Our guest, Eric Goldman, professor and Associate Dean for Research at Santa Clara University School of Law, was dubbed The Internet’s Last True Believer in a Santa Clara Magazine profile in 2023. Eric Goldman has spent three decades in internet law as a Cooley associate, a general counsel, and now a professor and Associate Dean at Santa Clara University School of Law. He is one of the leading authorities on Section 230, the 1996 law that says websites aren’t liable for their users’ content. He is also one of the last people still making the case for the open internet he fell in love with in the early 1990s. Mike and Hersh came to this conversation with strong views on age gating, platform liability and regulating social media. Eric took them apart, politely and with rigor. He explains what Section 230 really does, why he doesn’t buy the claim that platforms are “intentionally designed to cause harm,” and the five ways age authentication online is different from checking ID at a liquor store. He argues that regulators reach for the light switch (ban it or leave it) when they should be looking at the dimmer, and he warns that the real threat to generative AI is the government deciding what chatbots are allowed to say. It is also a conversation about how the General Magic generation’s faith in technology has aged. Eric talks about how his own view has changed: a clearer sense of why the rule of law matters, a lost presumption of good faith in tech companies, and a classroom in which half his Gen Z students would turn shut internet down if they could. Along the way: what he learned from the Trust & Safety community he helped build, why he bristles at the term “surveillance capitalism,” and the bumper sticker on his desk. In this episode * 01:10 – What is Section 230? Why Congress passed it in 1996, and how it let services host conversations without being liable for them * 03:05 – The printing-press analogy, and why publishing other people’s content was risky for centuries * 04:10 – The two choices without Section 230: a cesspool or publishers exit * 05:01 – Mike’s challenge: after 30 years, is it time to retire Section 230? Platforms, harm by design and the Meta trials * 06:23 – Eric pushes back: Section 230 isn’t what is holding back those lawsuits, and “product marketing” isn’t the same as designing to harm * 07:30 – The tobacco comparison, teenagers and body image, and Meta facing competing groups of users * 09:03 – Can a technology be neutral? Hersh’s “kinder, gentler gun,” and how to think about AI’s likely social effects * 10:18 – Eric’s scissors example, the limits of what technology makers can fix, and why the answer is “why not both?” * 12:54 – “Generative AI Is Doomed”: why the biggest threat is partisan control of what chatbots say * 15:53 – Mike asks about age gating: we restrict cars, voting and alcohol by age, so why not AI? * 16:21 – Eric’s five differences between online and offline age authentication: privacy, security, friction, cost and surveillance, plus the First Amendment * 21:07 – What’s on the other side of the scale? Teaching kids to cross the “digital street” (danah boyd’s analogy), and a detour into jaywalking laws * 24:01 – Can anyone test Section 230’s absence? What the rest of the world’s internet tells us * 26:14 – “Content Moderation Remedies”: think of a dimmer, not an on/off switch, and why governments reach for bans * 29:10 – Financial consequences inside platforms, and how demonetization works * 31:10 – Has Eric changed his mind? The rule of law, the end of presumed good faith in tech companies, and General Magic * 33:49 – His Gen Z students: half would switch off the internet, and many arrive anti-AI * 35:36 – How Eric actually uses generative AI, and Mike’s PowerPoint experiment * 37:22 – Hersh’s profanity rule and the bumper sticker on Eric’s desk * 38:31 – Why Eric doesn’t do much policy work anymore, and the Trust & Safety Professional Association * 39:44 – His nightmare outcome: governments using AI to lie, and the DOGE example * 40:44 – “Surveillance capitalism” or just capitalism? A closing disagreement, and a thank-you from an old Cooley colleague About Eric Goldman Eric Goldman is a professor and Associate Dean for Research at Santa Clara University School of Law, where he also co-directs the Datta Center for High Tech Law. His work focuses on internet law, intellectual property and advertising and marketing law. He earned a JD-MBA from UCLA in 1994 and got his first email account in 1991, which he calls the moment his “mind got blown.” He practiced at Cooley Godward, where he built an internet law practice during the dot-com boom, and was general counsel at Epinions before teaching at Marquette University Law School (from 2002) and joining Santa Clara in 2006. He is widely regarded as one of the leading authorities on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. He has testified before Congress and state legislatures, filed amicus briefs in Supreme Court cases including Gonzalez v. Googleand Twitter v. Taamneh, and helped create the Santa Clara Principles on content moderation. He also helped found the Trust & Safety Professional Association and the Trust & Safety Foundation in 2020. He writes about internet law several times a week at blog.ericgoldman.org and describes himself as a “cyber-libertarian,” a view he says has “gone virtually extinct.” Santa Clara Magazine profiled him in 2023 as “The Internet’s Last True Believer.” Resources & Links * Personal website: https://www.ericgoldman.org * Blog (internet law analysis, several posts a week): https://blog.ericgoldman.org * Eric on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/ericgoldman.bsky.social * Santa Clara Magazine profile, “The Internet’s Last True Believer” (2023): https://magazine.scu.edu/magazines/2023/spring-2023/the-internets-last-true-believer/ Papers and Law Discussed * “Generative AI Is Doomed” (SSRN): https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4802313 * “Generative AI Is Doomed” (published version, Marquette Intellectual Property & Innovation Law Review, 2025): https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1069&context=ipilr * “Content Moderation Remedies” (Michigan Technology Law Review, 2021): https://repository.law.umich.edu/mtlr/vol28/iss1/2/ * Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (47 U.S.C. § 230): https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230 * Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250391230/carelesspeople/ * danah boyd (the “cross the street” analogy): https://www.danah.org Eric’s work * Trust & Safety Professional Association (TSPA): https://www.tspa.org * Trust & Safety Foundation (TSF): https://www.tsf.foundation Keywords Eric Goldman, Section 230, Communications Decency Act, internet law, age verification, age gating, content moderation, platform liability, generative AI regulation, free speech, First Amendment, Trust and Safety, Santa Clara Law, cyber-libertarian, social media regulation, General Magic, Michael Stern This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit spellboundproductions.substack.com
