The Scammers and Smut that Sparked the Modern Internet
Question Everything
Brian Reed
4.6 • 707 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over the past few months, our host Brian Reed has been reporting on Section 230 – the law that shields online platforms and websites from lawsuits and has shaped the way we get information today.
Now, a bipartisan attack on Section 230 is taking hold in Congress. During a Senate hearing last week, Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island called Section 230 “a real vessel for evil that needs to come to an end.” He and a group of senators are hoping to move forward a Section 230 repeal bill in time for its 30th anniversary early next year.
In previous episodes, we’ve looked at how the law allows misinformation, scams, and deepfakes on today’s internet. Now, Brian goes back to the beginning: the mid-1990s when lawmakers created this law. And we see how a peculiar case in one New York courtroom ended up having massive consequences for the internet we know today.
Also: an expert on Section 230 has some beef with Brian’s reporting.
Question Everything is a production of KCRW and Placement Theory. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.
Guest:
- Jeff Kosseff, law professor and author of “The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet”
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I've got news. I know a bunch of you have been tracking this, but the other day, it happened. Section 230, the law that makes it so websites and online platforms aren't liable for most of what other people post on them. A law I've been arguing here that we should change. It finally got some airtime in Congress. And lawmakers, they really laid into it. |
| 0:21.9 | I strongly believe that Section 230 has long outlived its use. And it is now a real |
| 0:29.8 | vessel for evil that needs to come to an end. That's Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat. |
| 0:37.2 | He and other senators from both parties |
| 0:38.9 | declared at a hearing about children's online safety last week that they want to move a bill |
| 0:43.8 | forward to repeal Section 230. They even put a timeline on it. They want to bring it forward |
| 0:48.9 | in time for the 30th anniversary of Section 230's passage, which is this coming February. |
| 0:55.6 | We'll keep tracking developments, of course. It's good timing, because today on the show, we look at that 30-year |
| 1:01.3 | history of Section 230 to see how we got here. I've been trying to put myself back in the headspace of the early 90s to the early days of the internet. |
| 1:16.5 | Because if you're a regular listener here, you'll know I'm trying to figure out how we ended up here. |
| 1:21.7 | In a country where so many people don't trust each other anymore, where we can't agree on what's real or what's fake. |
| 1:28.4 | The internet didn't create all these problems, but it's become a major catalyst for them. |
| 1:33.1 | Lies travel faster than facts. |
| 1:35.3 | Outrage gets rewarded by powerful algorithms that train us with hits of dopamine. |
| 1:39.8 | Huge private corporations decide which voices get amplified and which ones get drowned out. |
| 1:45.6 | Nearly half of young people say they wish social media had never been invented. |
| 1:50.1 | So if you really want to understand why things feel so stuck and so out of control at once, |
| 1:56.6 | it's helpful to go back to the beginning, to the moment when the rules were set. |
| 2:01.1 | Check out this great clip I came across from the Today Show from 1994 when the ability to get on the internet from your home was brand spanking new. |
| 2:09.0 | It's Katie Couric and Bryant Gumble. |
| 2:10.9 | Gumble had just read his first email address on air. |
| 2:13.7 | That little mark with the A and then the ring around it. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Brian Reed, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Brian Reed and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.