US Supreme Court Considers Social Media Immunity in ISIS Video Lawsuit

The Supreme Court is set to rule Tues­day for the first time on the ques­tion of whether tech com­pa­nies are always immune from lia­bil­i­ty in law­suits stem­ming from prob­lem­at­ic con­tent post­ed by users.

Supreme Court holds part of respon­si­bil­i­ty for mur­der of Amer­i­can col­lege stu­dent Nohe­mi González in 2015 Paris attacks led by ter­ror­ist group Islam­ic State by endors­ing videos pro­mot­ing vio­lent Islamist ideas I plan to hold oral argu­ment for a tri­al claim­ing that I will

The ques­tion is whether there are lim­its to lia­bil­i­ty pro­tec­tions for Inter­net com­pa­nies enact­ed by Con­gress in 1996 as part of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Decen­cy Act. Despite the Inter­net’s explo­sive growth in pow­er and influ­ence, the Supreme Court has nev­er addressed the issue.

The law­suit, which tech com­pa­nies have warned is about whether Sec­tion 230 applies to sit­u­a­tions where plat­forms active­ly rec­om­mend con­tent to users via algo­rithms, could upend the way the inter­net works today. have a nature.

This nov­el legal issue led to an unusu­al ide­o­log­i­cal alliance between the Biden admin­is­tra­tion and some promi­nent Repub­li­can law­mak­ers, includ­ing Sen­a­tors Ted Cruz and Josh Haw­ley of Texas. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Haw­ley of Mis­souri have filed briefs sup­port­ing at least some of the Gon­za­lez fam­i­ly’s legal claims.

The pos­si­bil­i­ty of amend­ing Sec­tion 230 is one area where Pres­i­dent Joe Biden and some of his most staunch crit­ics agree, but dis­agree about why and how.

In gen­er­al, con­ser­v­a­tives argue that com­pa­nies inap­pro­pri­ate­ly cen­sor con­tent, while lib­er­als argue that social media com­pa­nies spread dan­ger­ous right-wing rhetoric and aren’t doing enough to stop it. do. The Supreme Court, which has a 6‑to‑3 con­ser­v­a­tive major­i­ty, is unclear how it will approach the issue.

Gon­za­lez, 23, was study­ing in France and was killed while eat­ing at a restau­rant dur­ing a series of ter­ror­ist attacks by ISIS.

Her fam­i­ly alleges that Google-owned YouTube helped spread ISIS’ mes­sages. The law­suit focus­es on YouTube’s use of algo­rithms to sug­gest videos based on what users have viewed in the past. Attor­neys for her fam­i­ly argue that YouTube’s active role goes beyond the types of con­duct Con­gress intend­ed to pro­tect under Sec­tion 230.

The fam­i­ly filed a law­suit in North­ern Cal­i­for­nia fed­er­al court in 2016, claim­ing YouTube vio­lat­ed an “anti-ter­ror­ism law” that allows it to sue any per­son or enti­ty that “aids” ter­ror­ist acts, she hopes. ing.

A fed­er­al judge dis­missed the action on § 230 grounds. The rul­ing was upheld in June 2021 by the Ninth Cir­cuit Court of Appeals in San Fran­cis­co, set­tling sim­i­lar law­suits filed against tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies by fam­i­lies of oth­er ter­ror­ist attack victims.

Rec­om­men­da­tions are now com­mon­place across online ser­vices, not just YouTube, so the final Supreme Court rul­ing could have far-reach­ing impli­ca­tions. Instead of focus­ing on chrono­log­i­cal feeds, plat­forms like Insta­gram, Tik­Tok, Face­book and Twit­ter long ago turned to rec­om­men­da­tion engines and algo­rithms to deter­mine what peo­ple watch the most.

Tues­day’s hear­ing is the first of two ses­sions on social media com­pa­nies before the Supreme Court. On Wednes­day, the Supreme Court will hear relat­ed appeals over whether Twit­ter can be held liable under anti-ter­ror­ism laws.

The same court of appeals that heard the Gon­za­les case revived a claim brought by rel­a­tives of Jor­dan­ian nation­al Naulas Arasaf, who died in a ter­ror­ist attack in Istan­bul in 2017. The fam­i­ly has accused Twit­ter, Google and Face­book of aid­ing the spread of rad­i­cal Islamist ide­ol­o­gy, an alle­ga­tion they deny. The case did not yet address the issue of sec­tion 230 immunity.

The Supreme Court has so far refused to hear cas­es involv­ing Sec­tion 230. Con­ser­v­a­tive Judge Clarence Thomas has crit­i­cized the tech giants for their mar­ket pow­er and influence.