Section 230, the twenty-six words that created the internet, has become the twenty-six words that are breaking the First Amendment. Section 230’s blanket liability shield for social media platforms is harming our children and our democracy. In this essay, I narrate the story of what Section 230 enabled—the rise of the virtual public square, a circumstance that the framers could never have imagined—and explore its consequences for human well-being and freedom of expression. I conclude that Section 230 must be repealed to unleash First Amendment jurisprudence to confront the threats to the republic in the age of generative AI, as well as to usher in the next round of internet innovation in service of constitutional democratic sustainability. Bipartisan legislation has been introduced to sunset Section 230 as of December 31, 2025. Those who believe in the enduring promise of American constitutional democracy should support its passage.

As a design innovation, the modern university is an institution that unites the advancement of knowledge through research with its dissemination through teaching. Its inception in Germany in the first decade of the nineteenth century inspired an American adaptation that merged the German version with the English undergraduate college to produce a new bundle that would be emulated the world over. The historical view reveals cycles of sustaining innovation in which academic entrepreneurs supplemented the research-teaching synthesis with institutions devoted to one task or the other. Despite these disruptive efforts and continuing evidence of inefficiency, however, the original institutional hybrid remains the dominant model. This essay argues that the university’s persistence is best understood as fulfilling a deeper need in American political culture.