Communications Decency Act

The Communications Decency Act (CDA) was Title V of the United States' Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was introduced to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation by senators James Exon (D-NE) and Slade Gorton (R-WA) in 1995 in response to fears that Internet pornography was on the rise. Indecency in (ground wave) TV and radio broadcasting had already been regulated by the Federal Communications Commission - broadcasting of offensive speech was restricted to certain hours of the day, when minors were supposedly least likely to be exposed. Violators (broadcasters) could be fined and potentially lose their licenses. The Internet, however, had only recently been opened to commercial interests by the 1992 amendment to the National Science Foundation Act and thus was not considered by many previous laws. The CDA, which affected the Internet and cable television, marked the first attempt to expand regulation to this new sphere.

See also

• OCILLA portion of the DMCA, which protects online service providers from liability to their customers if they take down material at the request of a copyright holder, and in other situations.