Immunity under § 230 extends only to "information provided by another information content provider." 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1). "Information content provider," in turn, is defined as "any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service." Id. § 230(f)(3). Accordingly, users or providers of interactive computer services remain liable for their own speech, including speech that they are "responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of." The question here is thus whether the defendants are so responsible. The article at issue, authored by Beadon and entitled "Funniest/Most Insightful Comments of the Week at Techdirt," includes re-postings of comments posted by Techdirt's readers. (Compl. Ex. S). The article includes hyperlinks to the original comments, which were all posted in the "Reader Comments" section of previous Techdirt posts, and also includes intermittent introductory and editorial comments written by Beadon. All of the allegedly defamatory comments identified in the complaint are contained within the re-posted user comments. (See Compl. Ex. S at 1–2). Whether defendants are immune under the CDA thus depends upon whether re-posting comments originally created by third-party users amounts to the "creation or development of information." The leading
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