Much of the recent debate around Section 230 has focused on the broad legal protections it provides social media platforms. But that isn’t the whole story. There’s another, lesser known provision of Section 230 that benefits social media users by protecting the development of tools that allow people to control what they see online. When Professor (and former Knight Institute Visiting Research Scholar) Ethan Zuckerman told the Institute that he wanted to release a tool to help Facebook users curate their feeds but was fearful that Meta would sue him if he did so, the Knight Institute filed Zuckerman v. Meta Platforms, asking the courts to recognize that Section 230 would shield Zuckerman from legal liability if he released the tool. I spoke with Knight Institute Senior Staff Attorney Ramya Krishnan about the case, Section 230, and the future of “middleware”—third-party tools like Zuckerman’s that empower social media users.

What does the provision of Section 230 at issue in this lawsuit—Section 230(c)(2)(B)—do, exactly, and why does it protect Zuckerman’s tool?

Ramya Krishnan

Section 230(c)(2)(B) immunizes from legal liability any action taken to enable or make available tools that allow users to filter material they consider to be “objectionable.” The purpose of this provision is to encourage the development of tools that allow people to curate their online experiences and avoid content that they would rather not see. 

Professor Zuckerman’s tool falls squarely within this safe harbor. The tool, called Unfollow Everything 2.0, allows Facebook users to automatically unfollow their friends, groups, and pages and, in so doing, effectively turn off the newsfeed—the endless scroll of posts users see when they log into Facebook. 

There are many reasons users may want to use Facebook without the feed. Some users want to reduce the amount of time they spend on Facebook. Others object to how the feed is sorted, because they fear that an engagement-driven feed promotes sensationalist or inflammatory material. Still others want to be able to better curate what they see in the feed.

If Section 230 protects Zuckerman, why is he afraid to release his tool?

Professor Zuckerman has not yet launched this tool because he fears that Meta will sue him, as it threatened to do to the developer of an earlier, nearly identical tool called Unfollow Everything. That developer ultimately took down his tool rather than risk being sued.

Other tools have met similar fates. For example, in 2020, Meta sent a cease-and-desist letter to the operators of the popular web browser “Friendly,” which allowed users to search their Facebook feeds by keyword, reorder their feeds chronologically, and customize the display of their Facebook pages. And in late 2020, Meta sent a cease-and-desist letter to the NYU researchers responsible for “Ad Observer,” a browser extension that allowed users to donate information about the ads they were seeing on Facebook. Professor Zuckerman has every expectation Meta will take similar action against him if he releases Unfollow Everything 2.0. 

What are you asking the courts to do?

Our suit asks the court to declare that Section 230 immunizes Professor Zuckerman from legal liability for releasing Unfollow Everything 2.0. In the alternative, it asks the court to declare that the tool does not violate Meta’s terms of service, the federal anti-hacking law the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or California’s state analog the Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act—all of which Meta has previously invoked against tools like Unfollow Everything 2.0. We are also asking the court to block Meta from bringing legal claims against Professor Zuckerman in relation to the tool.

Why stop Meta from suing Zuckerman? Shouldn’t Meta be able to control how its products are used? 

Up to a point, yes. But Section 230 enshrines the right of users to curate their online experiences. Protecting this right is especially important because of the dominant social media companies’ power over public discourse. Their policy and algorithmic decisions effectively decide who gets to speak and who gets heard online. This is too much power to reside in a handful of powerful for-profit companies. Users should be able to access a marketplace of content curation tools that help them tailor their platform experiences to their liking.

Talk to me a bit more about user rights. Why do they matter?

We’re currently caught in a social media ecosystem dominated by a handful of companies that make money by selling ads. It’s unrealistic to expect these companies to make content and design decisions that satisfy every user. Third-party tools can bridge the gap between the services the platforms provide and the experiences users actually want by interacting with the platforms on users’ behalf, at users’ explicit direction. For example, they could empower users to curate their existing feeds according to alternative ranking, labeling, and content-moderation rules, or, as is the case with Unfollow Everything 2.0, to eliminate those feeds entirely. 

If Zuckerman and the Knight Institute prevail in the courts, how will this improve the experience of users online? 

A win in this case would help rebalance power between the dominant platforms and the people that use them. Although courts have recognized that Section 230(c)(2)(B) immunizes analogous tools such as malware-blocking software and spam filtering for email, case law in this area is sparse, and they have not yet considered the provision’s application to tools that empower social media users. If the courts affirm the Institute’s interpretation of the provision, they will have addressed a major barrier to the development of such tools—the threat of legal liability that developers who want to create these tools now face. Prevailing in the courts would, therefore, be a significant victory. But there is more that lawmakers and regulators can and should do. 

What should lawmakers and regulators do?

Lawmakers and regulators should impose interoperability mandates on the dominant companies to make it easier for users to switch to other services. Despite widespread concern over the harms caused by the dominant companies’ ad-based business model, alternative services struggle to compete. Users don’t want to lose the connections they have forged on the largest platforms, but the companies make it difficult or even impossible to take those connections with them when they leave. Interoperability would lower these switching costs by allowing people to talk with friends on, say, Facebook, without having to use Facebook. This would in turn increase competition by making it easier for small competitors to attract new users.

Recognizing the protection Section 230 affords middleware like Unfollow Everything 2.0 is an important first step. But legislators should do their part to promote a user-friendly internet, too.