Penn High School junior receives Honorable Mention in C-SPAN's National StudentCam documentary competition

MISHAWAKA, Ind. -- Penn High School junior CJ Vantine was recognized Thursday morning for receiving an Honorable Mention in C-SPAN's 2025 National StudentCam documentary competition.

Vantine was one of two winners from Indiana.

Vantine's short film, "Reforming Section 230: Modifying the Moderation," was selected out of over 3,500 entries from students across the nation.

The competition's theme was “Your Message to the President: What issue is most important to you or your community?”

Her documentary explored Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act, the federal law that protects internet platforms from liability for user-posted content.

"My documentary is about Section 230 which is part of internet law. It's saying that social media companies are not liable for user posted content that was put in place in 1996, I believe sometime in the 90s, when the internet first got big. And it's come a long way. Since then, social media has grown a lot. Everything has changed with it, essentially, and since then, there's been a lot of people questioning that law, and that's what I wanted to explore in this topic," said Vantine.

A C-SPAN presented a certificate to Vantine after the class viewed the documentary in their Penn News Network class.

She was also given a prize of $250 which she said she'd put towards new media equipment for the school's media department.

You can view Vantine's documentary below.