Outside Publication

Election Speech and Collateral Censorship at the Slightest Whiff of Legal Trouble, UCLA Law Review

63 UCLA L. REV. 1472

2016

Collateral censorship occurs when an intermediary refuses to carry a speaker’s message for fear of legal liability. Election speech intermediaries are prone to engage in collateral censorship because their interests do not align with the interests of election speakers, yet the common law places liability on intermediaries and speakers alike. But collateral censorship is not a problem unique to election speech. It would threaten the vibrancy of Internet speech had it not been for the Communications Decency Act immunizing Internet intermediaries from civil liability (except intellectual property law).

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