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posted by cmn32480 on Thursday March 15 2018, @10:28AM   Printer-friendly
from the weeding-out-the-bad-players dept.

Cannabis website to California: Section 230 protects us from your demands

A popular cannabis community website, Weedmaps, which features ads and other listings related to marijuana businesses across the Golden State, has invoked a federal law as a way to stave off the ire of California's cannabis authorities.

Last month, the Bureau of Cannabis Control (BCC), the state entity that oversees California's newly legal recreational marijuana market, sent a letter to Weedmaps last month, saying that because the website allows ads for companies that are not officially licensed by the state, it is in violation of state law. (The spat was first reported by The Sacramento Bee.)

On Monday, Weedmaps executives responded with their own letter, saying that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a federal law that removes liability of a website for the actions of its users, acts as its shield. Digital rights groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation have argued that Section 230 is what protects the Web as a whole—publishers don't have to worry about being sued if one of their users is accused of violating the law.

A revision of the law is currently being proposed with the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act, which, according to the EFF, would "punch a hole" in Section 230. The new bill is aimed squarely at Backpage, a notorious website that continues to allow prostitution advertisements.

Related: Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act - 20 Years of Protecting Intermediaries


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  • (Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday March 15 2018, @05:18PM

    by wisnoskij (5149) <{jonathonwisnoski} {at} {gmail.com}> on Thursday March 15 2018, @05:18PM (#653007)

    Not only are advertising firms that you are in partnership with clearly not users by any stretch of the imagination. But there is like a 95% change that Trump will not stand for this flagrant abuse of the law much longer. These business men will be in jail and all their assets seized before any licencing dispute could be settled anyway.

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