What happens if the law starts treating Facebook and Twitter Like Traditional Publishers?

The little-known provision that empowers tech companies to experiment with new ways of imposing and enforcing norms on new sites of discourse could be changed.

No other sentence in the U.S. Code," technology scholar David Post has written, "has been responsible for the creation of more value than" a little-known provision of the Communications Decency Act called Section 230. But in January, President Donald Trump's technology adviser Abigail Slater suggested that Congress should consider changes to the law. It's not crazy to consider amending the provision, no matter the trillions of dollars resting on it. But the law itself is being mischaracterized and therefore misunderstood—including by the very legislators who'd be responsible for amending it.