Internet censorship in the United States of America is the suppression of information published or viewed on the Internet in the United States. The First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects freedom of speech and expression against federal, state, and local government censorship.
Free speech protections allow little government-mandated Internet content restrictions. However, the Internet is highly regulated, supported by a complex set of legally binding and privately mediated mechanisms.
Gambling, cyber security, and the dangers to children who frequent social media are important ongoing debates. Significant public resistance to proposed content restriction policies has prevented measures used in some other countries from taking hold in the US.
Many government-mandated attempts to regulate content have been barred, often after lengthy legal battles. However, the government has exerted pressure indirectly. With the exception of child pornography, content restrictions tend to rely on platforms to remove/suppress content, following state encouragement or the threat of legal action.
Intellectual property protections yielded a system that predictably removes infringing materials. The US also seizes domains and computers, at times without notification.
History.
The first wave of regulatory actions came about in the 1990s in response to the profusion of sexually explicit material on the Internet within easy reach of minors. Since that time, several legislative attempts at creating a mandatory system of content controls have failed to produce a comprehensive solution. Legislative attempts to control the distribution of socially objectionable material have given way to a system that limits liability over content for Internet intermediaries such as Internet service providers (ISPs) and content hosting companies.
Websites shut down by the U.S for violating intellectual property rights include Napster, WikiLeaks, The Pirate Bay, and MegaUpload.
In 2014, the United States was added to Reporters Without Borders (RWB)'s list of "Enemies of the Internet", a group of countries with the highest level of Internet censorship and surveillance. RWB stated that the US had "undermined confidence in the Internet and its own standards of security" and that "US surveillance practices and decryption activities are a direct threat to investigative journalists, especially those who work with sensitive sources for whom confidentiality is paramount and who are already under pressure".
Federal laws.
With limited exceptions, the free speech provisions of the First Amendment bar federal, state, and local governments from directly censoring the Internet. The primary exception has to do with obscenity, including child pornography, which is not given First Amendment protection.
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA).
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) was enacted in 1986 as an amendment to an existing computer fraud law ( § 1030), which was part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984. The CFAA prohibits accessing a computer without authorization, or in excess of authorization. Since 1986, the Act was amended in 1989, 1994, 1996, 2001 (USA PATRIOT Act), 2002, and in 2008 (Identity Theft Enforcement and Restitution Act). The CFAA is a criminal law and also creates a private right of action, allowing individuals and companies to sue for damages.
Provisions of the CFAA effectively make it a federal crime to violate the terms of service of Internet sites, allowing companies to forbid legitimate activities such as research, or limit or remove protections found elsewhere in law. Terms of service can be changed at any time without notifying users. Tim Wu called the CFAA "the worst law in technology".
Aggressive prosecution under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) has fueled growing criticism of the law's scope and application.
Communications Decency Act (CDA).
In 1996, the United States enacted the Communications Decency Act (CDA), which attempted to regulate both indecency (when available to children) and obscenity in cyberspace. In 1997, in the case of "Reno v. ACLU", the United States Supreme Court found the anti-indecency provisions of the Act unconstitutional. Writing for the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens held that "the CDA places an unacceptably heavy burden on protected speech".
Section 230 is a separate portion of the CDA that remains in effect. Section 230 says that operators of Internet services are not legally liable for the words of third parties who use their services and also protects ISPs from liability for good faith voluntary actions taken to restrict access to certain offensive materials or giving others the technical means to restrict access to that material.
Child Online Protection Act (COPA).
In 1998, the United States enacted the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) to restrict access by minors to any material defined as harmful to minors on the Internet. The law was found to be unconstitutional because it would hinder protected speech among adults. It never took effect, as three separate rounds of litigation led to a permanent injunction against the law in 2009. Had the law passed, it would have effectively made it an illegal act to post anything commercial on the internet that is knowingly harmful to children without some sort of vetting program to confirm user ages.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Enacted in 1998, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA,  § 1201) criminalized the production and dissemination of technology that could be used to circumvent copyright protection mechanisms and made it easier to act against alleged copyright infringement on the Internet. The Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA) is included as Title II of the DMCA and limits the liability of the online service providers for copyright infringement by their users.
Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) went into effect on 21 April 2000. It applies to the online collection of personal information by persons or entities under US jurisdiction from children under 13 and details what a website operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek verifiable consent from a parent or guardian, and what responsibilities an operator has to protect children's privacy and safety including restrictions on the marketing to those under 13. While children under 13 can legally offer personal information with their parents' permission, many websites prohibit underage children from using their services altogether, due to the cost and amount of paperwork necessary for compliance.
Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA).
In 2000 the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was signed into law.
CIPA requires K-12 schools and libraries receiving federal Universal Service Fund (E-rate) discounts or LSTA grants for Internet access or internal connections to:
CIPA does "not":
Trading with the Enemy Act (TWEA).
In March 2008, the "New York Times" reported that a blocklist published by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), an agency established under the Trading with the Enemy Act 1917 and other federal legislation, included websites, so that US companies are prohibited from doing business with those websites and must freeze their assets. The blocklist had the effect that US-based domain name registrars must block those websites. According to the article, eNom, a private domain name registrar and Web hosting company operating in the US, disables domain names that appear on the blocklist. It described eNom's disabling of a European travel agent's web sites advertising travel to Cuba, which appeared on the list. According to the report, the US government claimed that eNom was "legally required" to block the websites under US law, even though the websites were not hosted in the US, were not targeted at US persons, and were legal under foreign law.
Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA).
The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) is intended to "improve cybersecurity in the United States through enhanced sharing of information about cybersecurity threats and for other purposes". The law allows the sharing of Internet traffic information between the US government and technology and manufacturing companies. The bill's text was incorporated by amendment into a consolidated spending bill,
Opponents questioned the CISA's value, believing it would move responsibility from private business to the government, thereby increasing the vulnerability of personal private information, as well as dispersing personal private information across seven government agencies, including the National Security Agency and local police. Some felt that the act was more conducive to surveillance than security after many of the privacy protections from the original bill were removed.
Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act of 2015 (SAVE).
The Stop Advertising Victims of Exploitation Act of 2015 (SAVE) is part of the larger Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act of 2015. The SAVE Act makes it illegal to knowingly advertise content related to sex trafficking, including online advertising. The law established federal criminal liability for third-party content. One concern was that this would lead companies to over-censor, or to limit the practice of monitoring content altogether to avoid "knowledge" of illegal content.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
In 2016, complainants from Gallaudet University brought a lawsuit against UC Berkeley for not adding closed captioning to the recorded lectures it made free to the public. In an unintended consequence of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, the Department of Justice ruling resulted in Berkeley deleting 20,000 freely licensed videos instead of making them more accessible, which Berkeley had described as cost prohibitive.
Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act - Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (FOSTA-SESTA).
Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) was introduced in the US House of Representatives in 2017. Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) was a similar US Senate bill. The combined FOSTA-SESTA package was enacted in 2018.
The bill amended Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to exclude the enforcement of federal and state sex trafficking laws from immunity and clarified SESTA to define participation in a venture as knowingly assisting, facilitating, or supporting sex trafficking.
The bills were criticized as a "disguised internet censorship bill" that weakened Section 230 safe harbors, placed unnecessary burdens on internet companies and intermediaries that handle user-generated content or communications with service providers required to proactively take action against sex trafficking activities, and required a "team of lawyers" to evaluate all possible scenarios. Sex workers argued that the bill would harm their safety, as the platforms they utilize for offering and discussing sexual services (as an alternative to street prostitution) had reduced their services or shut down entirely due to the threat of liability.
Proposed federal legislation that has not become law.
Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA).
The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2006 would have required schools, some businesses, and libraries to block minors' access to social networking websites. The bill was controversial because, according to its critics, it would limit access to a wide range of websites, including many with harmless and educational material. Two similar bills were introduced in 2007, but neither became law.
Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA).
The 2010 Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act. generated controversy for what critics perceived as its authorization for the US president to apply a full block of the Internet in the US
The Executive Cyberspace Coordination Act of 2011 took a different approach.
Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA).
The 2010 Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act would have allowed the US Attorney General to bring an "in rem" action against an infringing domain name in the United States District Court, and seek an order requesting injunctive relief. If granted, such an order would compel the registrar of the domain name in question to suspend the operation of, and may lock, the domain name.
The US Justice Department would maintain two publicly available lists of domain names. The first list would contain domain names against which the Attorney General has obtained injunctions. The second list would contain domains alleged to be infringing, but against which no action had been taken. Any service provider who willingly took steps to block access to sites on this second list would be immune from prosecution.
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).
The 2011 Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would have allowed the US Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who requested the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the allegedly infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. Many argued that requiring ISP's to block access to certain websites constituted censorship. On January 18, 2012, the English Wikipedia shut down for 24 hours to protest SOPA and PIPA. In the wake of many protests, consideration of the legislation was put on hold.
Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA).
The 2011 Protect Intellectual Property Act (Preventing Real Online