Blumenthal v. Drudge

Issue: Whether AOL was immune under § 230 for hosting the Drudge Report when AOL paid Drudge $3,000 per month, had exclusive rights to distribute his column, and retained contractual authority to edit or remove content it found objectionable.

Matt Drudge, operating the Drudge Report gossip column out of his Los Angeles apartment, entered into a written licensing agreement with AOL in mid-1997. AOL paid Drudge a flat monthly royalty of $3,000 in exchange for exclusive rights to distribute the Drudge Report to all of AOL's members. The agreement permitted AOL to "remove content that AOL reasonably determines to violate AOL's then standard terms of service." On August 10, 1997, Drudge published a report falsely claiming that White House aide Sidney Blumenthal had a spousal abuse past that had been covered up. Drudge retracted the story within a day after Blumenthal denied it, but Blumenthal and his wife Jacqueline sued both Drudge and AOL for defamation. Judge Friedman granted AOL's motion for summary judgment. Despite AOL's financial relationship with Drudge and its retained right to edit or remove his content, the court held that § 230 barred the claims against AOL. The opinion expressed discomfort with the result, noting that AOL had gone beyond what any other provider had done in relation to a content creator, and that this was "a result Congress may not have intended." But the statutory text required it: AOL did not author or develop the offending content, and § 230(c)(1) immunized it as a publisher of third-party content.

Extended § 230 immunity to platforms that have ongoing commercial relationships with content creators, pay them for content, and retain contractual editing rights — as long as the platform does not actually author the content at issue. Blumenthal established that the immunity analysis turns on actual exercise of editorial control, not the platform's power or contractual right to do so. The opinion's candid acknowledgment that the result may not have been what Congress intended has made it a touchstone in debates over § 230 reform.