Opinion ID: 1670905
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: second and third certified questions

Text: The certified questions in this case focus upon the application of 47 U.S.C. § 230 to Florida tort actions that are based upon alleged distributor liability of ISPs. We first address the Fourth District's second and third certified questions and rephrase them into this combined question: Whether section 230 preempts Florida law as to causes of action based in negligence against an Internet Service Provider (ISP) as a distributor of information allegedly in violation of Florida criminal statutes prohibiting the distribution of obscene literature and computer pornography? For the purpose of answering the certified question, but without deciding, we accept that the complaint in this case states a cause of action under Florida law [6] for liability in negligence against AOL as a distributor of information. We answer the rephrased certified question in the affirmative and find that section 230 does preempt Florida law as to such a cause of action based upon alleged negligence. We find persuasive the reasoning of the United States District Court in Zeran v. America Online, Inc., 958 F.Supp. 1124, 1131-37 (E.D.Va.1997), and the Fourth Circuit in Zeran, 129 F.3d at 331-32. The importance of this certified question is obvious in light of the current explosive growth in worldwide use of the Internet. The fundamental issue here is whether companies that provide access to the Internet are subject to common-law civil tort causes of action based upon the laws of each of the fifty states or whether Congress has acted to make ISPs immune from such common-law civil actions. In reaching our conclusion, we find instructive the analysis of the congressional adoption of section 230 that was provided in the Zeran decisions and in commentaries concerning the Zeran decisions. [7] These sources indicate that two reported judicial decisions from courts in the State of New York were significant in congressional passage of 47 U.S.C. § 230, the Communications Decency Act (CDA), and thus provide assistance in understanding the intent of the Act. The cases are Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe, Inc., 776 F.Supp. 135 (S.D.N.Y.1991), and Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co., 23 Media L. Rep. 1794, 1995 WL 323710 (N.Y.Sup.Ct. 1995). In Cubby, the federal district court held in a defamation action that Compu-Serve, a service provider that offered its subscribers access to an electronic library of news publications, was a mere distributor of information and could not be held liable for libelous statements made in news publications without a showing of actual knowledge. See 776 F.Supp. at 140-41. Subsequent to the federal Cubby decision, a New York state court decided Stratton Oakmont and concluded that an ISP could be held liable as a publisher of defamatory statements if the ISP retained editorial control over the postings contained on its site. See 23 Media L. Rep. at 1798, 1995 WL 323710. According to one commentator, this created a paradox in that those ISPs who tried to control what was placed on the Internet so as to limit access to provide decent, family-oriented content [would be] subject to defamation lawsuits and liability on account of their efforts, while [ISPs] who made no efforts to control content would be free of liability. [8] In 1996, Congress enacted 47 U.S.C. § 230, which was adopted as Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, Pub.L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56 (1996) (codified in scattered sections of 15 and 47 U.S.C.). See Reno v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 859 n. 24, 117 S.Ct. 2329, 138 L.Ed.2d 874 (1997). The Congressional Conference Report on section 230 specifically states: [T]his section provides Good Samaritan protections from civil liability for providers or users of an interactive computer service for actions to restrict or enable restriction of access to objectionable online material.... [O]ne of the specific purposes of [section 230] is to overrule Stratton-Oakmont [Stratton Oakmont] v. Prodigy and any other similar decisions which have treated such providers and users as Publishers or speakers of content that is not their own because they have restricted access to objectionable material. Cordero, supra note 7, at 795 (quoting S. Conf. Rep. No. 104-230, at 435 (1996)). In Zeran, the Fourth Circuit described this history of section 230: Another important purpose of § 230 was to encourage service providers to self-regulate the dissemination of offensive material over their services. In this respect, § 230 responded to a New York state court decision, Stratton-Oakmont [Stratton Oakmont], Inc. v. Prodigy Servs. Co. There, the plaintiffs sued Prodigyan interactive computer service like AOLfor defamatory comments made by an unidentified party on one of Prodigy's bulletin boards. The court held Prodigy to the strict liability standard normally applied to original publishers of defamatory statements, rejecting Prodigy's claims that it should be held only to the lower knowledge standard usually reserved for distributors. The court reasoned that Prodigy acted more like an original publisher than a distributor both because it advertised its practice of controlling content on its service and because it actively screened and edited messages posted on its bulletin boards. Congress enacted § 230 to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision. Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material. § 47 U.S.C. § 230(b)(4). In line with this purpose, § 230 forbids the imposition of publisher liability on a service provider for the exercise of its editorial and self-regulatory functions. Zeran, 129 F.3d at 331 (citation omitted). Using this history as a basis for our reading of section 230, we turn to the issue of preemption of Florida law. The reasoning of the United States District Court in Zeran is incisive and directly on point on this issue: 2. Conflict with the Language of the CDA Preemption is also required where state law conflicts with the express language of a federal statute. In this case, Zeran seeks to hold AOL liable for its alleged negligence in allowing the bogus notices to remain and reappear after learning of their fraudulent nature from Zeran. This theory of liability derives chiefly from Cubby, a case decided over four years before the passage of the CDA. In Cubby, the district court concluded that the defendant interactive computer service, CompuServe, was a distributor for the purposes of defamation liability, and thus was liable only if it knew or had reason to know of the alleged defamatory ... statements. This reason to know standard is consistent with the standard of liability for entities such as news vendors, book stores, and libraries who, while not charged with a duty to review the materials they distribute, are liable if they distribute materials they know or have reason to know contain defamatory statements. Thus, Zeran contends that on learning of the fake notice on the AOL bulletin board advertising the tasteless T-shirts, AOL had a duty to take reasonable steps to prevent the distribution of this posting. Zeran further contends that the scope of this reasonable duty, and whether AOL complied with it, are questions for a jury. AOL responds by contending that a state cause of action for distributor liability is preempted because it directly conflicts with the language of § 230 of the CDA. Specifically, AOL points to § 230(c)(1), which states that [n]o provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. Zeran does not contest that AOL is an interactive computer service as defined by the CDA and it is clear that AOL meets the statutory definition of such a service. Nor does Zeran claim that the bogus notices were anything but information provided by another information content provider. Thus, the preemption issue reduces to the question whether a state cause of action for negligent distribution of defamatory material directly conflicts with the CDA's prohibition against treating an Internet provider as a publisher or speaker. Put another way, the question is whether imposing common law distributor liability on AOL amounts to treating it as a publisher or speaker. If so, the state claim is preempted. The key to answering this question lies in understanding the true nature of so-called distributor liability and its relationship to publisher liability. At the heart of Zeran's argument is the premise that distributor liability is a common law tort concept different from, and unrelated to, publisher liability. This is not so; distributor liability, or more precisely, liability for knowingly or negligently distributing defamatory material, is merely a species or type of liability for publishing defamatory material. This relationship is apparent from the Restatement (Second) of Tort § 577 definition of publication of defamatory material, which states, (1) Publication of defamatory matter is its communication intentionally or by a negligent act to one other than the person defamed. (2) One who intentionally and unreasonably fails to remove defamatory matter that he knows to be exhibited on land or chattels in his possession or under his control is subject to liability for its continued publication. Thus, a publisher is not merely one who intentionally communicates defamatory information. Instead, the law also treats as a publisher or speaker one who fails to take reasonable steps to remove defamatory statements from property under her control. . . . . 3. Conflict with the Purposes and Objectives of the CDA An alternative basis for preemption exists if subjecting AOL to state law distributor liability would stand as an obstacle to the accomplishment of the full purposes and objectives of Congress in passing § 230 of the CDA. Section 230 itself provides some insight into Congress' purposes and objectives in passing that provision, stating, in part, that It is the policy of the United States: . . . . (3) 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; [and] (4) to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material.... 47 U.S.C. § 230(b). The scant legislative history reflects that the disincentive Congress specifically had in mind was liability of the sort described in Stratton Oakmont. There, Prodigy, an interactive computer service provider, was held to have published the defamatory statements of a third party in part because Prodigy had voluntarily engaged in some content screening and editing and therefore knew or should have known of the statements. Congress, concerned that such rulings would induce interactive computer services to refrain from editing or blocking content, chose to grant immunity to interactive computer service providers from suits arising from efforts by those providers to screen or block content. Thus, Congress' clear objective in passing § 230 of the CDA was to encourage the development of technologies, procedures and techniques by which objectionable material could be blocked or deleted either by the interactive computer service provider itself or by the families and schools receiving information via the Internet. If this objective is frustrated by the imposition of distributor liability on Internet providers, then preemption is warranted. Closely examined, distributor liability has just this effect. Zeran, 958 F.Supp. at 1132-35 (citations and footnotes omitted) (emphasis added). This view was confirmed by the analysis of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal in Zeran: Because of the difference between these two forms of liability, Zeran contends that the term distributor carries a legally distinct meaning from the term publisher. Accordingly, he asserts that Congress' use of only the term publisher in § 230 indicates a purpose to immunize service providers only from publisher liability. He argues that distributors are left unprotected by § 230 and, therefore, his suit should be permitted to proceed against AOL. We disagree. Assuming arguendo that Zeran has satisfied the requirements for imposition of distributor liability, this theory of liability is merely a subset, or a species, of publisher liability, and is therefore also foreclosed by § 230. The terms publisher and distributor derive their legal significance from the context of defamation law. Although Zeran attempts to artfully plead his claims as ones of negligence, they are indistinguishable from a garden variety defamation action. Because the publication of a statement is a necessary element in a defamation action, only one who publishes can be subject to this form of tort liability. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 558(b) (1977); Keeton et al., supra, § 113, at 802. Publication does not only describe the choice by an author to include certain information. In addition, both the negligent communication of a defamatory statement and the failure to remove such a statement when first communicated by another partyeach alleged by Zeran here under a negligence labelconstitute publication. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 577; see also Tacket v. General Motors Corp., 836 F.2d 1042, 1046-47 (7th Cir.1987). In fact, every repetition of a defamatory statement is considered a publication. Keeton et al., supra, § 113, at 799. In this case, AOL is legally considered to be a publisher. [E]very one who takes part in the publication ... is charged with publication. Id. Even distributors are considered to be publishers for purposes of defamation law: Those who are in the business of making their facilities available to disseminate the writings composed, the speeches made, and the information gathered by others may also be regarded as participating to such an extent in making the books, newspapers, magazines, and information available to others as to be regarded as publishers. They are intentionally making the contents available to others, sometimes without knowing all of the contentsincluding the defamatory contentand sometimes without any opportunity to ascertain, in advance, that any defamatory matter was to be included in the matter published. Id. at 803. AOL falls squarely within this traditional definition of a publisher and, therefore, is clearly protected by § 230's immunity. Zeran, 129 F.3d at 331-32 (emphasis added). It is precisely the liability based upon negligent failure to control the content of users' publishing of allegedly illegal postings on the Internet that is the gravamen of Doe's alleged cause of action. Such publication of obscene literature or computer pornography is analogous to the defamatory publication at issue in the Zeran decisions. Therefore, our agreement with the reasoning of the federal district court answers the certified question as to preemption. Accordingly, we answer the combined and rephrased certified question in the affirmative.