Imagine it is 1996. You log on to your desktop computer (which took several minutes to start up), listening to the rhythmic screech and hiss of the modem connecting you to the World Wide Web. You navigate to a clunky message board—like AOL or Prodigy—to discuss your favorite hobbies, from Beanie Babies to the newest mixtapes.
At the time, a little-known law called Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act had just been passed. The law—then just a 26-word document—created the modern internet. It was intended to protect “good Samaritans” who moderate websites from regulation, placing the responsibility for content on individual users rather than the host company.
Today, the law remains largely the same despite evolutionary leaps in internet technology and pushback from critics, now among them Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
In a conversation at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, titled “Where Can New Growth Come From?” Benioff railed against Section 230, saying the law prevents tech giants from being held accountable for the dangers AI and social media pose.
“Things like Section 230 in the United States need to be reshaped because these tech companies will not be held responsible for the damage that they are basically doing to our families,” Benioff said in the panel conversation, which also included Axa CEO Thomas Buberl, Alphabet president Ruth Porat, Emirati government official Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, and Bloomberg journalist Francine Lacqua.
As a growing number of children in the U.S. log on to AI and social media platforms, Benioff said, the legislation threatens the safety of kids and families. The billionaire asked, “What’s more important to us, growth or our kids? What’s more important to us, growth or our families? Or what’s more important, growth or the fundamental values of our society?”
Section 230 as a shield for tech firms
Tech companies have invoked Section 230 as a legal defense when dealing with issues of user harm, including in the 2019 case Force v. Facebook, where the court ruled the platform wasn’t liable for algorithms that connected members of Hamas after the terrorist organization used the platform to encourage murder in Israel. The law could shield tech companies from liability for harm AI platforms pose, including the production of deepfakes and AI-generated sexual abuse material.
Benioff has been a vocal critic of Section 230 since 2019 and has repeatedly called for the legislation to be abolished.
In recent years, Section 230 has come under increasing public scrutiny as both Democrats and Republicans have grown skeptical of the legislation. In 2019 the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump pursued a broad review of Section 230. In May 2020, President Trump signed an executive order limiting tech platforms’ immunity after Twitter added fact-checks to his tweets. And in 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Gonzalez v. Google, though decided it on other grounds, leaving Section 230 intact.
In an interview with Fortune in December 2025, Dartmouth business school professor Scott Anthony voiced concern over the “guardrails” that were—and weren’t—happening with AI. When cars were first invented, he pointed out, it took time for speed limits and driver’s licenses to follow. Now with AI, “we’ve got the technology, we’re figuring out the norms, but the idea of, ‘Hey, let’s just keep our hands off,’ I think it’s just really bad.”
The decision to exempt platforms from liability, Anthony added, “I just think that it’s not been good for the world. And I think we are, unfortunately, making the mistake again with AI.”
For Benioff, the fight to repeal Section 230 is more than a push to regulate tech companies, but a reallocation of priorities toward safety and away from unfettered growth. “In the era of this incredible growth, we’re drunk on the growth,” Benioff said. “Let’s make sure that we use this moment also to remember that we’re also about values as well.”
