Nine justices set out Tuesday to determine what the future of the internet would look like if the Supreme Court were to narrow the scope of a law that some believe created the age of modern social media.
After nearly three hours of arguments, it was clear that the justices had no earthly idea.
That hesitancy, coupled with the fact that the justices were wading for the first time into new territory, suggests the court, in the case at hand, is not likely to issue a sweeping decision with unknown ramifications in one of the most closely watched disputes of the term.
Tech companies big and small have been following the case, fearful that the justices could reshape how the sites recommend and moderate content going forward and render websites vulnerable to dozens of lawsuits, threatening their very existence.
The case before the justices was initially brought by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a US student who was killed in a Paris bistro in 2015 after ISIS terrorists opened fire. Now, her family seeks to hold YouTube, a subsidiary of Google, liable for her death because of the site’s alleged promotion – through algorithms – of terrorist videos.
The family sued under a federal law called the Antiterrorism Act of 1990 , which authorizes such lawsuits for injuries “by reason of an act of international terrorism.”
Lower courts dismissed the challenge, citing Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, the law that has been used for years to provide immunity for websites from what one justice on Tuesday called a “world of lawsuits” that stem from third party content. The Gonzalez family argues that Section 230 does not protect Google from liability when it comes to targeted recommendations.
Oral arguments drifted into a maze of issues, raising concerns about trending algorithms, thumbnail pop-ups, artificial…
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