{"id":161714,"date":"2026-08-28T14:06:05","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T22:06:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/28\/oracle-helped-kneecap-section-230-then-bought-15-of-a-company-that-needs-it\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T14:06:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T22:06:05","slug":"oracle-helped-kneecap-section-230-then-bought-15-of-a-company-that-needs-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2026\/08\/28\/oracle-helped-kneecap-section-230-then-bought-15-of-a-company-that-needs-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Oracle Helped Kneecap Section 230, Then Bought 15% Of A Company That Needs It."},"content":{"rendered":"

Six years ago, when Trump\u00a0first tried<\/a>\u00a0to force ByteDance to sell TikTok\u2019s US operations to his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison at Oracle, we wondered if this would finally get Oracle to\u00a0change its tune on Section 230<\/a>. While not as widely known outside of Silicon Valley, Oracle has been\u00a0a driving force<\/a>\u00a0behind the scenes to get Congress to kill Section 230, appearing to do so\u00a0almost entirely out of spite<\/a>\u00a0directed at Google.<\/p>\n

It never made much sense. For most of that time, Oracle was busy trying to build itself into a leading cloud service provider \u2014 and cloud services rely on the exact same Section 230 protections Oracle was paying people to attack. But it\u2019s not like Oracle is known for being particularly successful in its ability to\u00a0think things out long term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s first attempt to hand TikTok to Oracle\u00a0flopped<\/a>, the second attempt (helped along by Democrats\u00a0succumbing to a bogus moral panic<\/a>\u00a0about TikTok\u2019s alleged dangers) resulted in\u00a0Oracle ending up with a 15% stake<\/a>\u00a0in TikTok (as well as a lucrative hosting deal). In fact, Oracle\u2019s long-term top lobbying exec, Ken Glueck (who was the architect of Oracle\u2019s funding of a bunch of dark money groups that attacked Section 230) actually\u00a0ended up with a seat on TikTok\u2019s board<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And TikTok is already suffering from the attacks on Section 230. Remember, the\u00a0wacky Anderson v. TikTok<\/a>\u00a0ruling that bizarrely said TikTok didn\u2019t qualify for Section 230? That kind of ruling doesn\u2019t happen without the widespread drumbeat of \u201cSection 230 has gone too far\u201d that Oracle spent years helping to push. TikTok is in a way worse position legally because of Ken Glueck\u2019s advocacy. And now he\u2019s on their board.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Oracle, while not in the top tier of cloud providers \u2014 AWS, Microsoft, and Google together account for around 63% of enterprise cloud spending \u2014 is solidly\u00a0at the top of the second tier<\/a>. And while there aren\u2019t that many Section 230 cases targeting the underlying cloud hosting providers, they\u2019re\u00a0not totally unheard of<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, Section 230 protects both Oracle, and its large investment in TikTok. Yet Oracle spent years funding attacks on Section 230 (mainly just to piss off Google) and the main architect of that strategy is now on TikTok\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

Which puts us right back where we were six years ago, wondering if Oracle will ever change its tune. The company\u2019s disclosures offer a partial answer. Section 230 is still under attack in DC, but the courts have been\u00a0dismantling the law<\/a>\u00a0via judicial decisions that it\u2019s not even clear what\u2019s left for Congress to do. Looking at Oracle\u2019s \u201cPolitical Activity Reports\u201d we see that while\u00a0back in 2019<\/a>\u00a0it was funding anti-tech groups which promoted attacks on Section 230 (like the Internet Accountability Project, the Free and Fair Markets Initiative, and the Copyright Alliance),\u00a0these days<\/a>\u00a0it only funds the Copyright Alliance whose remit is larger than just attacking tech (though it still does that too).<\/p>\n

Indeed, the IAP and FFMI, who were these huge fake grassroots non-profits designed to hold Google and Amazon to account, barely seem to exist any more. FFMI\u2019s website stopped updating in 2023 and IAP\u2019s in 2024. It\u2019s almost as if they were astroturfed operations that suddenly became unnecessary once Ellison could get what he wanted directly,\u00a0having spent $45 million to work his way deeper into Trump\u2019s circle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It looks like a large segment of the \u201cgrassroots\u201d movement against Section 230 was conjured into existence with Oracle\u2019s quiet backing, and seems to have evaporated once Oracle no longer needed it to exist.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s also the separate issue of the ongoing attempt by Ellison to also\u00a0buy up half of Hollywood<\/a>. Hollywood itself has probably been the\u00a0second biggest force<\/a>, behind Oracle, in the anti-Section 230 lobbying effort over the past decade. Ellison already owns Paramount, and may still end up with Warner Bros., as well, which might pull Oracle\u2019s efforts back towards hating the open internet rather than defending the thing its own business runs on.<\/p>\n

The simple fact, though, is that if you want a dynamic, competitive open internet,\u00a0you need a strong Section 230<\/a>. Gutting it won\u2019t hurt the internet giants. They have buildings full of lawyers and can survive the onslaught of misguided lawsuits (most of which they\u2019ll end up winning in the end). However, it will hurt all the small sites, the forums, the upstarts, the blogs that can\u2019t afford to find out whether a case would get dismissed after a couple years and a million dollars of discovery. Who knows\u2026 perhaps that\u2019s Ellison\u2019s strategy all along: make the open internet weaker, so the companies he controls have way more power.<\/p>\n

The next time Section 230 lands on the chopping block \u2014 and it will \u2014 Oracle (and, for that matter, TikTok) will have to pick a side. The smart move would be to defend it. But, then again, the smart move all along would have been for Oracle to defend it, and it chose the opposite for many years. The real question is whether Oracle\u2019s years-long campaign against Section 230 comes back to bite it: devaluing the TikTok stake it worked so hard to get, and eating away at the legal protections its entire cloud business sits on top of.<\/p>\n

Oracle Helped Kneecap Section 230, Then Bought 15% Of A Company That Needs It.<\/a><\/p>\n

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Flock Claims It\u2019s The First Company To Expose Police Misuse Of Surveillance Tech<\/a>
School Asks Cops To Stop Using Stun Gloves On Its Students<\/a>
LA Mayor Karen Bass The Latest Democrat To Wimp Out On Paramount Merger<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The post Oracle Helped Kneecap Section 230, Then Bought 15% Of A Company That Needs It.<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Six years ago, when Trump\u00a0first tried<\/a>\u00a0to force ByteDance to sell TikTok\u2019s US operations to his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison at Oracle, we wondered if this would finally get Oracle to\u00a0change its tune on Section 230<\/a>. While not as widely known outside of Silicon Valley, Oracle has been\u00a0a driving force<\/a>\u00a0behind the scenes to get Congress to kill Section 230, appearing to do so\u00a0almost entirely out of spite<\/a>\u00a0directed at Google.<\/p>\n

It never made much sense. For most of that time, Oracle was busy trying to build itself into a leading cloud service provider \u2014 and cloud services rely on the exact same Section 230 protections Oracle was paying people to attack. But it\u2019s not like Oracle is known for being particularly successful in its ability to\u00a0think things out long term<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s first attempt to hand TikTok to Oracle\u00a0flopped<\/a>, the second attempt (helped along by Democrats\u00a0succumbing to a bogus moral panic<\/a>\u00a0about TikTok\u2019s alleged dangers) resulted in\u00a0Oracle ending up with a 15% stake<\/a>\u00a0in TikTok (as well as a lucrative hosting deal). In fact, Oracle\u2019s long-term top lobbying exec, Ken Glueck (who was the architect of Oracle\u2019s funding of a bunch of dark money groups that attacked Section 230) actually\u00a0ended up with a seat on TikTok\u2019s board<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And TikTok is already suffering from the attacks on Section 230. Remember, the\u00a0wacky Anderson v. TikTok<\/a>\u00a0ruling that bizarrely said TikTok didn\u2019t qualify for Section 230? That kind of ruling doesn\u2019t happen without the widespread drumbeat of \u201cSection 230 has gone too far\u201d that Oracle spent years helping to push. TikTok is in a way worse position legally because of Ken Glueck\u2019s advocacy. And now he\u2019s on their board.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Oracle, while not in the top tier of cloud providers \u2014 AWS, Microsoft, and Google together account for around 63% of enterprise cloud spending \u2014 is solidly\u00a0at the top of the second tier<\/a>. And while there aren\u2019t that many Section 230 cases targeting the underlying cloud hosting providers, they\u2019re\u00a0not totally unheard of<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, Section 230 protects both Oracle, and its large investment in TikTok. Yet Oracle spent years funding attacks on Section 230 (mainly just to piss off Google) and the main architect of that strategy is now on TikTok\u2019s board.<\/p>\n

Which puts us right back where we were six years ago, wondering if Oracle will ever change its tune. The company\u2019s disclosures offer a partial answer. Section 230 is still under attack in DC, but the courts have been\u00a0dismantling the law<\/a>\u00a0via judicial decisions that it\u2019s not even clear what\u2019s left for Congress to do. Looking at Oracle\u2019s \u201cPolitical Activity Reports\u201d we see that while\u00a0back in 2019<\/a>\u00a0it was funding anti-tech groups which promoted attacks on Section 230 (like the Internet Accountability Project, the Free and Fair Markets Initiative, and the Copyright Alliance),\u00a0these days<\/a>\u00a0it only funds the Copyright Alliance whose remit is larger than just attacking tech (though it still does that too).<\/p>\n

Indeed, the IAP and FFMI, who were these huge fake grassroots non-profits designed to hold Google and Amazon to account, barely seem to exist any more. FFMI\u2019s website stopped updating in 2023 and IAP\u2019s in 2024. It\u2019s almost as if they were astroturfed operations that suddenly became unnecessary once Ellison could get what he wanted directly,\u00a0having spent $45 million to work his way deeper into Trump\u2019s circle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It looks like a large segment of the \u201cgrassroots\u201d movement against Section 230 was conjured into existence with Oracle\u2019s quiet backing, and seems to have evaporated once Oracle no longer needed it to exist.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s also the separate issue of the ongoing attempt by Ellison to also\u00a0buy up half of Hollywood<\/a>. Hollywood itself has probably been the\u00a0second biggest force<\/a>, behind Oracle, in the anti-Section 230 lobbying effort over the past decade. Ellison already owns Paramount, and may still end up with Warner Bros., as well, which might pull Oracle\u2019s efforts back towards hating the open internet rather than defending the thing its own business runs on.<\/p>\n

The simple fact, though, is that if you want a dynamic, competitive open internet,\u00a0you need a strong Section 230<\/a>. Gutting it won\u2019t hurt the internet giants. They have buildings full of lawyers and can survive the onslaught of misguided lawsuits (most of which they\u2019ll end up winning in the end). However, it will hurt all the small sites, the forums, the upstarts, the blogs that can\u2019t afford to find out whether a case would get dismissed after a couple years and a million dollars of discovery. Who knows\u2026 perhaps that\u2019s Ellison\u2019s strategy all along: make the open internet weaker, so the companies he controls have way more power.<\/p>\n

The next time Section 230 lands on the chopping block \u2014 and it will \u2014 Oracle (and, for that matter, TikTok) will have to pick a side. The smart move would be to defend it. But, then again, the smart move all along would have been for Oracle to defend it, and it chose the opposite for many years. The real question is whether Oracle\u2019s years-long campaign against Section 230 comes back to bite it: devaluing the TikTok stake it worked so hard to get, and eating away at the legal protections its entire cloud business sits on top of.<\/p>\n

Oracle Helped Kneecap Section 230, Then Bought 15% Of A Company That Needs It.<\/a><\/p>\n

More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt<\/strong>:<\/p>\n

Flock Claims It\u2019s The First Company To Expose Police Misuse Of Surveillance Tech<\/a>
School Asks Cops To Stop Using Stun Gloves On Its Students<\/a>
LA Mayor Karen Bass The Latest Democrat To Wimp Out On Paramount Merger<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

The post Oracle Helped Kneecap Section 230, Then Bought 15% Of A Company That Needs It.<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six years ago, when Trump\u00a0first tried\u00a0to force ByteDance to sell TikTok\u2019s US operations to his billionaire buddy Larry Ellison at Oracle, we wondered if this would finally get Oracle to\u00a0change its tune on Section 230. While not as widely known outside of Silicon Valley, Oracle has been\u00a0a driving force\u00a0behind the scenes to get Congress to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}