DC AG lawsuit: Amazon stole Flex drivers' tips; White nationalists are back on Twitter -- Tech Law & Policy This Week

Groups file flurry of Section 230 briefs with the Supreme Court

 

• What’s going on? Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shields platforms like Google and Twitter from liability for content posted by internet users. Republicans and Democrats want the rule changed. It’s important to note that Section 230 protects only publishers of information. The central question here is – at which point do platforms lose their status as publishers and actually become creators of content? Once they’re deemed to be creators, they would lose protection under Section 230.

• Generally, Republicans like Josh Hawley say platform liability should be a state issue because they think tech companies lean progressive and that seeking to ban harmful content discriminates against conservatives.
• Democrats argue that Section 230 doesn’t hold platforms accountable enough, especially in the context of how marketers target children.

• How are politicians trying to change the law? The Supreme Court is set to decide Gonzalez v. Google in which the family of a young woman killed in the 2015 Paris Terror Attacks argues that Google should be liable for aiding and abetting the attack by hosting terror-related videos on YouTube.

• There are 2 parts to this – 

• one is whether Google should be held liable for merely hosting terror-related videos the family alleges groomed terrorists involved. Google is arguing that hosting the videos simply makes them publishers and thus they would still be entitled to protection under Section 230.

• The other is whether recommending content – converts platforms to content creators – in which case the Gonzalez family argues Google should be held liable since Section 230 wouldn’t apply to instances in which people predisposed to terrorism-related content puts Google in the position of being a content creator, in which case Google wouldn’t be shielded from liability under Section 230.

• How does this affect you? Keep an eye on what your state is doing to change the way content platforms moderate content. For example, Texas and Florida passed statutes preventing platforms from discriminating against so-called “anti-conservative bias.” This has a direct impact on what people see and hear, which directly impacts elections since a scourge of harmful content, such as Trump’s tweets leading up to the Capitol Hill insurrection, have dominated our politics for many years.