Primary Source #1

Full Transcript of the Court Proceedings in Appeal

This document is the original court proceedings in Zeran vs. America Online Inc. during the appeal stage to the Fourth Circuit Court, in which the court upheld the ruling of the Lower Court. This was due to Congress’s intention, as outlined in the Communications Decency Act (CDA), that this act would apply to all court cases ruled on after the CDA was enacted, which this case was.

In the beginning of the document, the opinion of the court is stated, and then the case is outlined in Section I of the document. In Section II, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is discussed, and its potential repercussions to the case. The judge goes in depth on why Section 230, which gives immunity to internet service providers in cases in which something posted on their website by an anonymous user is deemed harmful, was added to the CDA in the first place. The judge is clearly in favor of Section 230, although both positives and negatives of the law are discussed. Section III is a lead-up to the decision in Section IV, and it is obvious that the Fourth Circuit Court will uphold the original ruling in favor of AOL, which is indeed does in Section IV. The link to the full transcript is here: https://www.eff.org/files/zeran-v-aol.pdf

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