moderators and the like if they did not actively select among messages for publication, but would expose them to liability if they made a conscious decision to disseminate a particular defamatory communication. Congress's goal of encouraging self-regulation would be furthered, according to the dissent, because those who remove all or part of an offensive message would be immune. The dissenting justice did not believe Congress intended to immunize those who select defamatory information for distribution on the Internet. ( Id. at pp. 1039-1040.) [21] The Batzel majority responded that no logical distinction can be drawn between a defendant who actively selects information for publication and one who screens submitted material, removing offensive content. The scope of the immunity cannot turn on whether the publisher approaches the selection process as one of inclusion or removal, as the difference is one of method or degree, not substance. ( Batzel v. Smith, supra, 333 F.3d at p. 1032.) We agree with this reasoning. Furthermore, we reject the dissent's view that actively selected and republished information is no longer information provided by another information content provider under section 230(c)(1). All republications involve a transformation in some sense. A user who actively selects and posts material based on its content fits well within the traditional role of publisher. Congress has exempted that role from liability. As Rosenthal points out, the congressional purpose of fostering free speech on the Internet supports the extension of section 230 immunity to active individual users. It is they who provide much of the diversity of political discourse, the pursuit of opportunities for cultural development, and the exploration of myriad avenues for intellectual activity that the statute was meant to protect. (§ 230(a)(3).) The approach taken by the Batzel dissent would tend to chill the free exercise of Internet expression, and could frustrate the goal of providing an incentive for self-regulation. A user who removed some offensive content might face liability for actively selecting the remaining material. Users in this position, no less than the service providers discussed by the Zeran court, would be motivated to delete marginally offensive material, restricting the scope of online discussion. Some users, at least those like Rosenthal who engage in high-volume Internet posting, might be discouraged from screening third party content. Although individual users may face the threat of liability less frequently than institutional service providers, their lack of comparable financial and legal resources makes that threat no less intimidating. We conclude there is no basis for deriving a special meaning for the term user in section 230(c)(1), or any operative distinction between active and passive Internet use. By declaring that no user may be treated as a publisher of third party content, Congress has comprehensively immunized republication by individual Internet users.