FOSTA/SESTA

FOSTA-SESTA is the combined name for two 2018 U.S. laws: the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) from the House and the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA) from the Senate. Signed into law on April 11, 2018, the legislation amended Section 230 to create a carve-out clarifying that the law's immunity does not bar federal or state prosecutions or civil actions targeting conduct that violates federal sex-trafficking statutes. Its stated goal was to make it easier to hold websites accountable when they knowingly facilitate sex trafficking.

For Reddit and other platforms, FOSTA-SESTA narrowed the protections of Section 230 and increased the perceived legal risk of hosting certain content. In the law's aftermath, many platforms responded with broad, pre-emptive moderation; Reddit banned several subreddits related to sex work shortly after the law passed. Critics, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argued the law was vague, applied retroactively, chilled lawful speech, and harmed the safety of consensual sex workers by removing online tools they relied on, while doing little to curb trafficking. FOSTA-SESTA remains a central case study in the trade-offs of amending platform-liability law.