June 26, Jared Schroeder, associate professor of journalism at SMU Dallas and a specialist in Frist Amendment issues and co-author Jeff Kosseff, for an op-ed underscoring the impact 25 years ago when a Supreme Court ruling, Reno vs. ACLU, helped shape the Internet as we now know it. Published in Slate under the heading Happy 25th Anniversary to the Supreme Court Decision That Shaped the Internet We Have Today: https://bit.ly/3bzLiyb
Twenty-five years ago, the Supreme Court told the government to keep its hands off the internet. Today, the internet is vastly different—and far more central to everyday life—than it was on June 26, 1997, but the court’s reasoning in Reno v. ACLU is more important than ever.
At the heart of the case was a massive overhaul of U.S. telecommunications laws that President Bill Clinton signed on Feb. 8, 1996. While much of the law involved local telephone competition, broadcast ownership, and cable television, one section—the Communications Decency Act—tried to prevent minors from accessing obscene and indecent material on the nascent internet.