Gonzalez v. Google

HuffPost wrote:

The Supreme Court’s Big Internet Cases Are Scrambling The Partisan Divide

The fight for the future of the web could depend on this week's arguments over content moderation and a law known as Section 230.
*by Matt Shuham, Feb 19, 2023, 08:00 AM EST

As the Supreme Court prepares to hear two cases that could decide the future of the internet, the regular partisan divide doesn’t seem to apply.

Look no further than the 27 attorneys general — Republicans and Democrats from states large and small, including California, Texas, Rhode Island and Alaska — who together are urging the court to restrict the reach Section 230, or what some have called “the twenty-six words that created the internet.”


The ‘90s-era law protects websites from liability based on their users’ posts. For example, while an individual author can be sued for a libelous blog post, the platform on which the text appears can’t be.

Notably, lower courts have interpreted the law’s protections to also cover recommendation algorithms. In Gonzalez v. Google, which the Supreme Court will hear Tuesday, the petitioners — family members of an American who died in the 2015 Paris terror attacks — are challenging this reading, arguing that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm helped recruitment for the self-declared Islamic State and therefore shouldn’t be shielded from lawsuits. Twitter v. Taamneh, a similar case scheduled for arguments Wednesday, also concerns tech companies’ liability for terrorism.

The 27 attorneys general seek to limit Section 230′s protections. Social media sites, they wrote in an amicus brief, don’t just provide platforms for content; they “exploit” it to make money using sophisticated algorithms. When Americans are harmed by criminal content pushed by those algorithms, they should have the right to sue the platforms in state courts, the attorneys general argued.
- https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/pr/2022/pr22-50-amicus.pdf

That’s where the bipartisan agreement ends. For every supporter of restrictions on Section 230 — and for every proponent of an expansive interpretation on the other side of the debate — there seems to be a unique motivation.

In New York, for example, the office of Attorney General Letitia James (D) has said that websites should lose Section 230 protections if they don’t take steps to prevent users from encouraging or planning acts of violence.
- https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-and-attorney-general-james-release-report-role-online-platforms-buffalo#:~:text=Section%20230%20of%20the%20Communications,post%20and%20share%20unlawful%20content.

In Texas and Florida, after Republicans passed bills outlawing political discrimination by social media giants, they quickly faced tech industry lawsuits that cited Section 230 (and the First Amendment).

A similar suit was filed in California after the state passed a bipartisan bill setting rules for websites “likely to be accessed by children.” Attorney General Rob Bonta (D), in a press statement on the Section 230 brief, noted investigations he’d led into social media companies’ treatment of minors.

The Anti-Defamation League said Section 230 should not automatically shield platforms from liability if they amplify hate and extremism. A brief from the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative referenced the case of a massive impersonation scheme by a man’s ex-boyfriend on Grindr, in which the victim’s lawsuit against the dating app was stymied by Section 230. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation and other groups pointed out[/url] that the law has been used to protect websites from suits related to their hosting of child sexual abuse imagery.
- https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/249332/20221207124121442_Amicus Brief.pdf

Various civil liberties groups and think tanks backed the law as currently interpreted, including:

The American Civil Liberties Union
- https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/252703/20230125100930536_4264_001.pdf

Cato Institute
- https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/252723/20230119161544141_Gonzalez%20v.%20Google_Cato%20Brief.pdf

Reason Foundation
- https://reason.org/amicus-brief/amicus-brief-gonzalez-v-google/

Led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, various library groups and the nonprofit Internet Archive said Section 230 was an essential protection.

“Internet users’ free expression would be gravely harmed” if Section 230’s protections were stripped from web recommendations and other basic tools, the groups said, arguing that these were the digital equivalent of newspaper publishers’ choices on layouts, photographs and font sizes.
- https://www.eff.org/files/2023/01/19/21-1333_amicus_brief.pdf

Other groups, including the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Progressive Policy Institute, urged the court to let Congress amend the law if it wishes, rather than dramatically altering the interpretation in a decision. And some legal scholars have called for the law to be changed to account for “reasonable” efforts by websites to prevent illegal conduct. Multiple members of Congress have already drafted their own reforms.

- https://bipartisanpolicy.org/download/?file=/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/bsac-Bipartisan-Policy-Center.pdf
- https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/21/21-1333/252714/20230119160031791_PPI Amicus Brief ISO Respondent.pdf
- https://www.warner.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=55514DD4-7824-40A9-A482-64121A033266
- https://www.rubio.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2021/6/rubio-introduces-sec-230-legislation-to-crack-down-on-big-tech-algorithms-and-protect-free-speech

Section 230 has been changed before, by a piece of legislation known as FOSTA, or the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. Trump signed FOSTA into law in 2018, eliminating Section 230 protections for sites that facilitate prostitution and sex trafficking. Some sex workers criticized the move for spelling the death of safe online platforms for their work.

In Gonzalez v. Google, which the Supreme Court will hear Tuesday ( 21/02/23 ), the petitioners — family members of an American who died in the 2015 Paris terror attacks — are challenging this reading, arguing that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm helped recruitment for the self-declared Islamic State and therefore shouldn’t be shielded from lawsuits. Twitter v. Taamneh, a similar case scheduled for arguments Wednesday, also concerns tech companies’ liability for terrorism.

Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Chris Cox (R-Calif.) wrote their own brief for the Gonzalez case, coming out in support of Google and against a limited view of the law they authored. The explosion of the internet since Section 230’s passage was evidence in itself of the law’s usefulness, they wrote.

“The real-time transmission of user-generated content that Section 230 fosters has become a backbone of online activity, relied upon by innumerable Internet users and platforms alike,” the brief read. “Given the enormous volume of content created by Internet users today, Section 230’s protection is even more important now than when the statute was enacted.”
- https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/211333%20bsac%20Wyden%20and%20Cox.pdf

Read the full original article at: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/section-230-supreme-court-gonzalez-google-partisan-amicus-brief_n_63efbd79e4b022eb3e368382

Telecommunications Act of 1996: https://transition.fcc.gov/Reports/tcom1996.txt
Title 47 Section 230: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2020-title47/pdf/USCODE-2020-title47-chap5-subchapII-partI-sec230.pdf