§ 129A.005.Certain Conduct Excepted

A one-line exclusion recognising a federal boundary: this chapter does not apply to a claim brought against an interactive computer service, as defined by 47 U.S.C. Section 230, for cyberbullying.

Section 230 provides that a provider or user of an interactive computer service is not treated as the publisher or speaker of information provided by another, which forecloses most state law claims seeking to hold a platform responsible for what its users post.

So the exclusion states a limit that would apply anyway. Saying it in the text spares litigants the argument and makes the chapter’s scope plain on its face.

The practical consequence is that the remedy runs against people, not platforms. A parent can obtain an order against the individual harassing their child, or that individual’s parent — and cannot obtain one requiring a social network to remove the material or close an account.

That is a real limit on a remedy aimed at online conduct, since the material stays up whatever the order says.

The same acknowledgement appears elsewhere in this part of the code — in the online impersonation chapter and the intimate visual material chapter — and the recent AI provisions extend the pattern by naming telecommunications services and licensed broadcasters alongside interactive computer services.

The definition is taken from the federal statute, so its scope moves with federal law and with the decisions construing it.