The Supreme Court will hear arguments this week in a pair of cases about the legal liability of tech platforms like Google and Twitter for content posted by terrorists.
. Proponents of Section 230 argue it has helped spawn innovations like social media platforms by not holding them liable for content posted by users, while critics argue it goes too far in shielding those platforms when users post harmful content or the companies censor or suppress certain viewpoints.
The lawsuit claims that Google, which is the parent company of YouTube, helped ISIS’s recruitment efforts by allowing the terror group’s members to post videos on YouTube aimed at inciting violence and by the company recommending extremist videos to some of the platform’s viewers using its algorithms that consider viewers’ interests.When the case reached the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a panel of judges held that Section 230 protects platforms’ algorithmic recommendations.
Google and YouTube counter that while they condemn terrorism and have taken steps to increase their capacity to remove materials posted by terror groups, the lawsuit should be dismissed because Section 230 protects their actions as a publisher.The Twitter logo is displayed on a smartphone screen.This case was brought by the American family of Nawras Alassaf, a citizen of Jordan who was killed in January 2017 in a terror attack by ISIS that targeted a club in Istanbul, Turkey.
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