Why can't morbidly rich tech CEOs be sued or arrested?

Yesterday families whose children died as a result of interactions with social media companies

confronted the industry's top CEOs.

The most dramatic moments were when Senator Lindsey Graham told billionaire Mark Zuckerberg

that he had blood on his hands and when Senator Josh Hawley demanded Zuck apologize

to the grieving parents in the room,

which he did, sorta.

But behind all that drama, which the TV networks loved,

it was a huge issue that the networks largely ignored

because they benefit from it too.

It has to do with something called Section 230.

The Republican case against regulation of businesses always boil down to arguing

that when people are harmed by a company's

behavior they can sue for big bucks. If a car company knowingly markets a

defective car they can be sued by people who sustained injury. If your hospital kills a family member because they

didn't sterilize things properly, they can be sued. If your local restaurant

makes you violently ill from food poisoning, you can sue them. But the five

fabulously wealthy CEOs who were grilled by

members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday occupy a unique space in

American law. They can't be sued, can't be arrested, and can't be held accountable for anything happening on their

platforms, even if they knew all about it and failed or refused to stop it.

Nor can their companies or any of their employees or shareholders.

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