Section 230 helps make it possible for online communities to host user speech: from restaurant reviews, to fan fiction, to collaborative encyclopedias. But recent debates about the law often overlook how it works in practice. To mark its 30th anniversary, EFF is interviewing leaders of online platforms about how they handle complaints, moderate content, and protect their users’ ability to speak and share information. 

Reddit is one of the largest user-generated content platforms on the internet, built around thousands of independent communities known as subreddits. Some subreddits cover everyday interests, while others host discussions about specialized or controversial topics. These communities are created and moderated by volunteers, and the site’s decentralized model means that Reddit hosts a vast range of user speech without relying on centralized editorial control. 

Ben Lee is Chief Legal Officer at Reddit, where he oversees the company’s legal strategy and policy work on issues including content moderation and intermediary liability. Before joining Reddit, Lee held senior legal roles at other tech companies including Plaid, Twitter, and Google. At Reddit, he has been closely involved in litigation and policy debates surrounding Section 230, including cases addressing the legal risks faced by platforms and their users and moderators. He was interviewed by Joe Mullin, a policy analyst on EFF's Activism Team.

Joe Mullin: When we talk about user rights and Section 230, what rights are most at stake on a platform like Reddit? 

Ben Lee: Reddit, we often say, is the most human place on the internet. What’s often missing from the debate is that section 230 protects people—not platforms. 

It protects millions of everyday humans and volunteer moderators who participate in online communities. Without it, people could face lawsuits for voting down a post, enforcing community rules, or moderating a discussion. These are foundational activities on Reddit, and frankly, the whole internet.

If you had to describe section 230 to a regular Reddit user without naming the law, what would you say it does for them?

Section 230 protects your ability to participate in community moderation.

Even if all you are doing is up-voting or down-voting content, that’s participation. On Reddit, everyone is a content moderator, through voting. Up-voting determines the visibility of content. 

We believe, strongly, this is one of the only models to allow Reddit to scale. You make the community part of the moderation process. They’re invested in the community, making it better. 

How would user speech be affected if Section 230 were eliminated or weakened? 

We would undermine community self governance—the notion that humans can do content moderation, and take that responsibility for themselves. Whether you’re a small blog or big forum. I like to think of Reddit as composed of this federation of communities that range from the tiny to the humongous. That’s what the internet is! 

The legal risk would discourage people from moderating, or even speaking at all. The kind of speech we’re trying to protect is often critical of powerful people or entities. If a moderation decision leads to litigation from those powerful entities, that’s an expensive proposition to fight. 

Reddit relies on user-run communities and volunteer moderators. Can you walk me through how content moderation and legal complaints actually work in practice, and where section 230 comes into that? 

We have a tiered structure, like our federal system. Each community is like a state: it has its own rules, and enforces them. The vast majority of content moderation decisions are made by the communities, not by Reddit itself. 

Reddit is built on self-governing communities that are moderated by volunteers, supported by automated tools. Section 230 gives Reddit the freedom to experiment, and lets users shape healthy, interest-based spaces.

Section 230 is fundamental to protecting the moderators from a frivolous lawsuit. A screenwriting community might want to protect their community from scammy competitions—and then they get sued by that competition. 

Or a community wants to keep their conversation civil. And, for example, may not allow Star Trek characters to be called “soy boys,” and they enforce that. Then a person sues. 

I wish these were hypotheticals. But they were actual lawsuits. And we have them, routinely. 

What are policymakers missing about Section 230? 

The [moderation] decisions being criticized in court, are decisions to try to make the internet safer. In none of the cases that I mentioned is there a moderator saying, “I want to increase harmful content!” These are good-faith decisions about what makes the internet better. 

Section 230 is, at its core, protecting the ability for people to make those choices for their own communities. 

There's a price to be paid for not having a Section 230. And it will be paid by internet users—not the biggest platforms.

Some see 230 as a way to punish Big Tech. But removing it doesn't punish Big Tech—it makes them more powerful. It's startups, community driven platforms, and individual moderators who rely on Section 230 to compete and innovate. Weakening Section 230 will harm the open internet, and reduce the choice, diversity, and resilience of the internet. 

The big guys, they have armies of lawyers. They have the budget to withstand a flood of lawsuits. Weakening Section 230 just entrenches them. 

In Reddit’s amicus brief in the Gonzalez v. Google Supreme Court case, you point out that without Section 230, many moderation decisions wouldn’t be protected. The brief states: “A plaintiff might claim emotional distress from a truthful but hurtful post that gained prominence when a moderator highlighted it as a trending topic. Or, a plaintiff might claim interference with economic relations arising from an honest but very critical two-star restaurant review.” 

When you have situations where moderators get threats or litigation, what can you do? 

We have had cases where our own moderators got sued, along with us. In the “soy boy” case, we worked to help find pro bono counsel for the moderators. 

Someone posted “Wesley Crusher is a soy boy,” and it got removed. I'm enough of a Star Trek fan that I understand both the reference, and why the moderator decided—“hey, it's gone. I don't want this here.”

This would not violate our Reddit rules. But the community took it down under its own rules about being civil. It was just not a kind-hearted action, and the community had a right to decide. 

But the moderator got sued. We got sued, actually, because the poster disagreed with that moderation choice. Section 230 is what allowed us to win that case. 

These are just average people, implicated only because they moderated their own community. They are trying to do the right thing by their community. 

In cases where litigation happens, when does Section 230 come into play? 

Section 230 is usually one of the first things that's talked about in the case. It’s usually the most effective way of saying: if you believe someone who defamed you—please go to the person who has defamed you. If you’re looking to the moderator, or to Reddit itself, this is not a great way of getting the justice that you seek. 

Is there a different workflow internationally? 

There’s a very different workflow. We had a prominent case in France where a company was trying to sue moderators, and of course, we didn't have section 230 to protect them. So we had to do all sorts of other things to protect them. It got much more complicated. 

The breadth of content that's considered illegal in certain jurisdictions can be somewhat breathtaking. 

Our goal is always to preserve as much freedom of expression as possible for our community. In the U.S., we look at it through the lens of the First Amendment, and other aspects. Outside the U.S., we rely more on the lens of international human rights. 

How would you characterize legal demands around user content, the ones you see most often? 

They tend to be: somebody said something mean about me—take this down. Or someone says: you didn’t allow me to say something mean about someone or some entity. It completely runs the spectrum. 

One law that has already passed that weakens Section 230 is SESTA/FOSTA. From Reddit’s perspective, what changed after that? 

There's some communities we had to shut down, in particular, support communities. There was a cost. Every time Section 230 is narrowed, there’s a cost—some types of speech and communities have a harder time staying online. 

The cost may not seem high to some people, because those communities are not for them. But if they visited them, they’d see that these are actual people, interacting in a positive way. If it wasn’t positive, we have rules for that—but that’s a different question. 

New York's proposed 2026-2027 budget currently includes provisions that will require all 3D printers sold in the state to run print-blocking censorware—software that surveils every print for forbidden designs. This policy would also create felony charges for possessing or sharing certain design files. The vote on the state budget could happen as early as next week, so New Yorkers need to act fast and demand that their Assemblymembers and Senators strip this provision from the budget.

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State legislators across the US are rushing to regulate 3D-printed firearms under the syllogism “something must be done; there, I've done something.” The most reckless of these proposals is a mandate for manufacturers to implement print blocking on all 3D printers. We, and other experts, have already pointed out that this algorithmic print blocking is simply unfeasible and will only serve to stifle competition, free expression, and privacy. While most detrimental to the creative communities lawfully using these printers, every New Yorker will be impacted by this blow to innovation.

This policy is unfortunately buried in Part C of the New York State’s proposed budget for the 2026-2027 fiscal year (S.9005 / A.10005), which is urgently moving toward a vote after facing extensive delays. It’s also bundled with a policy that would allow felony charges to be brought against researchers and journalists for sharing design files restricted by the state.  The worst of these impacts won’t be known until after it is negotiated behind closed doors, with no safeguards for creative expression or privacy.

Researchers and Journalists Could Face Felony Charges

Part C Subpart A of the budget includes two particularly concerning provisions: §2.10 and 2.11. These threaten Class E felony charges for distributing or possessing 3D-printer files that would produce firearm parts with a 3D printer or CNC machine. 

Under these provisions merely sharing a print file with any of them could result in criminal charges

The first provision, 2.10, makes it a felony to sell or distribute files that can produce major firearm components to someone who is not a federally and NY-licensed gunsmith. Under 2.11, it’s also a felony to possess these files if you intend to illegally print a firearm or share them with someone you believe is not permitted to own or smith a firearm.

A journalist reporting on 3D-printed guns. A researcher studying printable firearms. An artist incorporating parts into a new work commenting on gun culture. Under these provisions merely sharing a print file with any of them could result in criminal charges, even if no one involved intends to assemble a firearm.

Criminalizing information doesn’t work. Someone intent on illegally printing a firearm is already subject to charges for that act. Adding felony liability for simply possessing a file or design piles on additional charges while doing nothing to stop printing. New charges for someone distributing these files won’t make them inaccessible to lawbreakers, but they will have a chilling effect on legitimate and entirely legal work. 

Unsurprisingly, a similar law was proposed and subsequently scrapped in Colorado due to First Amendment concerns. We recommend New York do the same.

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Mandated Surveillance, Less Access

Part C Subpart B would require every 3D printer and CNC machine sold in New York to include algorithms that scan your design files and block prints the system identifies as producing firearm components. Furthermore, all sales and deliveries of these machines must be made face-to-face. 

Unlike other bills we have seen, there are no exceptions to this mandate. These restrictions apply to sales to researchers, commercial manufacturers, and—oddly enough—federally and state-licensed gunsmiths.

Applying these restrictions to CNC machine sellers is particularly absurd. These cousins of 3D printers, which make 3D objects by removing materials, are often tens of thousands of dollars and used by commercial manufacturers. Automotive, aerospace, medical manufacturers, and many others industries will be subject to the in-person sales, surveillance risk, and all the other problems with these print-blocking algorithms introduce.

Industries will be subject to the in-person sales, surveillance risk, and all the other problems

Even limiting the focus to individual buyers—hobbyists and artists who use these machines at home—this restriction to face-to-face sales comes with its own issues. Beyond unnecessarily complicating the use of printers in the state, this barrier to access will hit rural New Yorkers the hardest. People in rural or remote locations can stand to benefit from the saved time and costs of printing useful parts at home. With this restriction, they will need to drive to one of the few retailers who actually sell this equipment and settle for the models they stock. 

That is, if sellers continue to stock these printers despite the risk. Subpart B §§ 2.3 and 2.5 open sellers up to liability, including anyone on the second-hand market, for selling out-of-date printers. Meanwhile, buyers hoping to illegally print firearms can simply build their own printer with widely available equipment.

The Law Won’t Work as Advertised 

Here’s what makes Subpart B of the New York budget particularly reckless: the technology it mandates is not capable of doing what it is supposed to. 

There is very little detail provided about requirements for the mandated algorithms. What the bill does outline boils down to this: the algorithms must evaluate print files to determine whether they would produce a firearm or illegal firearm parts, and if so, block the print. In an attempt to enable this, New York state would also create and maintain a library of forbidden files with tightly restricted access. 

We’ve already gone over why this idea simply won’t work. Design files are trivially easy to modify, split into segments, or otherwise alter to evade pattern detection. Even if printers fully rendered and analyzed the print with cloud-based AI, any number of design or post-print tricks can be used to dodge detection. Meanwhile, such fuzzy AI interpretation will rapidly increase the percentage of lawful prints censored. 

Firearms aren’t a highly specific design like paper currency; these proposed algorithms are futilely attempting to block an infinite number of designs capable of—or that can be made capable of—the few simple mechanical functions that make up a firearm. 

This group has no peer review requirements, so it could easily be loaded with profiteers or incumbent manufacturers

As we’ve said before: the internet always routes around censorship. Anyone determined to print a prohibited object has straightforward workarounds. The people who get surveilled and blocked are the people trying to follow the law.

The bill aims to enforce this impossible mandate by creating a working group to define the actual technical requirements of enforcement—but only after the law passes. This group has no peer review requirements, so it could easily be loaded with profiteers or incumbent manufacturers who are already lining up to participate. These incumbents stand to profit from shutting out new competitors and locking in users to their devices, and sellers into their platform, subjecting both to the type of enshittification seen with Digital Rights Management (DRM) software. There are also no safeguards in the law to prevent the most surveillance-heavy approaches to print scanning, or to stop this censorship infrastructure from being further weaponized against lawful speech.

On the other hand, unbiased experts in open-source manufacturing in the working group can at best pause the clock by showing such algorithms are unfeasible. That is, until a new snake oil company comes along to restart it. 

New York Won't Be the Last Stop 

New York is one of the largest consumer markets in the country. When it mandates a feature in hardware, manufacturers hardly ever build a New York-only version. They build the New York version and sell it globally. A print-blocking mandate adopted in New York will become the national standard in practice.

New Yorkers deserve more than this rush job buried in a budget bill. This is an unfeasible tech solution, built without the consumer protections that would be required of any serious policy proposal, and creates new costs and inconveniences amidst a protracted annual budget process. It also threatens First Amendment protections. This policy will take shape without consumer guardrails, behind closed doors, and risks the worst outcomes for grassroots innovation and creativity enabled by these machines. Worse still, these practices can become the norm across other states and among 3D-printer manufacturers worldwide. 

Your representatives could vote on this ill-conceived measure in the next week.  If you're a New Yorker, email your legislators now, and tell them to strip this measure from the budget today. 

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