SECTION 230 OF THE

COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT

WHAT IS COMMUNICATION DECENCY?

Congress enacted the Communications Decency Act (CDA) as

Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in an attempt
to prevent minors from gaining access to sexually explicit
materials on the Internet.
 CDA PROHIBITED TRANSMITTING OBSCENITY
TO MINORS

The CDA prohibited any individual from knowingly transmitting

“obscene or indecent” messages to a recipient under the age of 18. It also
outlawed the “knowing” display of “patently offensive” materials in a manner
“available” to those under 18. This provision potentially included any individual
providing content without a mechanism for verifying the age of the viewer,
potentially requiring commercial and noncommercial content providers to
institute costly screening procedures in order to avoid criminal prosecution.
 SUPREME COURT RULES CDA
VIOLATED FIRST AMENDMENT

In Reno v. American Civil Liberties Union (1997), the Court ruled the CDA to be
unconstitutionally overbroad because it suppressed a significant amount of
protected adult speech in the effort to protect minors from potentially harmful
speech.
The CDA borrowed this language in prohibiting the use of computer services to
display to minors “any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image or other
communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive
as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory
activities or organs.” The CDA also included a severability clause, directing any
court holding portions of the statute unconstitutional to preserve the
constitutionality of other portions of the statute.
Child
Online
Protection
Act of 1998
What is Child Online Protection?

Congress passed the Child Online

Protection Act of 1998 (COPA) with
the intent of preventing minors from
accessing obscene material on
commercial Web sites.
COPA targeted the Internet
transmission of material harmful to
minors:

President Bill Clinton signed COPA into

law in October 1998. Narrower than the
CDA, COPA targeted the Internet
transmission of material harmful to
minors distributed for commercial
purposes.
 Lawmakers used the three-tier Miller test in
COPA to classify material as obscene if taken
as a whole:

• An average person would find it

appealing to “prurient” or
perverted interests;

• It offensively portrays “actual or

simulated sexual act or sexual
contact, an actual or simulated
normal or perverted sexual act,
or a lewd exhibition of the
genitals or post-pubescent female
breast”; and

• Taken as a whole it lacked

“serious literary, artistic,
political, or scientific value for
minors.”
Law applied only when commercial
transactions occurred:

Congress applied the ban only to communications

involved in commercial transactions on publicly
accessible Web sites.

COPA defined commercial dealings as those actions

that make online material available for access through
the process of requiring credit cards, debit accounts,
adult access codes, adult personal identification
numbers, or by accepting digital certification of age or
other technological means of ascertaining whether
clients are over the age of 17.

Monetary penalties were to be levied for each separate

violation in which a minor accessed obscene material.
COPA was scheduled to take effect in November
1998, but a coalition of civil liberties groups
successfully delayed implementation by challenging
its constitutionality.
Best guidelines to share with your kids
or siblings for safe online use:

• Follow the family rules, and

those set by the Internet
Service Provider.
• Never post or trade personal
pictures.
• Never reveal personal
information, such as address,
phone number, or school
name or location.
• Never respond to a
threatening email, message,
post or text.
• Always tell a parent or other
trusted adult about any
communication or
conversation that was scary
or hurtful.