Sachin Dhawan

Why did the U.S. Congress enact Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the landmark law t... more Why did the U.S. Congress enact Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, the landmark law that immunizes intermediaries from liability from most of the third party content they host? An explanation often cited in popular and scholarly discourse is that in 1996, Congress wanted to encourage a nascent Silicon Valley to grow and expand to its full potential without being burdened by onerous legal regulations. But this is only a partial explanation. Congress also wanted to counter the negative effects of two key court decisions issued in the early days of the internet. Cubby v CompuServe [1991] and Stratton Oakmont v Prodigy [1995] created perverse incentives for online intermediaries by encouraging them to ignore harmful and illegal content on their sites instead of removing it. Section 230 undid the damage of such perverse incentives by encouraging intermediaries to remove harmful and illegal content on their sites.

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Gandhian non-violence and the civil rights movement

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (King) was a path-breaker and a trailblazer in the arena of civil righ... more Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (King) was a path-breaker and a trailblazer in the arena of civil rights. When people think of the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) they associate King with the iconic flashpoints of the era: Montgomery, the March on Washington, Birmingham and Selma. Moreover, King is synonymous with the non-violent character of the CRM – indeed, many scholars have attributed the non-violent ethos of the movement to King’s incorporation of Gandhian ideals.