Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

28. Federal Communications Commission · Minor

Clarify that Section 230(c)(1) does not cover every platform decision

Not started

848 28. Federal Communications Commission

“At the outset, the FCC can clarify that Section 230(c)(1) does not apply broadly to every decision that a platform makes. Rather, its protections apply only when a platform does not remove information provided by someone else.”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    The FCC issued no order, declaratory ruling or advisory opinion interpreting Section 230(c)(1). See the Chapter 28 cluster negative search of 2026-09-01: zero Federal Register documents of any type on Section 230 or the Communications Decency Act in an FCC context since 2025-01-20, zero FCC records in the Corpus, and nothing in presidential-actions.ndjson. Courts continued to apply 230(c)(1) on the settled broad reading — 110 opinions in the bulk snapshot through 2026-06-30 cite 47 U.S.C. § 230 — with no agency interpretation to weigh.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

This and #2188 are the two halves of a single interpretive move the Mandate asks the FCC to make: narrow (c)(1) to non-removal, and read (c)(2) as the provision governing takedowns. Neither happened, and the vehicle for both — an FCC order interpreting Section 230 (#2184) — was never opened.

Congress moved on the same statutory text without reaching it: the Stop the Censorship Act (H.R. 908, introduced 2025-02-04) would amend Section 230(c)(2), and the Sunset To Reform Section 230 Act (H.R. 6746) and Sunset Section 230 Act (S. 3546), both introduced in December 2025, would sunset the statute. All three were referred to committee and went no further, and none of them is the FCC clarification this Quote asks for (playbook §3b: progress is measured on this ask).

Corroborated 2026-09-03 (read-queue ticket 04) against the FCC’s own index. www.fcc.gov is not walled — it opens to the full browser header set — so https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings was read directly: 138 dated entries, 2023-04-25 to 2026-06-09, with zero occurrences of “Section 230” and zero of “Big Tech” (the only “230” on the page is the docket number DA 24-1230). The Federal Register API agrees: "section 230" since 2025-01-20 returns four documents and none is an FCC document. The negative is now doubly sourced and dated.

Action
restrict
Object
Section 230(c)(1) immunity
ID
2187