Twenty years ago today, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) could not ban vaguely defined "indecent" material from the Internet just because a minor might potentially access it. In the words of the unanimous court (with John Paul Stevens writing):
❝ The record demonstrates that the growth of the Internet has been and continues to be phenomenal. As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that government regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. ❞
Some interesting history covered in the article, including the dummy ACLU website the organization created to demonstrate it had standing to sue.
How 7 words unfit for TV fostered an open Internet 20 years ago today
“When we decided to bring the case, none of us had been online.”
