Exposure to lawsuits would prompt social media to crack down on a wider swath of content, websites such as Wikipedia would no longer rely on everyone’s input, and small businesses could face retribution for reviews and comments that visitors post on their websites.

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales so fears how eliminating the protection could undo his website that he is pleading with anyone who will listen to save the protection, commonly referred to as Section 230, and his website by extension…

“Seeing some takes along the lines of: ‘fine, repeal Section 230 and see what happens, and if it’s really bad, Congress can fix it later.’ I don’t think that is really possible, because platforms will need to revamp their operations pretty quickly to adjust to the new legal rules,” Mr. Kosseff tweeted.

Mr. Kosseff, author of a history of Section 230 titled, “The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet,” tweeted that regardless of the intent of those aiming to scrap the legal liability, the platforms’ reactions would restrict more controversial user content.