Collateral censorship

Collateral censorship is a type of censorship where the fear of legal liability is used to incentivize a private party who is acting as an intermediary to censor the speech of another private party.^[1][2][3] Examples of intermediaries include publishers, journalists, and online service providers.^[3] Regardless of the merits of the speech in question, holding intermediaries liable may induce them to censor a large amount of additional speech in an attempt to avoid liability.^[4] Also, an intermediary is likely to be more willing to censor than the original speaker would be, since it is not as invested in promoting the speech in question.^[3][5]

Collateral censorship is a justification for laws which limit the liability of intermediaries, in order to avoid the suppression of lawful speech.^[5] According to Christina Mulligan of Brooklyn Law School, "Unless intermediaries are granted near-complete immunity, the government will be able to censor authors collaterally by threatening to punish intermediaries for authors’ speech, forcing intermediaries to restrain what the government cannot directly."^[3] It has been suggested that online intermediaries are particularly vulnerable to chilling effects from collateral censorship.^[1]