26 words that created the Internet

Nothing like starting the day with a bit of legalese, but it could be important. Also: 7 other things worth a click.

I distribute this newsletter in two places:

• on a platform called Substack (hi guys!) that makes running a daily newsletter pretty easy from a technical standpoint, and

• on LinkedIn, as part of that platform's newsletter pilot program.

The two versions are sometimes similar, sometimes not. That's because the audiences are largely very different.

(There's not much overlap. That surprised me, but maybe it shouldn’t: who subscribes to a similar newsletter in two places?)

Anyway, both Substack and LinkedIn rely on a 26-word passage in a 24-year-old law to operate as they do, and to be able to give me a home. Here's the passage:

"No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider."

I know that sounds like legalese. It's part of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, so legalese is unsurprising.

In short, it serves to protect platforms from legal liability in case pe…