Internet immunity doctrine is broken. Under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, online entities are absolutely immune from lawsuits related to content authored by third parties. The law has been essential to the internet's development over the last twenty years, but it has not kept pace with the times and is now deeply flawed. Democrats demand accountability for online misinformation. Republicans decry politically motivated censorship. And Congress, President Biden, the Department of Justice, and the Federal Communications Commission all have their own plans for reform. Absent from the fray, however -- until now -- has been the Supreme Court, which has never issued a decision interpreting Section 230. That appears poised to change, however, following Justice Thomas's statement in Malwarebytes v. Enigma in which he urges the Court to prune back decades of lower-court precedent to craft a more limited immunity doctrine. This Essay discusses how courts' zealous enforcement of the early internet's free-information ethos gave birth to an expansive immunity doctrine, warns of potential pitfalls to reform, and explores what a narrower, text-focused doctrine might mean for the tech industry.

翻译：网络豁免法理已濒临失效。根据1996年《通信规范法》第230条，网络实体对第三方创作的内容享有绝对诉讼豁免权。该法在过去二十年间对互联网发展至关重要，但已严重滞后于时代，暴露出深层缺陷。民主党要求对网络虚假信息追责，共和党谴责出于政治动机的审查制度。国会、拜登总统、司法部和联邦通信委员会均各自提出改革方案。但在此前争论中——直至今日——始终缺席的联邦最高法院从未就第230条作出过司法解释。然而，随着托马斯大法官在Malwarebytes诉Enigma案中发表意见，呼吁最高法院推翻数十年基层法院判例以构建更有限度的豁免法理，这一局面或将改变。本文探讨了早期互联网自由信息理念如何催生出过度扩张的豁免法理体系，警示改革潜在陷阱，并剖析以文本为导向的限缩性法理对科技产业的可能影响。