Eric Goldman

So it really highlights the stakes of Section 230.

If it's not in place, the liability exposure is significant.

And I do expect that Section 230 will be at issue in an appeal.

The defendants will question the trial court's decision that Section 230 made that distinction between the content that was viewed and the way in which it was presented.

They're already doing that.

The services are all rolling out new initiatives.

They're designed to enhance child safety, to give parents greater controls over their children's experience.

All that is already taking place.

And some of the legislation would require much stronger, much more significant changes to social media.

And it is possible that the litigation will also produce remedies that are much greater than anything that the services would voluntarily agree to.

The jury accepted the plaintiff's basic arguments that social media services should be legally responsible for the harms that they cause their victim.

And one possibility, for example, is that though the lower court said that Section 230 apply, an appellate court might say differently.

If they do, the jury verdict will be thrown out and probably that will be the end of the case.

Another scenario is that the First Amendment may be in play.

Ultimately, if we think about social media services as publishers of content, if they're publishers of content, the First Amendment has a lot to say about their choices as publishers.

So I'm going to be watching for things like the legal limits on the claims of the plaintiffs and, in a sense, the rights that social media services have to decide what they think is best for their audience.

Where does that fit into this equation?

That was not an issue directly in the...

jury verdict, but it will be on appeal.

The whole point of the jury trial is that we needed an answer from average Americans about how they viewed the culpability of social media services.