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The Supreme Court heard arguments today in the first case challenging critical protections for tech companies under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to be argued before the high court.
The case hinges on the bounds of Section 230’s liability protection. Under the statute, platforms are currently not held liable for any of the vast quantities of third party content that they channel to users. The petitioners, the family of a 23-year-old woman killed by ISIS, say that Google is partly responsible due to the presence of ISIS videos on YouTube.
The petitioners argument rests on the contention that certain types of content, such as YouTube videos in which the Google-owned platform has generated thumbnails to assist in their promotion, are not protected by the liability shield, as the platform has a hand in promoting the content. In two hours of oral arguments, the Supreme Court justices weighed the question.
Malcolm Stewart, the U.S. deputy solicitor general, also presented the Department of Justice’s opinion on the case, which is that Section 230 protections are not as narrow as those argued by the petitioners, but that there are situations in which a tech platform’s use of its algorithms could open it up to liability.
In questions to the petitioners’ attorney, Eric Schnapper, the Supreme Court justices explored the question of where to draw the line between third party content that is carried by platforms, and content that the platforms should be held liable for.
