The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet

Kosseff has a thorough grasp of his material, and readers will find his exploration of Section 230 balanced, timely, and consistently thought-provoking.

Publishers Weekly

Kosseff's book is timely, given the intensifying debate about whether Congress should find ways to hold Internet companies accountable for third-party speech that harms individuals and society as a whole. But the book's value goes beyond timing. The author's background as a journalist and his current roles as a professor and a lawyer enable him to produce an engaging narrative that explains the law clearly and compels us to think about speech in the modern age and who is responsible when it is harmful.

The Washington Post

Americans are of two minds about the internet: They rely on it and fear it, they immerse themselves in it for hours and deplore its social consequences. Jeff Kosseff's The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet is in many ways the story of how and why this happened.

The Wall Street Journal

Kosseff presents an insider's account of the current dispute over whether a website should be permitted to profit from publishing advertisements that sell illegal sexual services possibly performed by minors. This book is extremely timely as both US lawmakers and the nation's courts are struggling over the proper regulation of online hate speech, fake news, political bias, and other systematic manipulations employing this increasingly powerful form of communication.

Choice

An important history of one component of the rise of the Internet as a business. Kosseff translates legalspeak into understandable and frequently compelling prose.

American Historical Review