June 4, 2020

John Major on the CDA and Platform Immunity

John Major was published in the Daily Journal discussing how potential changes to the Communications Decency Act (CDA) might impact Internet businesses and online platforms on June 4, 2020.

In the article, Mr. Major explains that a number of politicians have proposed limiting or eliminating the immunity provided to online platforms by the CDA. That immunity currently provides platforms with broad immunity for claims based on third-party-user content. If that immunity is narrowed or eliminated, online platforms will find themselves without a valuable protection against user-content-based litigation and will be forced to rely on new, sometimes untested defenses to claims based on user content. Mr. Major examines some of those potential defenses, based on cases in which technology companies have defeated content-based claims without relying on CDA immunity.

John Major is a litigator in the Los Angeles office of Munger, Tolles & Olson. His practice focuses on complex civil ligation, with an emphasis on litigation involving Internet and technology companies.