Section 230

Section 230 of the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 230, says that an interactive computer service is generally not treated as the publisher or speaker of information another information content provider posted. Platforms use that sentence when they are sued over a user's review, a forum post, or a video. The statute also says platforms may remove objectionable material without, by that removal alone, becoming the publisher of everything else. There are exceptions, including federal criminal law, intellectual property, and certain sex-trafficking claims. Those exceptions are in the statute. They are not a blank check, and they are not a total shield.

AI chats raise a different question. If a person posts the words, Section 230's usual story is familiar. If the model drafts the reply, some people argue the company provided the information itself. Others argue the user's prompt is still the source. As of September 26, 2026, this page does not cite a Supreme Court decision that settles that split for chatbot output. Treating any one trial order as the national rule would overstate it.

Parents and policymakers sometimes hear that platforms can never be sued, or that they can always be sued, because of Section 230. Both lines skip the statute. The shield is about information provided by another person, with listed exceptions. A product can still have duties under other laws, including privacy rules and state chatbot statutes, and those other laws have their own preemption fights.

For a family, the practical question is still what the product does: who can read the chat, what happens in distress, and what the tool is for. Section 230 does not answer those product questions.

These state laws are not copies of each other. A duty in Georgia may be missing in Tennessee, and a date in one state is not a date in the next. Whether Congress will override some of them is a live debate, described on the federal AI preemption page. Until a federal statute actually does that, read the state text that applies to you.

Section 230 largely shields platforms for someone else's posts, and courts have not settled how it applies to AI-written replies. HeyOtto does not treat that debate as a product feature. A parent creates the account and can read the chats. Topic limits and crisis resources in the chat are available now.

• Parents can read chats in the parent dashboard.
• Distress produces an alert and crisis resources, not an automatic call to emergency services.
• HeyOtto does not claim this statute is already satisfied.