On May 18, the Supreme Court issued a much-anticipated decision in Gonzalez v. Google LLC,1 the first case in which the Supreme Court has considered the contours of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 47 U.S.C. ' 230, known as the "twenty-six words that created the internet."2 The Court declined to address Section 230's applicability to YouTube's recommendation algorithm, leaving the current Section 230 protections of algorithmically generated recommendations'as decided by lower courts'in place.
Section 230 provides internet platforms immunity from claims that "treat them as the publisher or speaker of" third-party content.3 This broad protection allows social media and other platforms to function and make content moderation-related decisions without the threat of liability relating to the user-generated content. However, critics have alleged that it removes accountability from platforms, and lawsuits such as Gonzalez have arisen to attempt to narrow the law's scope.
Gonzalez, along with its companion case Twitter Inc. v. Taamneh,4 arose out of a series of terrorist attacks by ISIS, resulting in injuries and deaths. The plaintiffs'relatives of the victims'sued Google and Twitter under the Anti-Terrorism Act and Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, 18 U.S.C. ' 2333 (JASTA), for terrorism-related violations. The plaintiffs alleged, among other things, that ISIS posted links to recruitment...
