June 1997:
In this landmark case, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of the ACLU. The anti-indecency provisions of the CDA are an unconstitutional violation of First Amendment rights. The ACLU argued that the censorship provisions criminalized expression protected by the Constitution because the terms “indecent” and “patently offensive” are overbroad and vague.
Importantly, the decision did not strike down Section 230 but upheld it as a constitutional exception to the rest of the CDA. In one of the first major Supreme Court cases related to internet censorship, the Supreme Court ruled explicitly in favor of upholding freedom of expression online.